Luke Berube, Author at The Ring Finders

Yesterday evening while away on a weekend trip to Maine I received a call from Leo who was playing catch with his son in deeper waters at sheep’s pond in Brewster Massachusetts when his ring fell off when the ball hit his hand. He was trying to dive down with a borrowed mask but had no luck. A woman at the beach said there’s a man who frequently visits the pond and helps folks find lost items so he searched on google and came across my name on ring finders. I told him I’d be back Sunday afternoon and would head there after I returned home. Shortly after arriving there I entered the water and followed him out to where he felt it come off and started the dive it only took a couple minutes to get the signal for his ring and after recovering it and still on the bottom I gave him a thumbs up and he dove down to get it

 

Another call from the 4th of July was from Wendy who lost her tennis bracelet at a fire on the beach the night before. I headed up Sunday morning to try and help her out. Once she arrived we headed to where she thought it was lost around the fire but had no luck.  About 15 minutes later her friend came to the beach and said we were not in the right place and had us come closer to the entrance of the beach where I found the bracelet that had unfortunately broken but could be repaired. After a brief celebration we parted ways and I headed off to look for another

4th of July was busy on cape cod I received several calls/texts on on the 4th. One of which was from Karla who had lost her wedding rings on a small beach at cliff pond in Nickerson State Park I told her I could head down in the morning due to the party we were currently having at that point, in the mean time her husband had rented a detector from the hardware store and successfully found the engagement ring which left the wedding band for me to find. I called her the next morning and she said her husband would meet me there and show me the search area, while still on the phone with her I setup my machine and walked on the beach. I had her tell me the approximate location and about 20 seconds in had the ring in hand She was definitely at a loss for words, her husband met me at the entrance to the park a few minutes later to pick up the ring.

While at work today I received a call from a woman saying her friend Gary had lost his ring in a local swimming hole in truro Massachusetts, I told her I could head up after work. She gave me Gary’s number and asked to call him when I hit the rotary in orleans. I met up with him and he brought me to the site and about 20 minutes later I found the ring a beautiful 18k chunk of gold needless to say Gary was very happy

Two days ago I received a text from Emily regarding the wedding band her husband had lost in duxbury bay a few days ago, she got my number from a recommendation on a Facebook group from a woman who’s iPhone I found diving at the beginning of July. Yesterday I left work a bit early to head off cape to search for the ring and try and beat the ridiculous rain from the tropical storm that was headed this way, upon arrival the tide was out farther than where the ring was lost  which made things pretty easy. 5-10 minutes later I had a good signal which was the ring. I sent a picture to Emily who was very happy to say the least, I ended up meeting her at kohl’s parking lot in pembroke to drop the ring off and then headed home

Sunday March 1 2020

fellow ring finder Kent blethen and his girlfriend Mary Jane and I went out detecting at a beach an hour and a half drive away, we got there about an hour before low tide in hopes that the beach had lost some sand and would bring up some of the better gold targets. The first 20 minutes or so were pretty slow and there were only a few coins and pieces of trash showing up which is a bit discouraging but we pressed on (it wasn’t even worth turning the GoPro on). I decided to walk just into the water to where the beach dropped off on to the flats which was about 4-6 inches of water and i got a signal on my minelab ctx 3030 that showed as a 12.23-12.25 it was a solid signal so I turned the camera on and I’m glad I did, about 6 inches down was a class ring 10k yellow gold from Medford high school Class  of 1947 With the initials FGF. My first thought was wow 1947 I highly doubt the owners was still alive and if so 89-90 years old.

i pocketed th ring and continued about the trip and managed to come across another gold ring and a gold earring. Back at the truck for the return trip I figured that we had an hour ride back to their house so I’d at least try to find a picture or name for the guy with the ring, 10 minutes in I had a name frank fredella, after finding his name in the year book I searched it on google with the town the school was in and several towns away there was a match with a 90 year old man  and a bio saying Medford high, a few minutes later I had a number to call which I left a message on the answering machine saying to call me back. Shortly after the call I searched Facebook for another name that was listed as related persons and found his daughter who I messaged to have her call me. We got back to the house around 1:30 pm and I got a call from frank who said he was told to call Me, I said I believe I found your class ring and he asked which one, I told him the 1947 Medford high ring but he told me it was in the drawer (that’s what his wife told him) he then told me if it was his he’d like to have it back and where I could meet him the next day to return it, we hung up and made plans to head there the next day. I shot him a picture of the ring with the initials and he responded very quickly that’s it that’s my ring. The next day Kent and I went up to return the ring and were met by frank who is probably the youngest 90 year old person out there and is a super nice guy. He told us he was very Leary of the call at first which I understand and that his wife was telling him it was a scam until he got the pictures of it, he asked her to go grab the ring when I sent the pictures and she couldn’t find it, he told her that if I was a scammer then I was doing a really good job I even put the initials in the ring. Needless to say he was very happy to have it back and I was very happy to help.

You just never know what you will find when out detecting or if you’ll find the owner of what you found.

