On Thursday June 8^th 2023 I received A text message from a Paul Davenport. Paul was in distress because his mother-in-law had just dropped a ring through a brand new deck that Paul had just built her.

 

Mr. Davenport had explained to me that the ring was very sentimental to his mother-in-law and was given to her by her husband. On June 9^th I found myself in the Picton county with club member Ryan Pugh. where Mr. Davenport lived So I called him and asked if it would be alright if I swung by to take a look for the ring.

 

At approximately 1:30 PM Ryan & I arrived at the davenports home and was greeted by Paul. After asking Paul roughly where the ring had been dropped he showed me to the new deck and pointed to the general vicinity where they thought the ring might be.

 

I had brought with me my new Nokta legend metal detector Set up my equipment and started detecting under the newly built deck while Ryan took to the camera to work his magic.

After just a few minutes I got a decent sound from the detector and my VDI was showing a solid 26 as I look down I saw a small golden shimmer on the ground, so I bent down moved a small stone aside and with my back turned to Mr. Davenport I picked up a small gold ring with a beautiful Ruby stone in the middle of the ring.

I held the ring tightly in my hand. And called Ryan over. I carefully revealed to Ryan that I had found the ring without showing Mr Davenport, then Ryan and I slowly backed out from underneath the deck. Ryan picked up on the notion I did not want to show Mr Davenport right away and played up on the notion.

Mr. Davenport was explaining to me how he always wanted to use a metal detector and watches all the shows, so without hesitation I asked him if he would like to put on my headphones and give it a try himself?

Mr. Davenport had no idea that I was actually holding the ring itself as he slowly swung the detector from side to side listening for any sound. After only about a minute or 2 I asked Mr. Davenport to slowly back up and to hand my detector back to me, as he handed me my detector I put my hand out towards him he held out his hand and I said here let’s make a trade, my detector for this and I dropped the ring into his hand.

It took him a second or two to realize what I had just handed him, but all of a sudden his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he laughed with absolute joy in his voice as he called me “A shit” because he realized I let him use the detector when I already had the rig in my hand.

Paul was overjoyed and asked if I would stay until his mother-in-law came home and that she would only be a few minutes. “No problem“ I said, About 10 minutes later Paul’s mother-in-law pulled into the driveway in her car stepped out, I introduced myself to her and asked her to give me the story behind how she lost her ring

Paul’s mother-in-law explained to me that the ring had been given to her by her husband for their 40 year anniversary and that it was a very important ring to her with a lot of sentimental value.

As she told me the story I could see that she was getting extremely emotional and that the ring signified many memories for her and her late husband. So I put my hand out and I said if I were to drop the ring in your hand it would mean a lot wouldn’t it and she held out her hand and I dropped the ring into it.

Pause mother-in-law took a few seconds to realize that I had actually just dropped the ring into her hand and that she had just been reunited with her ring once again. Paul’s mother-in-law was at a loss of words and became very emotional for a minute or 2, she looked at me and said boy you work fast and then step towards me and gave me a great big hug.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s almost an indescribable feeling when you see pure joy and happiness on the face of somebody who thought they have lost something special with such a great amount of sentimental value, thinking it’s gone “forever”, and then all of a sudden you get reunited with it. I love these kinds of outcomes, because it’s not always this easy or successful.

Thanks to Ryan for the awesome camera work and helping to assist with this ring recovery.