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Unbelievable find today

time4me

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Detector(s) used
E-Trac, Explorer II, Excalibur
You're going to have to read through this to get to my unbelievable find today, but believe me it is worth it!

I've been watching the weather all week this week hoping for a nice day today (Friday) as I wanted to go out to one of my favorite spots and spend a few hours detecting. Unfortunately it started raining yesterday, and the rain just dragged on into today. It wasn't a downpour, but a steady drizzle.

I said "screw it" and went anyways.

Here's a look at the weather outside on my drive out to my spot...

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I wore a raincoat, changed into some boots, and wore gloves and started off on my hunt. I got to my destination at 10am this morning, and told myself that I needed to leave at noon so I could get back home and get cleaned up before going to pick up my son from school. So I started hunting a campsite area that I had hit a couple of times in the past, but had not been to for at least three months.

One of my first finds of the day was out in a field, and I wasn't quite sure what it was...

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I could read the word "COMPASS" on it, so I knew it was some sort of compass, but I would wait to get home to try opening it.

The next two hours were pretty miserable as I was soaked, and my right knee was totally caked in mud from kneeling to dig. My right arm was also covered in mud from going in and out of the detector arm strap. I was determined to find a silver coin today to keep my silver streak alive (silver coins on each of my last four hunts). But the two hours crept by and by noon I had quite a few coins and other odds and ends, but no silver coin.

I was really bummed about not finding a silver coin, so I gave myself another 15 minutes to hunt. Those 15 minutes came and went, and still no silver coin. Well, 12:30 is not going to kill me, I thought to myself - I'd still have enough time to get home, shower and change clothes, and get back to my son's school. So I headed back out into the field to give it 15 more minutes.

Well, it was 12:30, and still no silver coin, so I turned and started back towards the car to call it a day. About half way back to the car I got a high tone, but it didn't register on the display of the Explorer II where silver would register - it was more in the area of a zinc penny. Frustrated, I knelt down to dig this last hole before hightailing it home. I dug a shallow plug, and my probe told me the item was in the plug. I ripped apart the grass, and out fell a heavy silver colored ring.

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I sat there in utter disbelief. This was MY RING. My 18kt gray gold $2000 wedding band that I had lost at this site back in September - you may remember my post from the day I lost my ring:

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,182204.msg1331915.html#msg1331915

I never thought I'd see this ring again. When I first noticed that I had lost it on that fateful day back in September of last year, I was in another area of this campground about a half mile away. I had started that day in the campsite area I was hunting today, but then I got in my car and drove to a completely different area of the campgrounds, and was sure that I had lost the ring there as that's where I noticed it missing - after I had been hunting in this second spot for about an hour. I went back to that other area several times and retraced my steps for hours with the detector trying to find my ring. I did think there was a small chance that the ring could have been lost at the first campsite area that I started at that day, but I had covered so much ground that day - all through a couple different fields, through some wooded areas - that I had told myself back in September if I had in fact lost the ring at this particular site, there was no chance I'd ever find it as I covered way too much ground that day.

So there I sat in the drizzling rain - soaking wet, muddy from head to toe, staring at one of the most amazing finds I've ever made - my own wedding band!!!

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Here is the total take for the day, less the big trash...

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I did find three wheat cents, with the oldest being a 1936. But no silver, so the streak has ended.

Here is that compass cleaned up a bit...

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It is a Lensatic Compass, made in Japan. I wish it were solid brass, but it is some base metal plated with a brass colored plating. Here is a website I found that tells all about the Lensatic Compass...

http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/astro/lensatic.htm

And finally, here is my truly unbelievable find of the day - back where it belongs...

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I hope your next outing is as exiting as this one was for me!

Happy Hunting,

Jim
 
Upvote 0
Jim, what a feeling that must have been. Did you ever imagine that you might find it some day?

It's always a great feeling when you're able to return a lost ring to it's owner. Now, you know how exciting it is to the owner when they get their ring back.

Congrats !!!

Brian in MA
 
Congrats on finding your lost wedding ring.
I'll bet the wife was happy. :thumbsup:
 
Very Cool Jim! I know just how you felt when you opened that plug of earth and saw your ring staring back at you. You are now part of the "recover your own wedding band club" ;D Lost mine as well. Three years & a new band later I was teaching a buddy how to MD out back near my burn pit. Guess what we found, yep my lost wedding band. Must of knocked it off burning brush.

Congrats on your find.


Brian
 
Awesome story! Congrat's on finding your wedding band! That compass is pretty cool too... :thumbsup:
 
Very neat finds it was cool that you found your own wedding band...Matt
 
SUPER FINDS. CONGRATS. :thumbsup:
 
Unbelievable find indeed. Thanks for sharing. Congrats. :thumbsup:
 
bet you got a warm feeling rushing through your veins when you found it.
 
Happy for you...Don't forget your prayers ;D
 
That is to cool.
 
Great story and finds.
 
Amazing recovery! Keep them fingers fat from now on.
 
Jim,

That was pretty amazing finding your own lost ring from last September. :o :o

That's a really cool compass you found! I'm sorry your streak ended, but you can always start a new one. I got wet and muddy detecting today, but I struck silver!

Congrats!!

CAPTN SE
Dan
 
Your story is great and so was your hunt and determination. Psycologically you may have known were you lost it. Anyway congrats!

What is "grey gold, " never heard of it? I'd have a glove on that hand and have it resized to a bit smaller.

SKD
 
Jim, that's what this hobby is all about! Finding rings. Glad yours came back!

HH
 
That is a truely fantastic story. I am very happy that you found your own ring!
 
Thank you all so much for the wonderful replies. I still can't believe I found my ring. If you could see the huge expanse of fields and campsite areas I covered the day I lost it you would understand just how amazing it is that I found it. I feel like Gollum in Lord of the Rings - the ring willed me to find it. It's like finding a needle in ten thousand haystacks.

I mentioned that my ring was gray gold and someone asked what gray gold was as they had never heard of it before. My ring was made by a German company called Niessing. This info is from their website...

"In nature, gold exists only in its unmistakable gold-yellow form. White and gray gold are solely of human manufacture by alloying gold with other metals. In the past, nickel was used for this. Since many people are allergic to nickel, Niessing does not use it at all and makes its alloys with palladium instead. This results in gray gold. To achieve the typically light color of white gold, rhodium is applied to the finished gray gold ring. The artificial surface created in this way wears off over time. However, it can be reapplied at any time."

Every time I look down at my hand and see the ring there on my finger, I get a huge smile on my face. I remember the day I lost it, I called my wife on my drive home and told her. I was so depressed about losing it that I didn't want to go back to this place to detect again. Fortunately, that feeling wore off pretty quick, and I have been back many times since. And Friday was the magic day. When I saw my wife I said look what I found today and dropped the ring into her hand. She was pretty amazed.

This will definitely always be one of the most amazing finds I'll ever make.

Jim
 
Nice ending to the story indeed... Great pictures as well. I once had to find my wedding ring with a metal detector, it was in a gut pile of a deer I dressed out!


Chris
 

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