Greg Lewis, Author at The Ring Finders

Ring lost in Washington river, found with metal detector

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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Sunday afternoon, I received a text from Aaron, saying he had lost his wedding ring while doing a “cold plunge” in the White Salmon River, located in Washington State. Aaron was asking if I could come help find the ring the next morning.
He said the water was probably not more than 3 feet deep, but was worried the current may have taken it away. I assured him that the water current wasn’t likely to move the ring very far, and that it would just sink and settle into the bottom close to where it was lost.                 The place where his ring was lost was about two hours away, but I was able to able to head out and meet him Monday morning.

 I arrived at the spot by the river and met Aaron and his wife. As we walked down to area where he had done the “plunge” I had to ask him why they decided to go into this really cold river. He said it was a tradition amongst his friends to do a plunge before a wedding.

I put on my waders and boots, and went into the cold water. After several minutes, my detector hit a very promising target, but it was about four feet under water and buried in some large rocks. The only way to explore it would have involved getting pretty wet, so I marked the spot and moved on, thinking I could return later if nothing else was found.           As I continued, I heard a strong sound in my headphones. I used the pin-pointer mode on the Manticore, then my pinpointer to sift through the gravel and sand. Through the water, I could see the faint outline of a ring. Aaron and his wife were standing on the shore watching as I dug around, and I told them it seemed like people fished in this area. There was a little disappointment , until I held up the  ring and said “People also loose their rings here.”
Many happy smiles, handshakes, and high-fives followed. They said they didn’t really think it would be found. I jokingly said it was disappointing they doubted my ability’s, but I was very happy to return the ring to Aaron,s finger.

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Lost wedding ring in Oregon found with metal detector

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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Kyle sent me a message a couple of weeks back, asking if I was willing to search for his wedding ring that had been lost in his yard for the past couple of months. I was out of town vacationing that week, and Kyle was gone the following week. Since the ring was likely in his yard, it was not a time critical search. He said he would reconnect with me later.

Fast forward about two weeks. Kyle reconnected with me, and I asked him to describe how he had lost his ring. He said he had been on his front porch one afternoon and saw a squirrel in the yard. He had been dealing with squirrels tunneling under the porch, so he grabbed a small chair and threw it, hoping to frighten it away. Unfortunately, his ring slipped off at the same time, vanishing to parts unknown. He was very confident it was somewhere in the front yard, or maybe in the neighbors yard. Kyle had to be at work, but his parents would be at the house, babysitting his young son.

I arrived and met Kyle’s father, who had been helping to look since the ring had been lost. He had even rented a metal detector, but he said it just made noise everywhere he had searched. Once I fired-up my detector, I found the first issue they had encountered. There was a huge amount of interference, likely due to the nearby houses and wiring running across the area. There was also a low, galvanized metal fence, metal landscaping trim, and a section of river rock. All can play havoc on a metal detector. I made adjustments on the Manticore and started searching the front yard. There were a few promising signals, but they all registered too deep. I moved over into the neighboring yard and began searching. Nothing until I moved a bit further from the likely area, where I received a promising signal. Using my foot, I kicked back the grass and still saw nothing. Using my pinpointer, I found the item, scraped a bit of dirt, and saw the ring. I went to retrieve my phone to take pictures of the find, and as I started back, Kyle’s father and young son were on the porch. I asked the boy if he wanted to help find his dad’s ring, and we went to the neighbors yard and I handed it to him.

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Lost engagement ring lost on Oregon beach. Found with metal detector.

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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Oregon lost ring
This Sunday morning, I received a message from Angie, telling me she had lost a ring on Sand Island, at Rooster Rock State Park the previous day. This area is a very popular, clothing-optional beach east of  Portland, in the Columbia River Gorge.

I asked her to explain how she had lost her ring. She said she had removed the ring and tied it into her top, thinking it was a good place to secure it before going swimming. She and her friends enjoyed the day at the beach, beating the hot weather. When it was time to go, she put her top back on, packed up their stuff, and headed home. Shortly thereafter, she realized her ring was gone. They immediately went back to try and find the ring on the crowded beach. They had no luck, but someone suggested she drop a pin with Google Maps to lock down the location.

