Bill McDougall, Author at The Ring Finders

Tuesday evening I received a call from Dennis Boothby about a lost ring in Bangor. He provided me with a phone number and name and asked me to call the lady.

I immediately called Lily and got her story. Apparently, her boyfriend, Josh, had tossed her ring and it was somewhere in her yard. I assumed it was her backyard.  I told her if it’s in your yard, and not a public space, then searching for it tomorrow afternoon when she got out of work should be fine with no danger of it being found and picked up.

I arrived at her house a few minutes early and give her a call. She said she was on her way home and her boyfriend would be there shortly. I asked her to  describe where in your backyard is it  and I’ll start looking. She stated it wasn’t in her backyard but in her front yard. Her boyfriend had thrown it from the porch over a forsythia bush then over a car and over her head into the neighbor’s lawn. She had already spoken with the neighbors and they were fine with us searching. I said to myself at that moment “oh no, if it’s in the front yard with the sidewalk and  street,  There is a chance it could’ve been picked up by somebody walking on the sidewalk”.  I started searching the neighbor’s lawn. I then searched the strip between the sidewalk and the street. I received many signals, but none that were on top of Soil. I was using a large coil as it covers the ground very efficiently. However, in town conditions and close to sidewalks there are tons of signals along with a lot of electromagnetic interference. This generally means a background “chatter”.  For someone new to metal detecting this can sound like a constant “roar”. With experience it’s easy to ignore.

About 10 minutes after starting the search, Josh arrived home. I sat down the detector where I was and greeted him and said I would like him to do some coins tosses so that I could see his distance and direction. Josh told me he was a ball player in high school.  I had him throw five pennies and I saw one bounce on the neighbor’s lawn finally; the other four I just did not see where they landed.  I continued searching and told Josh the metal detector was making a lot of noises but I was listening for one particular signal and visual identification number. I searched the neighbor’s entire lawn, the strip between the lawn and the road and the flowerbeds.  Then I went to the next neighbor’s lawn. After a short while Lily arrived.

At some point, I told them that I may have to put on a smaller coil because I was receiving multiple signals quite often. I then asked if the neighbor’s car had been parked there when the incident happened the previous evening. They were unsure. I said to myself I need to look under that car and search the grass close to it. Metal detectors do not work well close to big metal objects such as cars.

As I got close to the rear tire of the vehicle I saw a glint of gold in the asphalt.  I looked closer and it was the ring! I stepped back and motioned for Lily to come over. I told her I wanted a few pictures and for her to see how the metal detector worked. She said OK and started to detect for the ring. I gave her a few pointers on how to use the detector….you have to be closer to the ground and to move a little faster. Then I gave suggestions on where to search… move  over here just a little bit, then check out over there close to that tire. Once she got close to the tire,  I heard a scream of delight. I think her words were “OMG, it’s right here! There’s my ring!” Then she asked me “did you know it was there?”  I said ” I did”, yet wanted her to “find” it.

 

The ring is still on the ground, very close to the back tire. If you open the picture up, you can actually see it!

 

The ring was actually embedded a little bit in the asphalt and appeared to have been run over at least once.

 

It looked to me to be undamaged, which was very lucky.

 

In this last photo, it shows the distance the ring traveled! Josh tossed the ring from the porch of the BLUE house over the forsythia bush, over her car,  over the neighbor’s  lawn and into the driveway of the NEXT neighbor . Josh certainly has a good arm. The smiles from both of them is what makes a metal detectionist’s day!!  As Dennis from the Ringfinders of Maine says “we have the best job in the world”.

Yesterday I received a call from John. He asked if I wanted to help him look for a very sentimental ring. He had lost the ring that morning. It was almost noon with plenty of daylight now the spring is almost here and I said absolutely!  I would love to! John provided me with an address and after making a quick sandwich I was on my way. He lived 51 miles from me so the trip was going to take approximately an hour.

On the way,  I called John to begin the questions I always try to ask people. When was the last time you definitely remember seeing the ring? He stated he put it on his finger this morning. Excellent! I said we know the time it was lost.  Have you been anywhere? He stated he’d only been in his yard so far today. John had been doing yardword with a tractor. He stated that the area was fairly small.

