Tag: gold

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Finding David’s lost white gold wedding ring

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.

I searched some parts of the oval, then the playground but unfortunately I failed to find it during the 1hr we had and headed home after mentioning that I would probably come back one day to try again.

During the week I asked Alicia if David could draw me a bit of a map in case I went back so I could narrow down the search area a bit and this came back.

David's map
David’s map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following day I decided to go back with this new information to try again. I searched the oval first with 3 passes up and down the path he probably walked, lots of checking at the gates and fence and then after no success I headed to the playground

Phone data of the second search

 

 

 

 

 

 

I swapped the Sovereign GT for a Tesoro in the playground and searched in and out of the playground equipment and around the edge until I finally found it snug up against a metal pole. Not being completely sure it was the right one I send a message to Alicia and kept searching for about another 20 minutes until I had exhausted what I could in the playground and went home.

It turned out it was the right ring so Alicia and David met up with me again and it is now where it belongs.

ring

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Happy new year and a white gold ring trifecta

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.

After learning a bit about how they were lost I methodically checked a roughly tennis court sized area gridding north/ south and east/ west. After a couple of hours I picked up a whisper of a signal near the water and dug out one ring at around 12″ deep. So 1/3 and pushing towards impossibly deep.

After another hour I gave up, having not received any worthwhile signals. We had a chat about the best way forward and decided to leave it for some better weather and/ or less sand and headed home.

Saturday was another adventure trying to find a new Apple watch lost in the Murray. After about 10′ deep the water was pitch black and after only about 20 minutes dive time I pulled the pin on the search as too dangerous, too small chance of success and the location a little too ambiguous given the conditions. Signals were everywhere with all the fishing sinkers, metal rubbish etc next to a boat ramp so I had to manually check each signal by hand at up to 15′ in sightless conditions. Just too hard.

So, today I received a call from Tony that the sand/ weather back at Somerton Park was more favourable and it might be worth catching up again for another look. I tuned the Minelab Sovereign GT with every possible setting to get a little extra depth and searched extremely slowly near where the first ring was found. Ring pull, ring pull, … and so on then the slightest change in threshold (background hum) on the detector, not a beep, just a tiny change of note. I decided to dig it and pulled the wedding band out from somewhere around 14″ down- crazy. So 2/2 rings.

Having found the 2 rings now reasonably close to each other I doubled down and did what I could to drag every bit of performance out of the detector and myself. Eventually I nearly missed an even slighter signal, not even a whisper, just a hint of a nulling of the tone. I normally would not have dug this signal but did this time due to it being fairly close to where I found the second ring. Dig, dig, dig, dig … 10″, 11, 12, 13, somewhere near 15″. I kept losing that tiny signal and re-finding it. Eventually I scooped up that 3rd ring at a ridiculous depth thanks to the incredible Sov GT and 15″ Coiltek Manufacturing WOT coil.

I have a feeling the ring owners had given up on them a bit so I couldn’t be happier to return those 3 rings back to Kim. A real challenge pushing machine and me to absolute limits with a lot of luck and the sea/ weather cutting me a bit of slack. Great feeling.

white gold rings
Kim’s rings back where they belong
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Quick find of a lost white gold ring in Lockleys, Adelaide

Jenn's wedding band

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.

An absolute privilege to help Jenn out and get that ring back where it belongs. Oh and Christian, you are a legend …

Jenn's wedding band

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Sentimental engagement ring lost and found in Seacliff, South Australia

Engagement ring

Caroline called last night after losing a very sentimental ring down at Seacliff, a popular southern beach in Adelaide. Unfortunately it was lost while walking the dog so the search area was huge. We had a bit of a chat trying to work out the most likely areas and even then the search area was about 150m x 50m which is nearly 2 acres.

I separated that area into 3 sub searches, nothing in the first, then 2 hours searching the main walking area- nothing, then only left with the path Caroline would have walked onto the beach from the car. Nothing in the first pass, turned around to head back, walked 2m and there it was. Hiding about 4″ under some powder soft sand was this beautiful and precious ring. Caroline couldn’t believe her luck and looked a little in shock, but the smiles took over she is one very happy, relieved lovely lady.

This search was tricky simply because of the large area involved but with a little detective work and some perseverance we got there.

Engagement ring

 

 

 

 

 

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Lost engagement ring found in One Tree Hill Adelaide

Initially this young couple hired a metal detector to try and find their lost engagement ring, however they didn’t have any luck after 6 or so hours searching. I ended up dropping in on them to help out and together we searched the large area on the side of a road for 1.5 hours.

Nothing turned up the first day before it got dark, so I rejoined them the following day and re-searched the area with the Minelab Sovereign GT but no luck.

Eventually I extended the search area to outside what they thought was the possible drop zone and after another hour I found it tucked under some dry grass.

It is amazing just how many lost rings end up being metal detected outside the initial search zone.

This couple were are hard working, diligent, resourceful and very much a dedicated team, they are going to do well and what an amazing smile (and hug) they offered on getting the ring back 🙂

Wearing the ring again
Relieved and happy to get the engagement ring back

Absolutely thrilled that I was able to help them out and return an absolute cracker of a gold engagement ring to this couple 🙂

gold engagement ring
Beautiful gold and diamond engagement ring returned