Angie had posted her dilemma to Reddit, and she was referred to look for a Ringfinder. Being the only Oregon listing, she contacted me. We agreed to meet up in the closest parking area at 0900 for the search. I want to get on it as soon as possible, and hopefully get there before it was too crowded and hot.

We met and discussed the plan. I told Angie the search could take two minutes, or two hours, so I handed her a beach chair, grabbed my gear, and we started our hike. It took about twenty minutes, and a wade through shallow waters to reach the spot she had pinned on her phone. She gave me a rough estimate of where she had been, so I started a search pattern.

The beach was remarkably clean, so on the first pass I found an aluminum pull-tab and a penny. Angie joked if I could find a few thousand more, she could buy a new ring. About halfway through the third pass, I heard a nice tone in my headphones. I dug into the sand with my hand and there was her ring. I let out a little laugh, and Angie asked if I had found something interesting. I said “I sure did. Your ring.” She was sitting about 15 feet from me and it took a couple seconds before she processed I was holding her ring up. She jumped from the chair and ran over to get her ring. I almost thought she was going to cry, but then her face lit up and she did a little happy dance on the sand! When she finished, she asked if it was okay for her to hug me, and I told her sure.

We packed-up and made the trek back up to the parking lot. Total recovery time was one hour, including the hike to and from the beach. Super helpful that Angie had marked the location, and was able to be there to guide the search.

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Wedding ring lost in Oregon basement, recovered with some teamwork

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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I received a message from Sam, saying he had found me on theringfinders.com, asking if I was available for a call to explain his circumstances regarding his lost ring.

He told me that over a month ago, he had been going up the stairs from his basement and felt his gold wedding ring slip off his finger. He heard it hit the concrete floor, roll a bit, then it gone. He had searched through the miscellaneous boxes that were stored under the stairs, purchased a pinpointer and cheap “snake camera” from Amazon, but hadn’t found the ring.

I explained the difficulty of metal detecting inside a house, but told him I would bring a few different tools and try my best to find the ring.

We set up a time for me to meet him at his home in Portland. I loaded the search tools I thought would be useful (bright flashlight, Manticore, pinpointer with a discrimination mode, and my ring simulations).

Meeting Sam, he walked me through how he lost his ring. I started with the pinpointer under the stairs, finding only nails. I used my endoscope camera to look into the cracks and gaps in the concrete floor, and nothing. I pushed out the search area, looking under the furnace, water heater, and a freezer. Zip.

Pretty discouraged, I went through the details again with Sam. Based on his confidence, I dropped one of my copper rings simulators onto the stairs. Three out of five times, it rolled towards a gap in the concrete below the stairs. My pinpointer hardly fit into the hole, and the signal I heard was questionable. I ran the camera in and saw a slight reflection. Moving it around, there was a definite gold shine in the dirt. I could get one finger into the hole, and could definitely tell it was the ring, but couldn’t get it out.
Sam was searching with his Amazon detector under the stairs and saw me focused on the hole in the concrete. I told him I had his ring, but couldn’t get it out of the hole. He was able to use a set of chopsticks to extract the ring from it’s hiding place.

Persistence pays off, and a ring found.

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Palladium ring lost in Portland Oregon

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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This last Saturday afternoon, I received a text message from Ross, saying his wife had dropped her wedding band off their deck into the backyard, and was hoping to enlist my services to find it. I was on the road from central Oregon, returning from an unfortunate failed search, so I told him I would contact him when I got home.

We later had a phone conversation and Ross explained that his wife, Julia, had been cooking out on the deck. She had her rings on a necklace. Somehow the necklace came apart and she saw the rings fall through the deck boards. They had rented a metal detector, and after cutting back much of the foliage, found one of the rings. Unfortunately, the palladium band that had belonged to her grandmother was still MIA.

