March 10th, 2010 by Brad Lovell

Last week I got a call from Alex who lost his platinum wedding band in his backyard at Greenwich (a suburb close to St Leonards on Sydney’s lower North Shore). Alex was hanging a tarp on the clothes line when he felt the ring slip off his finger. After many hours of searching for the lost wedding ring, Alex decided to call for my services. I figured this should be a 5 minute job, but as it turns out I would be very wrong. The moment I turned on my metal detector, the thing went crazy. I couldn’t work out why? I was looking around for power lines, and figured their could be underground power cables. After tuning the detector so it was somewhat usable, I finally worked out why it was spluttering. Not far away was a 170 meter tall television transmission tower. This was playing havoc with my equipment. I searched the area for about 3 hours with no success. Greenwich is only a 5 minute drive from my house, so I mentioned to Alex I would come back the following day. Next day I arrived and began the search again. We figured the ring had fallen into the leaves of some small trees near Alex’s clothes line. I had spent the previous day shaking the trees, and trying to swipe the detector through the leaves for a signal. That night Alex also tried searching the trees with a torch, looking for any reflection from the platinum ring. By the time I reached the tree line, I received a signal on the ground. After investigating the signal, there is was. Alex’s elusive platinum wedding ring! It was definitely not in that spot the previous day… perhaps the ring dropped from the leaves after Alex’s search the previous night? Anyway, I called Alex with the good news, his lost platinum wedding ring was no longer lost

March 2nd, 2010 by Brad Lovell

Alex had this misfortune of dropping his wedding ring on the decking of the Manly Yacht Club. Somehow by sheer chance, the wedding ring managed to fall down a small crack between the wood decking, and into the water below. Alex mentioned that at the time the ring dropped, it was high tide and about 5 ft deep. I met Alex at low tide, and he showed me exactly where the ring had dropped through the crack. I figured this would be an easy 5 minute job, but as it turns out I would be very wrong. The area where Alex’s wedding ring had dropped, just happened to be an underwater junk yard! There was so much metal in area the ring dropped that trying to use the metal detector become frustrating. My only option was to start digging every signal, even signals I knew we’re not platinum. I just needed to get this junk metal out of the way. After close to two hours of digging I was exhausted. I had removed a huge amount of metal, but none of this metal happened to be the precious metal Platinum. Being frustrated, and knowing the ring had to be close by, I mentioned to Alex I would attempt a second search free of charge. This time I came with more man power, Tony from Jewellery Rescue. Both myself and Tony spend another 2 hours digging without any luck. If any other metal detector guys happen to find a Platinum wedding ring under the Manly Yacht Club, please contact me. Alex is happy to pay a reward.

January 6th, 2010 by Brad Lovell

Has anyone found a set of car keys at Narrabeen Beach? I spent a couple of hours in late Decemeber searching for a set of keys, which included key/remote for the car, key ring with garage door controller too. These are a large bunch of keys, so someone has most likely spotted them sitting in the sand and picked them up. If anyone does manage to find them, please contact me so I can put you in contact with the owner.

July 19th, 2009 by Brad Lovell

I have not had much luck with my last couple of recovery attempts, which is not a great thing for my confidence. I am stubborn, and really hate to give up hope on a search…I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but it does make me feel defeated. But unfortunately, failure is often the nature of the service I provide. A couple of weeks ago a gentleman by the name of Damian lost his wedding ring in the Nepean River, near Penrith west of Sydney. This was the first time Damian’s wedding ring had ever slipped off his finger, and in this particular instance he happened to be standing on a jetty with the Nepean River below. Damian watched as his wedding ring dropped in the water, and his brother-in-law jumped straight in and began searching for the ring. After a quick phone call to his Wife, Damian had his wetsuit and joined in on the search. There we’re two major problems Damian and his brother-in-law encountered. One, the water was freezing cold. In fact we measured the water temperature at 12.5 degrees. The other problem was the bottom of the river was full of weeds. So visibility was virtually zero. After removing some weeds and searching, Damian and his brother-in-law gave up. Damian found my services on the Internet and decided to give me a call. The following Saturday myself and diving friend Matt headed west to the Nepean River. Matt geared up, and began searching the bottom of the Nepean for Damian’s Ring. After a bone chilling hour plus search, Matt was cold and exhausted. He found many items below, but unfortunately no gold/diamond wedding ring. I could tell Damian was disappointed, yet appreciative of Matt’s efforts at the same time. We we’re not about to give up on Damian yet. I really wanted to join in the underwater search myself…and after a call to Matt’s diving partner Alan, I had the thumbs up to borrow his diving equipment. On Sunday we we’re back at the Nepean river..this time both geared up ready to search. Damian had also meshed up some baskets so we could pull out the weeds to make our search easier. After clearing some weeds, Matt and I we’re both underwater, hunting for Damian’s elusive wedding ring. Visibility was horrible, to the point I could not see my hand infront of me. We we’re basically working blind, operating purely on sound from the under water metal detector..and the vibrations of our pinpointers. After about an hour plus of searching and removing copious amounts of rubbish, I finally had Damian’s large gold wedding ring in my hand. The search was finally over, and Damian was a VERY happy man. I want to thank Damian for being patient with the search process, and helping out where ever he could. And of course, thank you kindly for a generous reward. I also want to thank Matt, without your help I would never have been able recovered the ring. And also a special thank you to Alan for lending me your diving equipment. It is very much appreciated!

March 1st, 2009 by Brad Lovell

Hal's Stunning White Gold Ring

I was driving passed Coogee beach just after finding Stewarts Wedding Band at Maroubra Beach when I received a phonecall. The call was from a lady who’s friend had lost his Ring in the sand at Coogee Beach. After dropping off Stewart at Bondi, I drove back down to Coogee Beach to see if I could find this ring. I was introduced to Hao, who was the gentlemen who lost his beautiful white gold ring. Hao was obviously devistated that he had lost something of such importance to him. There was little daylight left, so I got straight to work. Hao explained to me that he flicked his hand down as he went to pickup a bag, so he was pretty sure the approximate location of the ring. When I arrived I noticed a crowd of people who had been helping search for the ring, including one guy with a metal detector. Unfortunately, the metal detector only found a couple of bottle caps, and not Hao’s ring. There we’re also some really big holes and sand mounds which made me a little nervous. Anyway, I made my usual perimeter, adding a large buffer zone from the point where the Ring was lost. This confused Hao, but he would soon find out why I did that. After doing a north-south search of an area which should have well and truly covered the area of the lost ring, no ring was found. It was time to complete the grid pattern in an east-west direction. I also increased the AC Power setting on the metal detector to reach deeper signals.

This made the detector a little bit unstable, but I was afraid Hao’s Ring had been buried deeper due to digging. About 10 minutes after starting my east-west sweep of the area, I received a faint signal. As always, when looking for someones lost item, I will dig every single signal..even when I know it is just a bottle cap, or foil. I began digging for the faint signal, which become louder once I removed a few layers of sand. A little more digging, and there it was. Hao’s stunning White Gold Diamond ring. It wasn’t in the same spot that Hao thought he lost it, but this seems to be very common. The look on Hao’s face when I handed him the ring is the reason I love my job so much! The look of dispair turned into happiness within a split second. And Hao gave me one of the firmest hand shakes I have had in a while Hao was incredibly greatful for the work I had put in to recovering his lost ring, and handed me a very generous reward. Hao, it was a pleasure to meet you, and an honour to return such a beautiful ring to its rightful owner. And thank you for sending me some photos of the ring. The photo on my iPhone did not do it the justice it deserves.