We then talked a little bit about the ring. John told me that his great, great (I’m not sure how many greats) grandfather was in the Alaskan gold Rush. This ring was made from Alaskan gold. The ring was passed down father to son ever since.

Once I arrived on site, we did a quick overview of the area that needed to be searched. I was a little concerned as the area was basically bare  as the grass had not really started to grow, therefore the ring should have been visible to the naked eye.  I told John this and said We were mostly looking for places that could hide the ring.

I detected the back area of the house, the side of the house where John had been. Then we moved towards a shed where John had moved some Lumber. I asked him to just make his way to the shed as he did that morning as best as he could recollect. I was detecting behind him. He sat down on a ramp and was watching me as I was working towards him. I thought again the ground is really kind of open here and a ring should be very visible, especially given the size As he described it. I noticed the ramp he was sitting on had a sizable pile of leaves beside it. I asked him …did you sit there this morning? He said yes.  I said the ring is gonna be in the leaves. I know it. As I was making my way to him and the leaves I received The sound I was waiting for. A large double signal. I looked Down and I could see nothing. I swung the metal detector again got the same signal and looked once again , still, I could see nothing. I thought to myself it must be just under the surface. I bent down as I was reaching for my pin pointer. There was the ring invisible in plain sight. John and his wife were quite surprised. He said that they had searched that area 10 times! However, The way the ring was sitting amongst the little bit of leaf debris.  It was there. It was really invisible until you saw it. John and his wife were happy and relieved to be sure!!
I was happy to be a part of a sentimental ring recovery.

 

of note: I would encourage anyone Who has lost a ring or jewelry in an outdoor environment to contact a Ring Finder in their area. The sooner the contact the better the chances of finding the ring. However, Rings can be found that have been lost for years.

I got home Saturday evening at 8:30 pm and discovered I had missed a text about a lost ring.  I immediately called to get the full story.  Samantha stated that she had placed her rings and jewelry on her lap and forgot they were there.  She, her husband and son stopped at a local McDonald’s; when  she got out, forgetting about the rings, and inadvertently the rings fell off her lap and onto the pavement.  She did not realize she had lost them until she got home about 80 miles away.

On Saturday, her husband discovered the “Ringfinders of Maine” website and Dennis Boothby. They contacted him and  Dennis recommended they contact me [Thank you Dennis!].

Samantha  sent me a text.

 

 

The rings were lost at 3:30 Friday afternoon. Snow started at 9:00 pm that night.  By the time she contacted me the following day, the lot had been plowed.

I arrived at the McDonald’s the following morning [Sunday] at first light [6:30] and spoke with the manager.  They had received her messages and no one had turned in any rings. They were very agreeable to my searching the parking lot and have my and Samantha’s contact information should the second ring show up.

I first searched the left hand snowbank and came up with pennies, dimes and miscellaneous trash.

 

I then searched the right hand snowbank with similar findings and finally up came the engagement ring !!

I searched and researched that bank [it really wasn’t that big]… and could not come up with the second ring. Being 8 degrees outside and having been searching for an hour or so, I was pretty cold.  I texted Samantha and let her know that I had one ring and for now was done with the search.

Throughout the day that Sunday,  I kept pondering what could have happened to the second ring?? Around two that afternoon, I realized we were getting another snowstorm Monday.  Hence, if I was going to search more, it had to be done now.  Thinking the round wedding ring could have perhaps rolled to a different area and been plowed to a different location, I searched the entire parking lot and snowbanks.  To no avail, no second ring. Perhaps someone had picked it up, perhaps it’s deep in a snowbank [some of the snowbanks are 6 feet tall!].

After the storm on Monday, the plow folks will be hauling the snow off site and if the ring is in it, will most likely never be found.I am hoping to contact the plow company and find out where they haul the snow. Perhaps it is a place that will be searchable in the spring.

