Posted: under Jewellery Rescue Australia, Sydney Rescue's, Sydney Southern Beaches.
Tags: gold ring, google map, hire, Maroubra, metal detector, ring, treasure, treasure map
It was 4.30 pm on Maroubra Beach after a detector hire near the Rubicks cube north end of the beach where I failed to help find Mr Lee’s car keys even after much searching and fruitless digging metal detector search. I had a sheen of perspiration on my forehead from the last job and the bitter taste of failure even though I shouldn’t beat myself up as some jobs can be mission impossible before they start. Not that we are ever to know that before we start a search. To take debatable positive action I took a beach found gold coin and threw it out to sea for luck. Not that I am superstitious. Well it cant hurt right? Unless you happen to be swimming along and a coin hits you in the back of the head out of the blue. Just kidding – I was aiming out to sea. Then it was back to business once again. In my hand I had Mr Stephane’s excellent treasure map of where he and his family had visited the beach and unintentionally lost his wedding band. The prefect treasure map was a satellite image of the beach copied from google maps and pasted into a basic Windows picture editor like Paint (in windows xp) there was added red rectangles precisely locating the search area to within 5 meters.
- The perfect Treasure map
Marking the physical search area from the treasure map I began grid searching. Within 10 minutes searching I heard the familiar beep a cry for rescue from someone’s gold ring found precisely in the search area. This ring wasn’t ”some one’s” as it had the names of Mr Stephane and his wife, name neatly engraved on the inside band. The outside of the ring had a lovely unique pattern, so interesting seeing all the different designs. After admiring the ring I zipped it into a secure pouch so it wouldn’t be dropped and lost again. Ring secured, I texted Stephane the good news, but before I could put the phone in my pocket a well spoken gentlman called out my name from the nearby beach access path. Wonder how he knew it was me? No doubt the metal detector in hand tipped him off. I asked him if he read the text message I just sent? He said no, as I handed him his wedding band. “No way! you found it already? Thank you, and my wife thanks you. I told him how I threw some coins in the ocean for luck and luck was given. As there were ominous signs beach sweeper tracks over this part of the beach as well. Stephane gave me some great advice for my web site which I thank him for as well as the very generous reward for the swift safe return of his ring. I don’t think you could meet a nicer person with a little old world charm in a young face.
Aug 29 2009
Posted: under Jewellery Rescue Australia, Sydney Rescue's, Sydney Southern Beaches.
Tags: beach, hire, Maroubra
The afternoon started at 12.30pm when I was on my way to search for Mr Stephane’s wedding band which slipped off his finger while enjoying a beach visit at the lovely Maroubra Beach. I arranged to meet Stephane later that day. As luck and good friends would have it, Brad - another skilled metal detector from www.metaldetectorhire.com.au phoned to ask if I was available to cover a metal detecting job for him. (Brad and I work well together to put customers needs ahead of our own. ) Brad told me of Mr Lee’s story – how the night before he coincidentally lost his hire car key on the same beach as Mr Stephane’s while he was travelling from Melbourne to Brisbane stopping in Sydney to visit friends.
Beach eats hire car key.
I meet Mr Lee on the north end of the beach next to the giant rubics cube sculpture. I also noted while crossing the beach the tell tale tracks of the beach sweeping machine from earlier that morning and started to become worried. Mr Lee told me if the key wasn’t found he would be stranded in Sydney for at least two more days in a motel waiting for a spare set of car keys to be posted up to Sydney to enable him to continue his journey. Mr Lee also said he had to call the NMRA out to unlock the car to get kids clothes out for the night. This was disastrous news to my mind and made me very determined to break this run of bad luck for this family and to find those lost keys. I had car trouble travelling in New Zealand so I know what it is like having rental car troubles. Ours was broken into with a smashed window we had to wait for the window to be replaced. But sometimes the hardest work and best intentions can’t cancel stop the run of bad luck. I searched hard in vain digging every metal target and there was lots of metal rubbish for three and a half hours. The search covered all the area the family had walked over and played on. The keys had to be there… or were they? Mr Lees ‘s Sydney friend had joined us on dusk and we all basically reached the same conclusion. We where starting to think, that the key had indeed been swept up and taken away to a rubbish tip as the key is large with a hire car tag and easy to be swept up in the machine. Mr Lee thanked me for my hard work and search efforts and paid me the a key search. I just hope Mr Lee had travellers insurance which covers these sort of out of pocket expenses while travelling. From here it was a 700 meter walk down the beach walk to my original search job finding the gold wedding band for Mr Stephane. I am not really a superstitious person but I threw a small hand full of coins I found on the beach into the ocean to try buy some good karma for the next job. Hope it works.