I had to meet up and return a recovered ring on Sunday morning, but told him I would come out after that.

I arrived and met up with Ross, Julia was out. He showed me the deck, and the area below where the other ring was found. I searched the area, finding nothing but deck screws and debris.
I returned to the deck and dropped a couple of my ring simulations through the deck boards. I was able to find those with no problems. Being slightly frustrated, I used a flashlight to check between the deck boards, and a camera to look into the voids below the deck.

Julia had returned, so I interrogated her about the situation. She was certain she had seen the ring fall through the deck boards. With that information, I redoubled my efforts and expanded the search area. Many feet below the suspected loss area, I found a faint but promising signal on the Manticore. After moving away some brush, I saw the ring.  I was so excited to find it, I forgot to take any photos.
I climbed up the hill and met Ross at the door. Julia had left, but Ross was super excited to see the ring. We had a speaker phone conversation, and I could hear the emotion in her voice about finding the ring.

Its such a beautiful feeling to reunite an item that means so much, and thank you for your generosity.

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Wedding ring lost on Oregon beach, found with metal detector.

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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   On a Tuesday evening I received a text from David informing me he had just lost his gold wedding ring on a beach in Oregon, wondering if it was worth going to look.

I didn’t see the message right away, so when I replied with a request for a call, I didn’t hear back until the next morning, as he had already left, and was driving home.

We chatted on Wednesday morning about the situation. He said he was at the coast for a family gathering. While on the beach, he noticed his ring slipped partially off, since it was slightly too big. His wife offered to take it and put it in her bag, but he declined, thinking he could keep track of it. (Advice, listen to the wife). They had sifted through the sand by hand and not found it. He wasn’t optimistic it could be found, he just wanted to exhaust all options before he wrote it off.

David sent some pictures of the general area they had spent the day, which included some helpful landmarks. I told him I would head out early Thursday morning to do the search as quickly as possible.

I arrived before the beach got too crowded, finding the location in his photos, and began a circular search around the area of the fire. Finding nothing but aluminum scrap and iron signals with the Manticore, I began a grid search further out. On my fourth pass, I received a promising signal, and about 3 inches down in the dry sand, I found a gold ring. It certainly looked like the ring I was looking for, a two tone gold and rose gold band.
I sent a picture of the area, telling him I was pretty sure I had found the correct spot to search, not mentioning the ring. He replied saying it was the right spot, telling me to contact him with any questions.
I then sent a picture of the ring and asked “Does it look like this?” A short time later he replied with “Yes!!” and “You’re an absolute hero!” We discussed how to reunite him with his ring, and he said he would love to shake my hand. We agreed to meet at a local coffee spot a couple days later.

We met up, I handed him the ring, which he immediately returned to his finger.

It’s always a great feeling to help someone get back a treasured item they thought was lost forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found here😁

The ring

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  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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Last Thursday I received a call from Gust, asking if I would be willing to come out and search for his wife’s gold wedding ring they believed she lost in the yard while cutting back some shrubbery.

He had searched the internet, found Ring Finders, and I was the closest to them, even though I was a hour and a half drive away.

After discussing the circumstances about the loss, we agreed I would drive out the following Sunday (I had an unchangeable appointment Friday, Saturday was forecast heavy rain, and since it was likely on their property, it wasn’t going to be found by some random person).

I loaded up the Manticore, and my AT Gold as a backup, and made the hour and a half drive up the Columbia River Gorge into Washington to do the search. When I arrived, Gust and Liz were waiting in the front yard.

Liz walked me through what she had been doing when the ring went missing. She demonstrated how she had been pulling back the bushes, trimming them, then tossing the clippings into a pile. She then carried the clippings to the back of their property and threw them down the hill. I asked her how confident she was it was lost outside. She said she was very sure, since she never takes it off, and noticed it was gone when she went inside and washed her hands. I got my gear and started.