I contacted Samantha — she  and her husband were happy and ecstactic that they had the one ring and made arrangements to meet me and pick it up.

 

On  Wed. Aug 20 I received the following text .

Good afternoon Bill.  My mane is Lucas. I spoke to Dennis Boothby via the ring finders yesterday and he recommended I reach out to you as I live nearby in Hamden. I lost a ring on my property recently and am looking to have someone help locate it. Let me know if this is something that might be possible to set up.

I responded  “Yes! Absolutely!”    Lucas had recently had his driveway resurfaced.   Two loads of gravel were delivered to his yard and he and  his son were playing on the piles when he realized his tungsten wedding ring was missing. The contractor later spread the gravel over the driveway and compacted it.  Lucas was sure his ring was there.  For a metal detectionist gravel driveways are the worst, as they are compacted and very hard, difficult to dig… you have to  ‘sneak up’ on the target in the hard gravel or you are likely to damage the ring.

Lucas’ lost  ring was made of  tungsten.  I was unsure of  the numerical number metal detectors give for it and would have to react to many more targets in the gravel.  I asked if his wife’s ring was the same material so I could get a reading [numerical number] from it. He said it was not, however, he had a second ring.   Why do you have two rings ??     That’s the way they came.  Apparently when he ordered his ring …two arrived.  I said well lets see the second ring and get a reading from it.  Lucas brought out the second one ring and I placed it on clean ground and swung my coil over it.  My metal detector would not pick it up.

I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe I could not hear a tungsten ring. I told Lucas I had to figure this out and I would return in a few days.

As I was driving away, I called my friend, Dennis, and he could not believe it either.  He asked me if I checked  that ring really well.  I turned around and went back. Looking at the inside of the ring with my glasses now on as well as a magnifying glass I could see the small word “Ceramic.”    This was a ceramic ring not tungsten!!  Metal detectors will not detect ceramic. I asked Lucas if he was sure his lost ring was tungsten.  He said that is what he paid for and he was pretty sure it was on the inside of the lost ring.

I decided to proceed with the search.  Being unsure of the signal number, I would have to investigate all the targets.  Usually a recently lost ring is on or near the surface… however, with this gravel being spread with a bobcat, it could be at any depth.. possibly down to the old driveway. I had some work in front of me.

After an hour and a half or so and dozens of holes, I had detected the whole driveway….  NO ring. During this whole time,  I was wondering if  I was looking for a ring made of tungsten OR ceramic ring ??? Ceramic is NOT possible to be found with a metal detector!

I asked Lucas if he was sure the ring was in the gravel or was it possible for the ring to have been lost in the grass on the edge of the driveway??  He was unsure, “Maybe?”

I was beat, yet  decided to do one sweep around the perimeter of the driveway

In front of the garage doors there was a little clover and grass.

When a metal detector gets close to any large metal, such as a garage door, it gives a loud signal making it impossible to hear anything else. Therefore, you are unable to detect the last 12 inch or so up to the door itself.

Each swing ends with a loud metal signal…. at the midpoint of the first overhead garage door … right on the edge of that signal, I thought maybe I heard a little something extra.  I managed to repeat it… so I got out the pinpointer. Just under the grass was Lucas’s tungsten ring!!

Any closer to that door and I would not have heard it!

I attempted to make a video of returning the ring to Lucas, however, The video came out terrible ! Yet in the audio one can hear me ask Lucas if he was sure his ring was tungsten?  His response was “not 100 percent”.   As I gave him the ring,  I said  “You are you right!” HIS SMILE SAYS IT ALL!

 

 

 

 

 

I was contacted by Mary concerning a ring lost three days prior. Mary’s great grandmother purchased this ring in 1967 for her daughter [Mary’s grandmother who had recently passed away]. Mary’s daughter is getting married the end of July and this ring was going to be her “something old” in the wedding. The ladies in preparing for the event were taking the ring to the jeweler for a cleaning.

