Quad Cities Tag | The Ring Finders

A couple of weeks ago I received a call for a ring search just over an hour from my home.  Unfortunately, due to my schedule I was unable to attempt a locate of the ring until this past weekend.  The ring was lost along a country gravel road near Monmouth, IL.  Monica, the owner of the ring, was traveling down the road at approximately 40 MPH when she made a waving gesture out the window and off went her ring off into the ditch full of knee high grass.  Fortunately, Monica immediately identified a nearby landmark so that she could recall the approximate area of the loss.

I met Monica’s husband at the location on Sunday morning and I was shown the most likely stretch of ditch that the ring may have landed.  You can see from my photo that the location was about 50 yards long from where I was standing to my car in the distance.  The grass was just waiting to be searched.

The grass was too tall for my larger coils, so I used my 6″ sniper coil on my Equinox 800 so that I could get easily get deep into the grass.  I combed the roadway edge first, but came up empty.  I worked my way into the ditch and searched completely from road edge to fence line.  Eventually, I got a solid tone and a 15 on my VDI.  I grabbed my Garrett carrot and pinpointed the target deep in the grass.  As I moved the grass blades out of the way, the bright sun shined down on the ring and it reflected back at me.  I picked it up and sure enough it was just like the one in a picture that Monica had sent to me.

Needless to say, I was glad to have found Monica’s ring.  It is a beautiful ring and it was truly a memorable search that I won’t soon forget.  I sent a text to Monica with only pictures of her ring.  I immediately received a call from her and was she very grateful for this recovery.  It was my pleasure to return her ring.

Cuyler and Eden live out of state, but they are in Iowa visiting family for the holiday weekend.  It’s been pretty hot in Iowa lately, and a friendly water balloon fight began among family members to help ease the summer heat.  However, sometime during the family fun, Eden lost her diamond wedding ring.  Her hands had gotten wet so she shook the water off of them, and then she soon realized that her ring was missing.  Today, July 4th, I received a call on her husband, Cuyler.  Cuyler told me the story and asked if I would be able to look for his wife’s ring on the holiday.  I told Cuyler that I would drive up to Springville and find Eden’s ring.

I arrived at the rural family homestead and met with Cuyler and Eden.  I was shown the approximate area where the ring was believed to have been lost.  Cuyler had marked out the area for me with landscape flags.  The family had performed a visual search, but with the recent rainfall the grass had begun to grow again, and I was certain the ring would be found in the taller grass.

I got my equipment together and began my standard grid pattern search.  After about 30-45 minutes of searching, I got a nice solid tone on my Equinox 800.  I pinpointed the location and used my Garrett carrot to zero me in on the object in the grass.  I spread the grass blades apart and saw a nice shiny diamond ring facing skyward with the stone sparkling like fireworks.  I retrieved the ring and reunited it with Eden and her expression of gratitude will not be soon forgotten.