As a finance and investment safe haven gold increases in value when economies are unstable. This is certainly the case in 2025 with the price of 1 ounce (31 grams) of 24 ct gold currently AU$5,056.39.
To put that in perspective 18ct gold has 75% gold content so 5 gm 18ct gold ring would have a just gold content value around $612 on top of the emotional and sentimental value.
I haven't updated any blog posts on Adelaide Lost Ring Search for around 8 years- so probably time.
First up, yes this service is still active and I receive frequent requests for searches throughout the year. Summer and the warmer months are busy with lost rings at beaches and parks so I average around 10 searches per week while winter and cool months are quieter.
The systems and plans I use to find items have evolved over the years but fundamentals are similar and I still find great joy in returning items to people and making their day.
An Adelaide day care centre phoned to see if I could check their play areas for sharps and metal junk after some contractors worked on improvements. Over 2 days I spent about 4 1/2 hours working my way through the bark chips and found quite the collection or interesting bits and pieces.
Result from 4 1/2 hours making a play area safer
Razor blade and nails found in a day care playground
I was just settling into a quiet evening at home last night when Henley Beach Surf Club phoned around 7.30 asking if I could possibly help a couple near the jetty. Turned out Zsófia had lost her ring 20 or 30 metres out in chest high water and was very concerned about the bad weather due later. I grabbed some water proof detecting gear and headed down there to see if I could help. Once I finally got down to Henley from Hillcrest I found Zsófia and headed out to where her husband Danka was trying to dive down and find the ring, dropped a marker in the water at roughly where they thought the ring was and started work. I searched about 15m north/ south and about the same east/ west but unfortunately didn’t find the ring before nightfall. The tides looked fairly good for Friday afternoon so I suggested I head back there around midday and try again with the ring possibly out of the water or maybe just in shallow water.
On Christmas Eve Alicia and David walked to a local soccer pitch enjoying some nice Adelaide summer weather. At some stage during the walk David lost his white gold wedding ring and they were unable to find it. A few days later Alica contacted me via facebook and we worked out a time to catch up for a search that evening.
We met up at the Athelstone Soccer Oval and had a chat to work out where the ring could be and I went to work checking the larger areas with a Minelab Sovereign GT, then changing to a Tesoro Tejon near some fencing and finally an old tesoro I keep around with a 4" hockey puck coil to get right next to metal objects like the fence and playground equipment at the park.
Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for a loss free 2017.
2016 ended a little disappointingly for me with a search for 3 rings on Friday at Somerton Park. Unfortunately the rings probably ended up somewhere in the surf zone a few days after that big storm stripped sand from the beach. The combination of pounding waves and the beach re-filling with sand after the storm meant that the rings were going to be deep and difficult to track down.
Jenn contacted me via Facebook after her husband’s white gold ring was lost in the back yard. The job turned out to be a bit of a challenge as the grass was on top of wire mesh presumably to stop rabbits borrowing or similar. Fortunately Jenn’s 4yr old son Christian is a gun metal detector operator and was able to show me the ropes finding a fortune in coins.
After a very relaxing 5 minutes accompanied by some friendly fish I found the ring hiding deep in some grass next to a trampoline post.
Elena called me late this afternoon after finding my well hidden ad on Gumtree (I need to fix that). Anyway, it turned out George had lost his ring along a street and asked if I could take a look. The job was just around the corner so I packed the car and headed out and was there within 20min or so.
The ring was likely to be on either side of the road, so I spent maybe an hour searching one side then concentrated on the stretch along the other side of the road. Nothing too tricky about it and it was just a matter of time before it turned up under some leaves and bark at the base of a bush.
Gemma lost a very sentimental ring in the water at Glenelg on Tuesday. We met up yesterday and I searched for an hour without luck with some difficulties. 1. there were people sun baking in the search area so I had to leave big slabs of beach alone. 2. The water was too rough to search.
I really dislike failed searches so I headed back there today around low tide and managed to search in the water a bit and worked my way out of the water back up the beach. After many passes up and down the beach in the large search area I finally heard that sweet gold sound in a compact round target not too deep and quickly recovered it. Gear was Minelab Sovereign GT with Coiltek Manufacturing WOT coil and the heaviest insulated headphones I could find in the storm like winds.
Trish phoned up this morning after losing her ring swimming yesterday afternoon in Semaphore a popular beach location west of Adelaide. I caught up with her husband Jim today at low tide and we worked out the best search area and how far down the beach it was likely to be.
I started about 5m out of the search area and worked my way down to the water searching about 20m lines each way. After several bottle tops, a pull tab, some junk jewellery and a few coins I picked up that nice rounded, mellow gold sound with a big target just below the surface. I only had to reach in about 1" of sand and there it was.