Gust and Liz were standing by watching, I briefly explained looking for on the detectors VDI, and what I was hearing in the headphones. I worked the area under and the around the shrubs and found there were metal spikes and staples holding in some of the landscaping, and a couple of T-posts deep inside the shrubs.

Not finding it there, I scanned the areas where she said she had been tossing the clippings. It wasn’t there, so I began a circular search pattern around the bush. When I found a signal and stopped to check it, Liz would comment on the VDI and move closer. I explained that the numbers can be deceiving, and I was really just listening to the sound the detector made.

I got about 3/4s of the way around the bush, and in the bark-chips I heard the unmistakable sound of gold in my headphones. Gust and Liz were still nearby, so I shut off the headphones and went over to them. I scanned over what was probably a staple and asked if they could hear how scratchy the sound was. I then went to where the ring was and scanned over it, asking if they could hear the difference. I said “That’s your ring” and before I could do anything else, Liz dove in and recovered her ring buried in the bark!

Very special to reunite this ring with a super nice couple of people. She’s worn it for 43 years, and now it’s back where it belongs.
Lost wedding ring Lost ring found

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Gold wedding ring lost doing yard work in Portland Oregon

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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I received a message from Seth, telling me he had lost his wedding ring doing yard work, and “you’re the man to call.”

We had a phone conversation about the circumstances of the loss, and the area.
As it was lost in his yard, I told him I would be able to come out the next day to do the search.

When I arrived, Seth walked me through what he had been doing when his ring went missing. He said he had been mowing the lawn in the front and backyard, wearing gloves, and emptying the clippings into the yard debris bin. He felt sure that the ring had come off in the backyard near the deck, and had even taken off parts of the deck  to search. He also told me he had purchased a metal detector and done some searching himself, but had no success.
I fired up the Manticore and started in the backyard. It turned out the yard was super trashy, with multiple signals, so it was slow going. I found several promising targets, but they were all too deep to be a recently dropped gold ring.
When I left the backyard, I found Seth in the front yard with his recently purchased metal detector. He was disappointed I hadn’t found the ring in the backyard, since he was sure it would be there.

I began searching the front yard, and Seth asked if he should dump the yard debris bin. We searched that with no luck.

The front yard was much cleaner than the back, so when the Manticore got a clean, repeatable signal, so I had high hopes. The lawn was pretty thick and green, so I needed the pinpointer  to locate the target. There it was! 😀 I snapped a pic, then began shutting down my gear. Seth had seen me from inside the house, and came out to thank me for trying. I told him it was pointless to keep searching for his ring. I then held it up for him, and his reaction was epic!

After a big high-five, he told me he was certain he would have never found the ring if it wasn’t for my help.

Thank you Seth for letting me help.

 

 

 

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Gold and diamond wedding ring lost off a high balcony, five months ago

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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In August 2024, I got a message from Shawn asking if I could come locate his white gold wedding ring.

He told me he was doing some carpentry work at Dagney’s house in Portland. He went out on the deck to brush off some sawdust and saw his wedding ring fly off his finger and drop into the brush far below.

I knew the area, and how steep the hillside was, but agreed to come take a look.

I arrived at the beautiful home on the butte, and Shawn explained what happened. The balcony was about four stories above a steep slope covered in blackberry brambles. I had him toss a stand-in ring (made from copper tubing) with a section of pink ribbon, where he thought the ring landed. It immediately disappeared into the blackberries.

Dagney and I went down the long stairway to under the house and saw that you couldn’t see the ground through the brush, so you couldn’t tell how steep the area was, or even where the ground was.

I reluctantly told Shawn and Dagney that I did not think I could safely get the the area the ring should be, and both were clearly disappointed, but understood. Before leaving, I told them I would be willing to come back and try again. Since the ring was not going anywhere, I asked them to contact me once some of the greenery had died back.

Fast forward five months. I received a message from Dagney, with a photo of the hillside. It looked better, so we set-up a time for me to return. Having had some time to develope a plan, I loaded a gas trimmer with a brush-cutter blade, long handle and hand clippers, a machete, gloves, good boots, and my Minelab Manticore.