 

last night I received an email from alexis stating she lost her class ring on nauset beach in the wet sand down by the orleans resident ORV area. I went down there early this morning to try to search the area but came up empty handed. By 830 she called me to give a better location so back I went, a ranger was kind enough to give me a ride down the beach to save 20 minutes of walking. So I was back in the same area as earlier and spent about 30 minutes going over an area just to the north of where I previously was when I got my first solid signal which turned out to be her ring

I sent alexis a picture of her ring to let her know I had it and it was safe, needless to say she was very happy and will be back on cape on Tuesday to be reunited with it

so for the past month my hobby hunts have been rather anti productive other than a few old silver coins which is some what depressing. I decided to go on a short road trip about an hour away from cape cod to an undisclosed location/pond I’ve never dove before, the water temp was 70 at the surface and 65 at approximately 8-10feet deep. Right off the bat I hit a brass signet ring that looked like gold but unfortunately was not (still a ring and a decent start) so I kept going after a couple hours my air was getting low so I made my way back to my vehicle to head back to the cape to do another dive in a pond I’ve done very well in in years past. While heading back in I got a solid mid tone on my minelab Excalibur II and started digging and fanning the muddy silt on the bottom, I reached my hand in the hole and grabbed a handful of muck but felt an unexpected target, it felt like a ring (it was a ring). It turned out to be a class ring from gate of heaven high School in South Boston class of 1960 with the initials WJW. So now we fast forward past the second dive back home where gold ring number two for the day was found which was much older than the class ring, I started the search for the owner but could not find any records of a person from the class with those initials. Feeling like I hit a dead end I turned to Facebook and found a group of alumni from the school which I managed to join and posted the find with a help find the owner please request, that was Sunday morning around 6am. By noon I had a text message from a woman who was named Christine wadel saying she believed it could be her fathers ring and that his name was William Joseph wadel, so rather than text back I called her and she sent me some pictures of her father as well as his HS diploma from the class of 1960. She agreed to make the trip to the cape on Tuesday 6/18 last night to get the ring so she could give it to her after this weekend who lives in Virginia when she goes to visit him. I got ahold of  WBZ 4 Boston and a reporter came to the cape to do an interview with us and to document the return. So now the ring is in christine’s Hands and will be headed to it’s right place on her fathers finger, this type of recovery/return has been on my bucket list for years and I finally managed to pull it off

heres a link to the story

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/06/18/treasure-hunter-finds-south-boston-high-school-class-ring-lost-60-years/

December 24 2018 A Christmas Eve to remember

So I’m not someone who would normally believe in Christmas miracles or believe I’d be a part of one. Back in late July early August I got a call from Eleanor Hube from J&E enterprise (metal detector shop in Yarmouth)
She said a woman was on the cape with her family and that her cousin had lost his wedding ring, so I called heather and told her that I would head down after work to search for the ring. I got down to campground beach in Eastham around 5:45 pm and met heather and her husband, cousin Eric who lost the ring, his husband justin, and a few other family members who were there for the trip
There was some discrepancies as to the location that the ring came off but we had a general idea so I started searching and found some coins and trash and that was it and was the same results for the next 30-40 times I searched, until last night. I took a ride up to campground to see the condition of the beach and to my surprise the sand had moved a lot which was good there was only a couple inches of the light top sand before the heavy black sand which locks jewelry is once it hits it . I figured I’d go give it about an hour to see if I could find the ring, I walked out about 500-600 feet to the bar to the right of where the ring was supposedly lost and started to search, I was actually hitting targets pretty frequently which is a good sign. On my 10th pass I got a very faint signal that was bouncing around in numbers and was scratchy sounding which usually means a rusty bottle cap, I swung over it very slowly and the tone and numbers evened out a bit so I dug down about 10 inches ( this area had quite a bit of light sand) and dumped the scoop so I could check the pile and I got the target out and it sounded very good so I checked the pile by hand and I stuck my pinky finger in to the ring. I compared it to the picture that heather sent me of justin’s ring which was the twin to Eric’s and it was a match. I got a call from justin per heathers request and I sent him a picture to confirm my suspicions and it was indeed Eric’s ring. Justin wanted to keep it a secret and give it to Eric as a late Christmas present but Eric some how caught wind of it, needless to say they are both thrilled and it will be headed back to NJ on Wednesday morning.
“Best Christmas present ever” was the text from justin last night, now I can put this one in the strenuous recovery complete book and move on to the next.

the ring was mailed out on Wednesday morning and was received from the post office on Saturday morning.

i received a call from a reporter from the local newspaper (Cape cod times) on Monday afternoon to do a story about the recovery of Eric’s ring, which should be up in the paper in the next week, ill post the link when i get it

it drives me crazy that it took as long as it did to come across Eric’s ring but perseverance was the key to this recovery.

according to the reporter i spoke with on Monday she said that when heather called her about the story that i bacame a part of their family with the recovery, and that’s an awesome feeling  

 

Update links may have to be copied and pasted in browser

cape cod times article link:

https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20190102/man-discovers-wedding-band-lost-months-ago-at-cape-beach

wbz4 Boston link :

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/01/02/cape-cod-ring-finder-wedding-band-lost-beach/

around 6pm I was loading my scuba tanks in to my vehicle that were just filled, when a call came in with the caller ID of Chatham tides motel. I answered and the man I was talking to was the manger of the motel who said that while fishing a couple hours before calling me he had caught a blue fish and released it back in to the water, while shaking the sand off his hands his ring came off and hit the sand with out a mark. I told him I could be there in about 20 minutes, upon arrival he showed me the area which was about 5’x5’ and a few swings later I had a solid signal which turned out to be his ring. I think it took longer to walk the 100 feet to the beach then to recover the ring.