May 3rd, 2009 by Brad Lovell

Althea had the misfortune of losing her late father’s wedding ring while playing basketball at a friends house. While playing with the basketball, Althea felt the ring slip from her finger…but did not hear or see the ring land. As always, I was happy to come out and help Althea look for the ring. After a short drive to Newtown in Sydney’s inner west, I met up with Althea and her partner, and we entered her friends back yard. Straight away I noticed most of the small yard was paved. There was really only a few places the ring could have been, either in one of two gardens…in a pot plant, or over the fence. I began my search by moving the pot plants, and basically looking under everything the ring could have possibly rolled under. I then began scanning the garden which was closest to where Althea was standing when the ring fell off. This garden was very thick with plants and shrubs, so swinging the detector in there was impossible without damaging plants. I kind of jabbed away with the detector covering the areas of the garden I could access. When I realised I was only really covering a small percentage of the garden with the detector, I decided to use my hand held pinpointer to get into the hard to reach areas of the garden. Unfortunately I was not having any luck. After about an hour of hunting, I was talking to Althea about the possibility of searching the neighbours back yard. Althea continued searching the thick garden while I ran the pinpointer over another garden. Not long after that, Althea yelled out found it! She had managed to find her late father’s wedding ring without the use of any equipment! The ring had fallen into the base of a plant in the dense garden. We we’re all incredibly happy that Althea had her ring back. I actually felt guilty accepting the call out fee from Althea, as she was the one who had found the ring.

Althea, it was really great meeting you and your friends yesterday. You are really nice people, and I enjoyed spending the afternoon with you guys. And if you ever want a job as a treasure hunter, let me know!