When I arrived about 9:30, I met with Shawn and Dagney again. I had Shawn go over the details of how the ring was lost, and point out where he thought it landed. I explained my plan was to cut a path into the general area and locate the copper ring with ribbon he had dropped 5 months ago, then expand the search from there.

I hauled all the gear down the stairs and started. I cut my way close to the suspected area, then opened up a space to work. Not wanting to risk hitting the ring with cutter blade, I would chop back the upper section of the blackberries, use the clippers to get closer to the ground, then go over the area with the metal detector. I got a few promissing hits, which turned out to be trash, much to the dismay of Shawn and Dagney who were watching from above. A little further up the hill, I found the copper ring/ribbon thing. I held it up for Shawn to see. I started clearing brush to my left for about 10 feet, detecting every few feet with no luck. I went back and started moving right. Within 2 feet, I got a clean tone from the Manticore and knew it had to be what I was looking for. I went in with the pinpointer and….nothing!? Thinking I was crazy, I used the clippers to trim some more brambles, and there in the dirt was the ring! I looked up the the balcony to share the news, but nobody was there. I snapped a couple photos, and began packing up my gear. As I was doing that, Dagney looked over the balcony and told me Shawn had an appointment and had left. I told her it was pointless for me to keep searching for the ring, and I would be up to explain in a few minutes.

I hauled everything back up the stairs and piled it by my truck. Dagney opened the door, I went inside and told her the reason it was pointless to continue looking was because I found it, holding it up for her. She nearly fell to her knees telling me how happy she was Shawn would get his ring back. Sweaty me got a big hug..

Took a touch more then 5 months waiting, and 4 1/2 hours of work, but ring reunited……

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Wedding ring lost in Oregon Construction site

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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A few weeks ago, I received a message from Caleb asking if I could help find his lost wedding ring. He  was spreading hay over the construction site for erosion control, and during the process, his ring came off. He told me he had narrowed the area to about a 10′ radius, but had not been able to find it himself.

I asked him how confident he was the ring was on the lot, and he said he was “very confident” and certain it was in a limited area, since he felt it come off. We agreed to meet at the lot the next afternoon, thinking since it was a fairly small area, it would be a quick search.

I arrived and met Caleb, and he showed me the section of the lot where he was sure the ring had slipped off. He said he had just finished spreading the hay around by hand, shook his hands, and felt the ring come off. I fired-up the Manticore and began the search. Being an active construction site, there were a number of targets coming up. Each time I stopped to double check a signal, Caleb come over and start moving the hay. I explained to him the VDI numbers were wrong, as was the tone from the detector, or the target was too deep.

After spending more then a hour in that small area, I expanded the search to the left, right, and behind where he had been standing, thinking the ring may have flown off in a different direction. Caleb was still sure it was in that area, and he was sifting through the hay by hand. I loaned him a pin-pointer to use in his search. After we passed two hours, I told him I felt sure the ring was not in that area. We walked around the lot a bit and I had him explain again what he was doing. He said he hauled the bales of hay onto the lot, pulled it apart, and threw the hay across the bare ground. He was sure he had the ring on when he started, and it was gone when he finished, but he was second guessing where it came off. We agreed the ring could actually be anywhere on the lot, or in the shed where the hay was stored. It was getting later in the afternoon, and the temperature was dropping. I told him I would come back in the morning and search the entire lot.

I arrived and began again, but Caleb had to be working at a different location. I started on the same side of the lot, covering the same area, then down into hole around the foundation. About 3/4th of the way down the eastside of the lot in my expanded seach area, the detector gave out that beautiful, clean tone. About two inches down in the hay was Caleb’s ring.

I let him know I had found it (not where he thought it was), and since he was working, I marked the spot I found it, and told him where I would stash the ring for him to pick-up a little later. No smiling recovery pic, but did take some of the location and ring.

 

 

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