Tony Jewellery Rescue.
Aug 28 2009
Posted: under Jewellery Rescue Australia, Sydney Northern Beaches, Sydney Rescue's.
Tags: diamond, Grandmother, heirloom, hire, metal detector, metal detector hire, Narroweena, North shore, ring, treasure
Saved by a hire service. A miraculous metal detector hire true story at Narroweena in Sydneys Northern shore. The finding of Jan’s Grandmother’s, engagement diamond ring. It was 7.30 am I had been up early that morning searching local beaches for new treasures given up by the stormy ocean’s waves and currents but that’s another story. Jan’s story began when she was standing on the balcony overlooking their yard. She tossed a stick for their bouncing boxer dog but right at the point of release she felt and saw both the stick and diamond ring leave her hand and sail across the yard into a lovely garden of huge waist high birds nest ferns. They searched the garden intensively by hand and sight even over the fence at the neighbour’s yard as a remote possibility. The ring was an irreplaceable golden heirloom lovingly entwined with the family’s historical love stories. A new ring could never take its place.
- Diamond ring 2 Meters in the sky.
So the search began where Jan best thought she saw the ring hit the fronds of a particularly large birds nest fern. The search area wasn’t particularly big but moving the metal detector search coil through brush is a tricky task at times. I moved the metal detector around, inside and up the fronds of the huge ferns. As they are designed to catch leaaves why not rings I reasoned. But not this time. About 30 minutes into the search I had pretty much covered the ground twice and apart from the normal assortment of non gold metal items found, there was no sign of the Diamond ring. Standing in the middle of the garden looking back at the balcony I was thinking that there were a couple of trees in the possible rings flight path which had lovely ferns growing in the forks of the branches. Ferns were also tied on the sides of the trees. So on a hunch, I started waving my metal detector in the air up and down the trees over my head. The look on Dennis’s face watching my unexpected tree search was basically one of disbelief . lol 
At first the metal detector picked up the metal wire holding the ferns in place on the tree, but then at extreme range there was a second beep, this beep was a strong and very positive gold reading. I asked Dennis if he had a ladder, I think he found me the ladder just to humor me somewhat. So there I was waving the detector all around a tree Approx 2 meters above the ground. While waiting for the ladder, I targeted the gold signal somewhere in the fork of the tree. I swapped the metal detector for the pinpointer close work and ease of climbing the ladder to find the source of the signal. Now up the ladder looking down on the tree fern in the tree fork I didn’t need the pinpointer. There in plain sight, was the ring. Sitting sparkling in the sun nestled in the fern. Handing the engagement ring down to Dennis was a great feeling and hearing him call out to Jan “he found it” - ”Tony found it in the tree”. Jan who was on the balcony replied “what!! no! I dont believe it.” If I hadn’t been there I might not have believed it either. This is the sort of story parents will tell their children if they want them to grow up to be expert metal detectorists. The moral of this story is if you see me searching for your lost jewellery away from the “target area “ humour me as I will go the extra lengths to find your jewellery too. Dennis and Jan thank you for making me welcome in your home.
Aug 03 2009
Posted: under Jewellery Rescue Australia, Parramatta, Sydney Rescue's.
Tags: E Trac, garden, gold, hire, Irish, magic, metal detector, metal detector hire, reward, vegtable, wedding band
Ready for hire, Metal detector charged up always ready to go on a hire service. It was 11:30am on a cool winters morning, the phone rang I was talking to a good man ( names with-held privacy requested) that was telling me his tale of loss.
Magical Ring wanted to be found and reunited with its mate.
