The Ring Finders
Metal Detecting Service Inc.

On Tuesday, January 31, 2012, I received a call from Kevin.  He told me in a voice mail that he had recently been coaching Rugby at a park in Sausalito, CA, and that he discovered after coaching that he had lost his heavy 18k gold inscribed wedding band.  From his voice, I could tell he was very distraught about the loss.  He asked me if I would make the trip down from Sacramento, CA to help him search for his precious ring.  I called and told him I would be glad to do so, and we arranged to meet at the Marin City Field on Sunday February 5^th, at around 10:00.

When I arrived at the park, Kevin was already there. It was a beautiful clear and sunny day in the low 60s.  I asked him to place some bright orange soccer cones on the field to mark the area he had covered while coaching.  While he was placing the cones, I unpacked and set up my detector of choice, a Whites V3i which was armed with my favorite 10 inch Eclipse elliptical double D coil.  I approached the field, and mentally clutched when I saw the size of the area we needed to cover.  But, after a brief discussion, Kevin revealed that he had spent about 80% of his coaching time the day he lost his ring in a smaller section around mid field.  I suggested we start with that area, and if I was unable to find his wedding ring in those sections, that we could then expand the search area.

I began my search and determined based on Kevin’s description of his ring, that I would be looking for a Visual Discrimination Number (VDI) in the high 40s to low 50s.  I began to find targets that I normally would dig such as dimes, quarters, etc.  But, I was there to help Kevin reunite with his wedding ring, so I honed in on looking strictly for jewelry VDI numbers. I detected several targets that looked promising, but they were all too deep to be Kevin’s ring since he had just lost it about days prior to calling me.  I determined that based on the mass of the ring and when he had lost it, his ring would be no more than about one inch deep.

After about 30 minutes of hunting, I came to the end of my first pass.  As I was making my last swing before turning around to go back in the other direction, I heard a medium tone in my earphones, and saw the three green bars light up all in a row on my screen and a 51 appeared on my screen.  I rescanned the target and heard that familiar double blip signal when a detector coil passes over a ring.  I pinpointed the target and noted its depth to be about ½ inch.  I held my breath while telling myself that my V3i had scored another find.  I bent down spread the grass and saw the glint of a gold wedding band laying on its side half buried in the damp soil.  I looked back at Kevin and noted he was not looking at me.  So, I put the ring on my right index finger and walked back to him.  I announced that I needed to take a break to which he said no problem.  I pointed with my index finger upon which I had placed his ring and said is that a iPad 2?  For a moment there was silence as it sunk in that I had found his wedding ring.  Kevin was immediately overcome with surprise and happiness.  He simply could not believe it.  I was happy to have found the wedding band for him and he was clearly overwhelmed by the find.  It was a good day for all.