I was out of town for the day and received a text from a friend of mine whom happens to be a lifeguard. He said that a couple came into lifeguard headquarters and the husband stated that his wife just lost her two wedding rings on the beach. It was down pouring at the time so I figured that if the weather backed off I would give it a shot tomorrow morning before I went into work.
Luckily the rain pushed off in the early evening so I gave the eager couple a call. The husband (Chris) stated that his wife was "beside herself" upset and fairly distraught. Hearing this I decided that I would get down to the beach tonight knowing that if another fellow detectorist found the rings they would most likely be gone forever. Not that they would not return them, but let's face it, how often do you actually know who they may belong to?
So the couple met me down at the promenade and directed me to the area where they believed they may "possibly" be. Chris seemed fairly certain that they were gone for good or that his wife may have lost them elsewhere and didn't realize it. However, she was fairly certain that they were on that beach. I said if they are here I will get them, maybe not in five minutes but I will find them.
So off I went in the area the folks directed me to. After checking my E-TRAC settings and a quick ground balance, I began working a very tight overlapping pattern. I began walking the area slowly, after approximately 5 minutes I got a shallow solid hit and BAM! a nickel....lol...(which is what I expected after reading my FE / CO values). So I continued on for another 20 feet or so working a tight pattern and I got a real nice gold signal on my E-TRAC although it was indicating that it was deeper than I expected it would be. So I dug down about 6 to 8 inches and recovered the first target, sure enough it was one of the bands.
As I turned it over to its owner she began to cry. I checked closely around where I found the first band and about 10 inches over I got another solid 12-02/04 signal. Dug down (again deeper than I expected) and bam, there is ring number two (as Chris put it, "the expensive one", lol). I called the couple over to the hole and revealed what I had uncovered. The overjoyed couple couldn't be happier and I was just as happy to have been able to help them, especially when I saw how upset and grateful the wife was when she got them back.
All of this only took 10-15 minutes on the beach. So as with all find and return cases it truly makes this hobby enjoyable! The couple stated that the rings were valued at $5,800 to $6,000 together. They offered to pay me a reward to the sum of $500 beans but I could never accept that for returning someone's own property back to them. Besides, the reaction I witnessed when I found them was worth way more than that to me. They insisted on $100 for my time and shoved it in my pouch. Well, maybe I will try my luck on some scratch off lottery tickets, karma right? LOL. So hands down my biggest recovery and return to date. Oh and here is the picture of the rings. Happy hunting folks!
Jeff - NJ, USA