May 15th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

I had the pleasure of meeting Charlotte yesterday. Charlotte was on her balcony hanging clothes out to dry, when her gold ring slipped off her finger and into the garden below. The ring was given to Charlotte by her mother, so she was keen to find it. After a quick drive out to Macquarie Park, I met with Charlotte and she described what had happened. The garden was quite dense with plants and bushes, but Charlotte mentioned she would rip them all out if it meant recovering the ring. I started with a quick visual inspection, to see if I could see the ring on the surface. I then grabbed the metal detector and scanned an area in the garden which lined up with the balcony above. As luck would have it, the very first signal I received was Charlotte’s gold ring. After spending 6 hours and not finding anything on my last job, this was a welcome relief

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!

March 31st, 2009 by Brad Lovell

I received a phone call from Johny on the weekend asking me to come over to find his lost gold ring.  Johny’s partner Darren, was working in the garden while wearing the ring on his little finger.  Darren eventually noticed the ring had fallen off, but was not exactly sure where. He was very confident that the ring dropped off his finger during the time he was working in the garden. I let Johny know that I would be happy to do a search  on Monday morning. After about an hour and a half drive on Monday morning, I arrived at the house. I was greeted by Darren, who showed me where he believed he had lost Johny’s gold ring. The garden wrapped around one corner of the house. When I first started searching for the lost ring, I figured this should be an easy job. But the further I moved down the garden, the more dense it became. There we’re many spots in the garden where it was impossible for me to move the metal detector coil over the surface of the ground. In fact, there we’re many parts of the garden I could not even see the ground due to dense scrubs and plants. After a good 2.5 hour search, it was time for me to call it quits. I could see the disappointment in Darren’s face that I had not found the lost ring. I really hope that one day while working on the garden, either Johny or Darren will find it amongst the plants.

March 29th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

This is a very interesting story. I received a phone call from Michelle on Friday night. Michelle had lost one of her beautiful white gold/diamond ear rings, which was a gift from her Fiancee. While Michelle had been talking on the phone, her big Labrador puppy was licking her ear, which caused the back of the ear ring to fall off. Michelle was unaware this had happened at the time…and went outside to do some gardening. Just as she lowered her head underneath the branch of a tree, she felt the earring drop from her ear. It then became clear to Michelle that her dog must have removed the backing, causing it to drop off. After inspecting some doggy poop, Michelle found the backing of the ear ring. So now all she needed to do was find the diamond side of the ear ring. After many unsuccessful attempts at finding the ear ring in the thick buffalo grass, Michelle decided to give me a call. I mentioned to Michelle that some times Metal Detectors are unable to detect small stud earrings. This has happened to me in the past. But because Michelle had her other ear ring, we could test it out. I brought both my metal detectors along just in case. As is turned out, the studs we’re too small for the metal detectors to recognise. Also, there we’re over hanging power lines where the earring had dropped which wasn’t helping the situation. I remembered a conversation I have had with my good friend Chris Turner from Vancouver. He mentioned a similar problem…his metal detectors we’re unable to pickup a signal on a small stud ear ring, so he ended up getting down on his hands and knees, and scraped the surface area with a screw driver. After scraping the area, he heard the ping of metal against metal…and that was how he found the ear ring. I decided to test this method…but unfortunately due to the thickness of the buffalo grass, this method did not seem to work. Since I had already driven out to Bexley (south of Sydney), I mentioned to Michelle I would search through the grass for a while just using my eyes and hands. About 10 minutes of searching the grass…I spotted the stud end of Michelle’s earring. I pulled it out from the grass roots, and there it was…that shining Diamond. I handed the diamond stud to Michelle, who was now a very VERY happy lady. After many hugs and kisses, Michelle handed me a generous reward. Lady luck was on my side for this job

March 19th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

This is actually part 2 to an earlier story I have already posted. To summarise things, Anne called me a few weeks ago after losing her Silver Ring while working in the garden. I was booked to come out the following day. The next morning I received another call from Ann to let me know she had found her ring in the garbage bags she was filling with garden junk. As a kind gesture, Ann sent me a letter in the mail with some money. I did not have Ann’s phone number, so I was unable to call her and thank her for the kind gift. But I did have Ann’s home address, so I sent her a letter thanking her. I also remembered a part of our initial phone conversation. Ann mentioned she lost a gold ring in the same garden over 30 years ago. I wrote to Ann and asked her if I could search for the lost ring, free of charge. A few days later, I received a phone call from Ann giving me permission to search for the lost gold ring. The ring had actually been given to Ann by her grandmother. I knew it was a long shot, but it would be an honour to search for an old ring for such a kind lady. Unfortunately, this story does not have a fairytale ending. I was unable to find Ann’s lost ring. Her gardens we’re very dense, which made things difficult. But after 30 plus years, we we’re not expecting too much. After about an hour and a half of searching, Ann took me to a local cafe for a cold drink. It is always a pleasure to meet such a kind lady. As my good friend Chris Turner from Canada says, ” I LOVE MY JOB!”