Greg Lewis, Author at The Ring Finders

Wedding ring lost in the yard in Oregon. Located with a metal detector

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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Tuesday evening I received a text message from John asking for my help finding his gold wedding ring. He explained that the day before he had been working in his driveway and his ring flew off. He heard it hit the metal gate and it was gone. He believed it had landed in the cedar duff near the gate and tried using a “cheap metal detector” with no luck

As he was not too far from home, I told John I could come out the next day and take a look. He said he would check it with me in morning to confirm our schedules.

In the morning I received a text saying he had given it another shot searching with no luck. I told him I could be there in the early afternoon, and I arrived just after 1pm, finding John out in the yard with his detector.

I had him explain what he was doing when he lost his ring, and he said he had removed the dog bed from the back of his car and was brushing of hair with his left hand. He felt the ring come off and heard it hit the open metal gate. Unless it had bounced off the gate, it should have landed in a relatively small area under a large cedar tree. The area was covered in a thick layer of debris from the tree, and next to a metal framed trailer. John had also raked the area searching for the ring, so there were piles of debris.
I had some Bluetooth issues, so I was running the Manticore without headphones, and chatted with John as I searched. There were a lot of junk signals, but I got a strong hit and found a deck screw. John explained there had been an incident where the dog had scattered a box of screws around the yard, so I knew to ignore similar signals. On the back side of my first pass, I hit a signal every detectorist will dig. I kicked back the top layer of needles and found nothing. I got to hard packed soil, so I knew it wasn’t the ring, but dug around with the pinpointer. I pulled out a dime and handed it to John. Kind of a teachable moment, letting John hear the difference between a coin and junk metal.
I began my second pass up and quickly got a very good signal. Again kicked off the tree debris, the sound and VDI improved. Under about four inches of debris, there was the missing ring. (Probably buried deeper from raking and walking over the area)

I held the ring up and handed it to John. Got a high five 🖐️ and he was happy this would get him out of the doghouse with his wife. Had a nice chat about the metal detecting hobby, and fishing our local rivers.
Always great to meet new friends

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Wedding ring lost in the yard in Oregon,found with metal detector

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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I received a message inquiring if I was able to help find a lost wedding ring.

I had a conversation with Cal regarding his loss.

He told me he had been doing some yard work, raking up yard debris and loading the recycling bin. He finished up, and was in his house when he discovered his wedding ring was not on his finger. He told me he never takes his ring off, and thought it must have come off somewhere in his yard, probably when he had taken his gloves off as he worked. He said it was a white gold band.

I was able to go out the following morning, which fortunately coincided with a break in the Oregon rain.

Cal showed me the area, and explained what he had been doing. I began a grid search in the back section of the yard, finding a few coins and tons of scrap metal.

Cal had to leave, but his wife was still there. I got about 3/4’s of the way through the yard, when I got a faint but promising signal. I kicked back some of the bark and saw the very thin white gold ring. I called Cal’s wife over and gave her a little metal detector tutorial, going over scrap signals, then the ring. I picked it up and handed it to her, and she was super happy.

I wasn’t able to get a picture of Cal getting his ring back, but received a text with many emojis expressing his gratitude.

White gold

 

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Wedding ring lost in Oregon for seven months, found with metal detector

  • from Oregon City (Oregon, United States)
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Right at the end of January, I received a text from Lalo inquiring if I was available to provide my services to help find his wife’s lost wedding ring.

He said six or seven months ago, he and his wife were doing some yard work out back, and her ring went missing. He had purchased a metal detector and tried multiple times to find it, but since he had no idea what he was doing, he had no luck. He was also concerned that due to some of the huge rainstorms we had, the ring may have been moved down the hillside. I assured him that unless there had been some substantial sliding, the ring wouldn’t have moved very much.

He wasn’t sure if the ring was white gold or platinum, but it was both her engagement ring and wedding ring welded together, with diamonds.

His hope was to find the ring and return it to her as a surprise Valentine’s Day present.

I was able to go over to his home the next day, while his wife was away. He showed me the areas he believed the ring had been lost. Searching that area, I found nothing but nails and aluminum scraps.
Moving lower into the yard, I still was getting junk signals, and was getting ready to switch out to a smaller search coil, since I was searching along a metal fence. Each swing to the right hit the fence, causing a big response on the detector, but since I was using a manticore detector, which is very capable, I continued.

A bit further, I got a hit off the fence, an iron signal, and something else. Using my pinpointer, I pulled out a nail. Knowing that you have to double check the hole, I used my pinpointer and found what we were looking for!!

Lalo seemed genuinely surprised when I handed him the ring. I hope his wife was pleasantly surprised to receive it back for her valentines gift

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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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