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Lost Item Recovery Team
If you have lost some type of metallic property such as
jewelry, watches, rings, money, etc...
and
you know the approximate
area you might have lost it, perhaps you would like to contact the
friendly folks at the
AMARILLO
PROSPECTORS & TREASURE HUNTERS ASSOCIATION
RECOVERY TEAM
for help!
To date $$ retrieved $850.00
Another tossed ring recovered
After getting a notice via our website Lost Item Recovery form I contacted a young lady that needed help to find a ring in her neighbor’s front yard. Darcee, the lady in distress, describe the ring as a small silver ring with some stones in it. After a few questions on what type of ring it was, what type of grass was in the yard and how long had it been gone I made arrangements to meet her and with the help of John L we would look for it the next afternoon. She told me, she thought it was just silver with a somewhat large stone in it. She sent me the maker’s mark info of 10WG and some other numbers. I recognized the 10WG as 10K White Gold and the other marks described the diamonds in the setting. So it was quit a bit better than just silver. From past experience I knew her ring with that make up would indicate below a nickel and somewhere in the “can slaw” range (VDI 9-14), and the yard was full of it! I told her the ring would read in the trash VDI range (tabs, slaw and foil) on the detector and might require me “to recover” a lot of trash before I found her ring. Darcee immediately went to picking up the cans, the little metal pieces and other trash out of the yard. It turned out to be huge help.
I did ask her why she thought it was in the neighbor’s yard and informed me her
boyfriend
threw it over there the day before. This being the second such tossed
ring I had hunted I had my doubts it was where she thought. It was too
close to where he threw it from in her driveway, I thought. But with her
suggestion it was just about 20 feet away I started gridding the yard
beginning at her driveway. After a pocket full of trash and eight or
gridding trips across the yard I got a bouncing 8-10 VDI only 3” deep. I
“X’d” the target and it improved to a VDI of 11-12 so I was optimistic I
might have it. When I took the pin-pointer out it signaled right where
the detector said it was and moving back some grass I could see the
bright ring, diamond facing down. It was barely 2” down in the grass but
would have been nothing but luck to find it visually. So after 15-20
minutes Darcee had her ring and she and her Mother where very happy. So
it was a successful quick retrieval and another lover’s launched ring
was recovered.
With temperatures near 28 and over 8" of snow on the ground Rodney ventured forth and found some lost keys. Rodney was unable to get out of his driveway because of snow drifts and a "Good Samaritan", TED SWINDLE, came and picked him up in four wheeler, took him to the address and returned him home safe and sound. Thanks Ted!
Here are the keys found for Daniel at his apartment. The recovery was Rodney's first and maybe a first from the snow. He found the keys after looking in the snow drifts around two cars where Daniel was. The keys were where he had walked into the parking lot just under 2" of snow. People had been walking on them and Daniel would not have found them until the parking lot melted. Time hunting 10-13 minutes.
Recovery 1/17/10
- Mark Davey, John London & Jim Nichols
Several weeks ago a desperate man called Dennis Gee to rent a
detector to find a lost wedding ring. Dennis referred him to our
website and our Recovery Team service where he filled in the link
for help and sent it to Jim N. He mentioned he, “Lost his wedding ring
somewhere in his front yard.” Jim was tied up with plumbing problems and
he sounded in a hurry so Jim referred the case to John London. John
contacted the rings owner and after asking some questions he found
out the ring was not lost but tossed out of the house by his wife.
That would imply maybe not only was the ring was lost but maybe a
love lost as well? John also found out it was a tungsten-carbide
ring with a small gold stripe in the middle. We’ll the hunters didn’t know
what a tungsten-carbide ring would look like to a detector. After some research and an email Chris
Turner from The Ring Finders
website saying he had found a tungsten ring with a White’s XLT last
year. When asked what VDI (Visual Discrimination Indicator) he got
on his tungsten find, Chris returned the email saying it rang in the
49-50 range on his White’s XLT. This range is right in the “twist
off” range on the White’s products. But an email from an engineer at
White’s theorized it would fall into the steel, down in the -90s.
With the conflicting data they were still not sure what it would
detect as it was dig all shallow targets and we did find some junk!