In a rush to get out of the house, the ring in its original ring box, complete with original bill of sale and payment records, was placed on the hood of the car. The box was the color of the car and also exactly the color of road asphalt. They drove approximately five miles on one of the busiest roads in our area before realizing the ring was missing. Immediately turning around they searched the route.. finding nothing. They searched the road sides for probably a quarter mile to no avail.

Day three, I entered the picture. I questioned them endlessly about the event, specifically that they were sure the ring  was on the hood of that car. They had found another ring box and taken it for a ride, however, it was leather instead of felt and did not come off in the distance they drove. My wife volunteered a felt ring box

The next day,  I met up with Mary and her daughter [whose car they were driving the day the ring was lost] and we took it for a ride. As I mentioned before, this road is extremely busy. I told the daughter that we would drive until the box comes off and then stop immediately before it gets hammered. Well, it came off in a quarter mile and was run over in the blink of an eye. Still good information as to the way it rolled, how far it rolled and the fact it stayed in the middle of the road. The area where the box came off had already been covered by me. I had also previously metal detected the road Mary lives on as well as her ditch area and a short distance on the main road. I had visually searched over a mile on this main highway in both directions.

I made the decision to give up the search and recommended they put this out on face book and hope for the best.  I left them disappointed I’m sure and headed home with my wife’s flatten ring box beside me. Mary stated several times how her ring box was the same color as the asphalt  and about 1\4 mile beyond the area of my ring box demise I noticed a little flat trash in the middle of the road. It was the same color as the asphalt! I thought..no way… yet I pulled over and walked back. I almost didn’t venture out to get it because it looked rusted and flat but just to be sure I did. When I touched it I felt cloth. This had to be it. I rushed back to Mary’s and showed her. It’s the right color,  she said,  yet how could it get that rusty? We pried it open with a craftsman screw driver  and inside was the bill of sale with her grandmother’s name!

All that was missing was the ring!!

With this find, I said, we now have a definite starting point and your ring can’t be far.  Luckily, the area was in front of a small business with a fair sized mowed lawn.  After, two hours of detecting the road side and ditch I finally had a small success. I found the band part of the ring with clear markings on the inside indicating the jeweler.

 

Now all I need to find was the diamond cluster!!

For another two days, I detected both sides of the road and as far as I could figure the cluster had been  thrown onto the lawn…  No Luck… I called it. Not the end results I [or Mary] had hoped.  However,  Mary now had the information as to where the ring went and what happened to it. Perhaps the cluster got caught up in a truck tire tread, or perhaps thrown into the woods …who knows. Mary has filed this with the police and perhaps someone, someday, will find it.

I received a call from a fellow ringfinder in southern Maine, Dennis Boothbay, concerning a facebook post that he had read about a lost ring in Dexter, ME. He wondered if I would be interested in contacting the lady as Dexter is a lot closer to me than him. He sent me the posting and I contacted the lady. She was not aware of Ringfinders, however, was delighted that I offered to help. My wife and I were in our motorhome traveling home from a month in Florida. I told the lady, Karen, that I would be home Tuesday and would contact her to make a plan to meet. We made the plan to meet Wednesday at the first of two possible sites where she may have lost the ring.

She tells me that she was clearing the snow off her car after a work shift on Saturday and then made a second stop to clear the windshield wipers. AT the second site, she discovered that her ring was missing. Distressed at this, she made the post on Facebook.

The first site, her work place parking lot, was fairly small, probably 3 parking spaces near a corner of the building. The plowed area had a thin coating of ice and crusted snow. The snow bank [visible over her left shoulder in the photo], was small and pushed up against the corner of the building. Upon seeing this situation, i wondered if that pile was all the snow from this area, or if a lot of the snow had been draggged out and pushed elsewhere. At the start, i told Karen, that if I didn’t find the ring today, a second trip would be necessary when the temperatures were warmer and maybe the snow had melted. 16 degrees is a lot different than 80 and having just returned from Florida, I was not acclamated to the cold!

