This post could go into several forums, it's mind blowing and eye popping, it happened at the beach, but most of all, it was a Lost Item (referred to me as a "Lost My Stuff" member) that I get to re-unite with it's owner.
I hope I have the story correct here. The back story as I know it begins with two gold rings on a chain around the owners neck. She was here on vacation playing Rugby on the beach when the chain was broken and the rings fell to the sand but the chain stayed on her neck. She hired a local "for a fee" searcher and they looked for the ring for some three hours (a bargain given this searcher normally gets $100/hour) to no avail. This was on the 19th.
On the 22nd the loss got reported to Lost My Stuff and I saw the email. I contacted the phone number on the report and spoke with the Mother of the girl who lost the rings. She told me the story of how they were lost and then told me the story of the rings... they are replicas of the US Naval Academy Class ring 1922 and the US Military Academy 1925. They are wedding rings of the Grandmother and Great Grandmother of the girl who lost them and are family heirlooms. The owner had left Panama City Beach by the time I got the info (to return to US Military Academy where SHE is a Cadet) so I got the best loss location info I could third hand and then received a very nice email from the owner herself a day later with a bit better location info (turns out, she was DEAD ON ACCURATE to within a 20 x 20 area). So my hunting buddy and I hit the beach with our Minelab E-Trac detectors (and me wearing my lucky Minelab Owners baseball cap ) at 7:30 today. By 8:30 we had both rings!!! I found the first one with a barely audible warble of that sweet gold tone and a flicker of 14/23 Fe/Co reading at 10 inches. I dug gently with my Stealth 720i and after the first 3 inches of sand the ring rang in louder and still showed about 10 inches. I did two more scoops of about 3 inches of sand each time and on the third scoop full, up came the smaller of the two rings. Apparently the second ring came up in one of the three scoops full of sand because it wasn't in that hole after the first ring came up. All I can think is it was either right beside the first hole and I moved it enough to not be able to read it in the hole or I scooped it and lost it out of the scoop while shaking out the sand. Anyway, my buddy Craig was searching my "tailings" and found the ring down about 6 inches right beside the hole I was working.
So, I am one lucky guy to get to help out getting a pair of nearly 100 year old rings back to the owner, and to get to serve a member of the US Military who is serving us.
Once again, I hope I got the facts about the rings correct...
I hope I have the story correct here. The back story as I know it begins with two gold rings on a chain around the owners neck. She was here on vacation playing Rugby on the beach when the chain was broken and the rings fell to the sand but the chain stayed on her neck. She hired a local "for a fee" searcher and they looked for the ring for some three hours (a bargain given this searcher normally gets $100/hour) to no avail. This was on the 19th.
On the 22nd the loss got reported to Lost My Stuff and I saw the email. I contacted the phone number on the report and spoke with the Mother of the girl who lost the rings. She told me the story of how they were lost and then told me the story of the rings... they are replicas of the US Naval Academy Class ring 1922 and the US Military Academy 1925. They are wedding rings of the Grandmother and Great Grandmother of the girl who lost them and are family heirlooms. The owner had left Panama City Beach by the time I got the info (to return to US Military Academy where SHE is a Cadet) so I got the best loss location info I could third hand and then received a very nice email from the owner herself a day later with a bit better location info (turns out, she was DEAD ON ACCURATE to within a 20 x 20 area). So my hunting buddy and I hit the beach with our Minelab E-Trac detectors (and me wearing my lucky Minelab Owners baseball cap ) at 7:30 today. By 8:30 we had both rings!!! I found the first one with a barely audible warble of that sweet gold tone and a flicker of 14/23 Fe/Co reading at 10 inches. I dug gently with my Stealth 720i and after the first 3 inches of sand the ring rang in louder and still showed about 10 inches. I did two more scoops of about 3 inches of sand each time and on the third scoop full, up came the smaller of the two rings. Apparently the second ring came up in one of the three scoops full of sand because it wasn't in that hole after the first ring came up. All I can think is it was either right beside the first hole and I moved it enough to not be able to read it in the hole or I scooped it and lost it out of the scoop while shaking out the sand. Anyway, my buddy Craig was searching my "tailings" and found the ring down about 6 inches right beside the hole I was working.
So, I am one lucky guy to get to help out getting a pair of nearly 100 year old rings back to the owner, and to get to serve a member of the US Military who is serving us.
Once again, I hope I got the facts about the rings correct...