John made arrangements to go over to their house and try looking for
it. But before he got over there we got 4” of snow. That delayed
things but John did try a couple days later but the ring owners
North facing yard was still covered in snow. The cold and snow was a
huge obstacle but John did try but didn’t locate it that day.
A few days later Jim joined him on a day that got to 40 degrees but the lawn still had 4 inches of ice on most of it. They did their best but told him they would come back when the ice had melted. He was very patient but again not just full of information on where his bride might have launched the ring.
This Sunday, January 17, John, Mark Davey and Jim met over at the house to find that dang ring. The ring pitcher came out and showed them how she had flung the ring. She is right handed but used her left hand to chunk it. The three saturated their yard and got some clad, more junk, a wheat penny and a silver dime to show for it but didn’t find the ring.
The hunters took a break, did some equipment changing and some BSing then decided to hit it again. John mentioned since she was a right hander but threw it with her south paw she might have “sliced it” to the Eastern most houses across the street. Jim had hunted the house across the street but no ring so he started on the grass strip next to the street where John had mentioned it would be and after digging some tabs he got a twist-off (56 VDI) about 18” from the curb about 2” deep. The grass is at least 4” in this yard so that is a good depth for a ring so recently lost. Jim kneeled down and as he was grabbing his pin-pointer he saw a glint in the grass and sure enough it was the ring! The smallish grey wide metal ring with a gold stripe in the middle had surfaced. So he told John and Mark to quit hunting. The ring rang in at the 50 VDI on John’s and Mark’s detectors, right in the range Chris from The Ring Finders had mentioned.
Needless
to say the couple was very pleased they were able to find the
discarded ring and the three hunters were really glad to have been able to return
the ring to them and maybe patch up a lovers quarrel at the same
time. Mark, John and Jim had an enjoyable outing on a beautiful day so
the homeowners and the hunters were winners. It was good to chalk this
one up as a success, since it was the clubs first
Lost Recovery Team lead.
Those that signed up for the recovery team will get and email asking
for your assistance as they come in so you too can feel the joy of
helping recover someone’s treasured piece.
Recovery
Date 3/13/2010 - John London & Jim NicholsJohn and Jim were hunting an older home when a neighbor came running over saying "You guys are just the people I have been looking for." He then told the two silver hunters he had lost his white gold wedding band when knocking off some ice off the eve. After John got Michael Wheeler, rings owner, to be more specific on where he dropped the ring the two hunters started looking for the ring. Jim struck it about 2-3 minutes later deep in the grass next to the concrete edge of the house footing. Mr. Wheeler had gone in to get his keys to move the car so it wouldn't interfere but when he came out he was told to forget about moving his car. Mr. Wheeler was very pleased to get his ring back so quickly. He said. "You saved my life." John and Jim returned to their lawn fishing pleased they had been of assistance again.
Recovery Date 7/21/2010 - Jadon Nichols (Son of Jim & Terri)
Betty & Jack Hixon and the Nichols family went to the Sanborn School for a morning of detecting.
They
didn't really burn up the place but Jadon, Jim & Terri's 4 year son, did
find a keeper. A Blackberry internet phone, a nice one. He came running
over from the tot lot really proud of himself. When Jim got it was dead
but you could tell it was a working phone. After they hunted for about
two hours Jim took the phone to one of those Cell Phone kiosk inside a
grocery story. Told the young lady how it
had been found and
asked her if she had a charger for it so they could get the owners info.
She said she did since she had the same phone, a $500 one! Ouch! After
about 10 minutes it had enough charge to turn on and Jim was able to get
the address book open and found the owners name and her Moms phone
number. Jim called it and
left a message saying we had her Daughter's phone. About twenty minutes
later the owner called pretty excited. And gave them her address, which
was just across the street from where they had been hunting. But the
dead phone wasn't so dead. At 5:45 the next morning her alarm on the
dead and turned off phone went off and
she almost didn't get it back as Jim was thinking it would look good
smashed on the wall! ;)Jadon handed it to her when we drove over to her place. He was proud to give it to her and got a big hug for his efforts. She said she had seen them at the park but didn't think we would find it since her daughter "Buried it". They had been looking for it for 2 days and had written it off. Well needless to say she was very excited at getting her "life back" as it had all her contacts for her daycare business and much more. So even if Jim didn't have a 'silver' day it was still golden to see his son return a phone to the proper owner.