I covered the plowed areas and received lots of signals that were not in the gold ring range. I attempted to detect the banks, however, the proximity to the building presented a lot of false signals. I was to the point where i was thinking it might be time to move to the second location. I asked Karen if there was a possibility that the ring might be where my truck was parked. She thought it might be be given that she was aggressive with the brushing of the snow off her vehicle. I moved my truck out of the way and started detecting this area, which had more snow. Perhaps a vehicle had been parked there when the plowing had occured and therefore, all of the snow had not been removed. On the hard edge of the plowed snow in a clump of snow the size of a basketball, i got faint signal that was in the perfect range for gold on my detector. I stomped on the “basketball” flattening it out, and had a better signal, [still in the perfect range], in a clump now the size of a orange. I broke it open with my hand and had the ring!

My first thought was that Karen was one lucky lady. this ring had been plowed over, however, was in PERFECT condition. I turned around and asked Karen if she felt lucky today and placed the ring in her hand. The smiles that happen at this particular moment in a ring recovery are what makes this so rewarding!!

Thank you Dennis for the heads up on the Facebook post.

Last evening I was contacted concerning two lost rings. I met with Katie this morning at the site where she believed her rings were lost. It was a grass parking area. She had placed her rings in her pocket with her car keys and believed she lost the rings when she removed the keys. She was unsure exactly where that happened. We started where the car was parked. I double covered that area with my metal detector with no luck. The grass was patchy in that area but it was a parking area with the possibility that a tire had pushed them down. Next I started on the path she had taken to get to the parking area.. Which had more grass. I moved along,slowing down only when the grass was thick enough to hide a ring..In just a few minutes I got a good yet faint signal.It was the first of the two rings .. It was standing on edge! The very next swing got a second good signal … The second ring!
Katie’s smile tells the rest of the story!!

Received a call from Warren who found me through Ringfinders concerning a lost phone.  He stated he placed an ipad and phone on his car roof top then left before retrieving them. He realized it a mile or so down the camp road. The ipad was still there but no phone. He immediately started searching.A short time later received a notice on the ipad that his phone had triggered a 911 call. The sheriff dept checked the area out and no accident.The phone tower triangulation address did not exist and was accurate only within hundreds of yards. After two days calling the phone day and night (driving the camp road with no lights) He and his neighbor still had not found it. When I arrived I started at the beginning where the phone was placed on the roof and began a slow search in my truck. The leaves are hard this time of years and a cell phone won’t bury itself under them . I focused on any object or terrain feature that could hide a phone. They had already walked the whole route twice. After 20 or so stops and investigations, brush piles ,culverts, fallen evergreen branches,  I found an area with 6 to 8 inch shrubs that the leaves were leaning against. Sweep them with the metal detector and found the phone. It was 3/4 buried under the leaves but not visible from the road. It was also well short of the 911 search area. Warren and I were both happy for sure.  The phone still had 41 percent battery after 50 plus missed calls!

I was recently contacted by Justin about a ring lost a “couple years”ago. I told him I would be happy to help him out.I took the couple years to be two and felt it would be a fairly easy recovery.  Once on site I started the questioning of how it was lost.  He was in the passenger seat with the wife having a” discussion”. The ring came off and was” tossed “out the window. The exact spot in the driveway was unclear. Time passed and memory. The first day I spent two hours and covered what I could. The terrain was hostile to say the least. previous home owners had a lot of burns. The soils were full of miscellaneous metals. Even large sheets 4x6pieces of sheet metal half buried.. No easy recovery for sure.

On the second day, I focused on where the vehicle may have been. Justin and I tossed small stones as though being “tossed” out a vehicle window. Turns out, most of the throws ended more behind and to the side of the vehicle. I searched a second time, pulling all solid signals out. Still no luck. After two hours, I was calling it a day. Justin mentioned he had raked while searching for this ring and burned the leaves. I decided to check charred areas one more time. Still no luck, having decided to call it quits until more cleanup could occur. While walking back to my truck, swinging the detector, I got a solid signal at the base of a large tree. Not the number I was looking for, yet dug it anyway. A large piece of aluminum foil AND a second signal, FINALLY the RING!

After the happy reunion with his ring, Justin stated that ring was “tossed” in 2018…. a “couple of years” turned out to be 5!