Every once in a while I get a call to action when a friend or a friend of a friend loses a wedding band, bracelet, ear ring or other piece of jewelry with sentimental value.
So here a few things to take in account before you head out the door with your metal detector to recover wedding bands which are the most likely piece of jewelry to be lost.
Exact location
There is no exact location, the ring was lost and if the person knew exactly where they lost it the ring would be already be back on the persons finger.
Believe me it is a very rare occasion when you detect a ring exactly where the owner said they lost it so get the best estimate of the area and be prepared to extend the search area by a much wider margin.
When rings come off fingers they flip, spin and often roll much further than you can imagine.
Add flowing water or a sloped bank to the mix and you can forget about the "I know exactly where I lost it" line.
Go small
Lost ring recoveries are very rarely a lesson in heavy excavation, especially if a ring was recently lost. Avoid taking a gun to a knife fight by using extra large search coils and wide bucket scoops.
The less heavy digging in the area you do the less chance you have of potentially pushing a piece of jewelry out of metal detection range. A small or regular size search coil will help you winkle out a lost object at a trashy site and a regular scoop or spade will help you retrieve it.
The less you disturb the search area the better, especially if the search area is a trashy site as you may move the ring closer to objects that could potentially mask it.
Soft sand or mud is a nightmare when you are trying to recover a wedding ring and using sloppy search techniques, keep a tight search grid and keep your search coil moving in front of you.
Search grid
Probably the most important thing in the whole lost ring recovery attempt is the search grid you use to help locate the lost object. I like to use a box shaped search pattern with the probable location in the center of the box, I then search the entire box maintaining a tight search pattern.
After gridding the box from one direction I will cover the same box shaped area from a different direction to the first search grid. If I do not recover the object I am searching for in the box grid, I expend the search as I know if the lost item was there I would have recovered it using a tight search pattern from two different directions.
Following search attempts
Not all ring recovery attempts end in success, especially if bad weather has occurred between the item being lost and your first recovery attempt. High or rough water can make a ring return difficult to say the least, potentially moving the ring away from the area or covering the item over in a thick carpet of sand or mud.
I have recovered rings, chains and watches many weeks after I had initially tried to recover them, they had been covered or moved but remained in the immediate area.
Metal detecting is often a game of inches and it only takes one or two inches of sand to make a ring close to the edge of metal detection range disappear until that sand is moved away and the ring is back in play.
Nice surprises
Every once in a while you get a really nice unexpected surprise when you search for someones lost jewelry, you find a piece of jewelry not connected to the search attempt.
This has happened to me on numerous occasions and I have added a few jewelry hot spots thanks to searching for lost wedding bands.
Recovering a ring for someone, finding an expensive diamond ring and a reward for the original lost ring, what's not to like about owning a metal detector right?
Reward
Return lost jewelry for the love of feeling good and doing the right thing because that is the real compensation when you return lost jewelry to people having the misfortune to lose it.
I have located and returned close to $100K worth of lost jewelry to people without monetary compensation, which is one heck of a lot of good karma I enjoy to this day.
There is nothing better than putting a smile on a fellow human beings face who thought they had lost something of sentimental value forever, it is one of the true perks of owning a metal detector.
Ive returned rings to happy owners who broke down in tears and Ive returned rings to people who simply turned around and walked away without even saying thank you.
I have no shortage of ring return stories and I am sure I will have many more to look back on.
In closing, if you have a metal detector there will always be a chance to help someone out by finding lost belongings, locating property survey markers, utility lines, car keys, cell phones and all sorts of unusual things. For more tips on finding jewelry check out my metal detecting guides at www.garydrayton.com
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