Dear White's,

I got wind of a lady losing her wedding ring set about three weeks after it was lost. I made contact with the husband whom quite explicitly told me that they had given up on it ever being found and that he had exhausted every avenue there was in trying to find it and that I would only be wasting my time. I even sensed the don't bother me attitude from his voice over the phone.

I inquired where the ring was lost and was told it was lost in a grassy picnic area down at a local beach. Once I heard picnic area, red flags went off telling me to back away from pursuing to find this ring reasons being the time frame that is was lost plus the area that it was lost in. A well traveled section to the beach from the parking lot plus it was also a highly used picnic and sunbathing area. A real mine field of all sorts of buried metallic items to drive anyone swinging a detector crazy.

I kept emailing this man many times telling him not give up hope and that I was very confident that since the ring was lost in a grassy area there was an excellent chance that it could be found. Weeks stretched into months and because of many reasons and one being this man’s continued mindset that this ring was lost forever, making arrangements to meet him at the lost site was a trying experience.

Well we finally were able to meet at the lost ring site 4 1/2 months after this ring was lost. This man showed me the area and because he was so sure that we were wasting our time, he walked away from me during my search and struck up a conversation with a person sitting on a park bench close by.

My third target signal after about 15 minutes of searching made my XLT tell me the probability of what was giving me this strong reading was a ring. I did two more passes with my unit over it and each time both gave me the same positive signals. I bent down, probed my pinpointer into the thick matted grass and it started to buzz. I then removed my digging knife and upon lifting a small section of sod - there was this ladies lost ring shining in the sun.

It was an ornate heavy gold ring, with about a 3/4 + center stone with graduated sizes of briquette diamonds running down both sides of the ring as well as an array of various little diamonds pronged around 1/2 of each side of this rings rims. I called out that I found it. I swear once he saw it and I dropped it into his hands he became a little shaky in the knee department.

It is hard to put into words the look on his face but it was all aglow plus he began stuttering in total disbelief on now how he was going to present it to his wife. (Her birthday was a few days away). This man was so excited that this ring was found he forgot to cover his tracks and when his wife came home after taking his car to pick up their other kids from school that day she found a parking ticket stub in his car from this beach that we were at that morning. She started to interrogate him as to why he went back to this beach and why he didn't tell her that he was even going there that morning.

Well the man luckily did have enough time when he got home to clean up the ring and put it in a ring box and hide it. Knowing that she had lost her ring at this beach and knowing that he was there this day he went and got the ring box from its hiding place. When she saw him approaching her with the box she started gasping for air and as he opened the box revealing her long lost wedding ring, tears of joy immediately flowed from her eyes and then -- she became speechless.

AL - CA