He was weekend gardening, spreading out a layer of sugar cane mulch on the garden for the spring time vegtables when he notice his wedding band was missing from his finger. It mischievously slipped off while working with the mulch and was hidden. They first searched by hand , then bought an inexpensive Chinese metal detector of unknown quality and used it with no success sadly. I think the message here is if your going to buy / hire get a good machine I recommend www.minersden.com.au if you want to DIY. I jumped into the car and meet with his wife at their house. She was clearly shaken and upset with the loss and recent unsuccessful search attempts. She showed me her matching wedding band they had specially crafted in Ireland. A beautiful pair of matching Celtic designed rings. I scanned her gold ring as good metal detectors can discriminate against all other metals and find only the matching gold signature of the target jewellery. So the metal detector hunt began. The lovely lady had no sooner sat down in a garden chair to watch my search progress ., two sweeps later with the E Trac detector and there was a perfect matching gold ring signal coming from under the mulch near a small tree trunk. Out with the pinpointer probe and the search was over in less than 2 minutes. From under the suger cane mulch emerged the matching wedding band mate. It was very clear I suggested to the surprised lady the magical Irish ring wanted to be found fast and returned to its mate with out delay. I am now wishing I took a photo of the two rings together as they where meant to be. I thank you very much for offering me an addiitonal reward on this job but in good conscience I couldn’t accept the money as the ring did all the work quickly.
Aug 02 2009
Posted: under E Trac Metal detector, Jewellery Rescue Australia, Sydney Rescue's.
Tags: car key, gardening, hire, jungle, metal detector, metal detector hire, student, ultimo
Hire Metal Detector hire service and the lost key jungle search started with a metal detector hire request for assistance from Else a university student in Ultimo who for close on 10 days had been searching in vain for her friend’s lost car keys dropped some time while gardening. She phoned as soon as she discovered my web page and metal detector search service. 
The garden on arrival was full of mature plants with a compost bin in the middle for organic waste. It was night time with rain showers, making the garden all the more dark and jungle like. I was prepared for the rain and the dark. I wasn’t to know it at first but this job was to be the amongst the most challenging metal detector jobs I have undertaken. When starting the search it soon became apparent overhead there where power lines above the bushes and underground there was a buried power cable with 12V AC for the front gate entery latch. On the near sides of the garden were concrete slabs with steel reinforcing mesh. This meant the E trac metal detector had to reject interference from two nearby power sources power and discriminate the large mass of steel in the concrete to pick up other metal signals. To many other detectors this would be game over, a no go search zone but with some advanced metal detector techniques this area was searchable. The metal detector was able to cancel all but the very close 12v ac power cable less than a meter from the search area. The machine was yet constantly warbling in a noisy manner due to the close 12v power under ground line yet luck would have it I was still able to pick out clear metal target noises. But the worst was yet to come. As Else was adding to the the compost bin heap it was strongly thought the key was lost in it. So the search began pulling out all metal items digging in and around a pungent compost heap steaming in the cold night air as it was disturbed. Digging through the mound was really bad now so you know why it was one of the worst jobs. lol All manner of metal rubbish was removed that didn’t belong in a compost heap. but no key was found. It was then Else mentioned she used some of the compost to fill 200mm deep hollows in the garden nearby so we turned the all metal search over them pulling out numerous metal bottle tops and metal bits. But in the end out popped her friends missing car key. After thoroughly washing myself and equipment I thanked Else for the base fee and the extra unasked for reward money for enduring the compost heap beyond the call of duty.
Aug 02 2009
Posted: under Jewellery Rescue Australia, Parramatta, Sydney Rescue's.
Tags: CSI, gold, hire, hired, metal detector, solid gold, wedding band, wedding ring
Wedding Band Rescued
Hire Jewellery Rescue with metal detector , Peter had all but given up on his wedding ring ever being found. Peter a plumber turned excellent landscaper wanted to wear a wedding band now he wasn’t in the plumbing trade. However while laying wood chip mulch he took his gardening gloves off during the day, losing his solid gold ring as well. Peter and his lovely understanding wife met me in the gardens Peter was working in. He pointed out all the aluminium and steel benches surrounding the garden in question and asked if they would be a hinderance to the metal detector. I replied my etrac metal detector would discriminate the aluminium and steel seats, however it wasn’t going to be easy as the metal detector would still respond to the mass of metal. So the hunt begins, Backing the power of the detector right off I was able to search closer to the the metal seats. The etrac was able to metal detect to with in 100mm of the seats finding a variety of metal bobby pins etc, I then turned to my pin pointer probe that beeps only in very close proximity to metal items. I used it to search underneath the seats in and around the steel legs pushing it through the wood chips. Still not finding Peters wedding band. Dusk turned to night we had to stop searching for that night no one wanted to give up the on the ring but we had to let it go. Peter and his wife didn’t expect to find it and paid me my base service fee. I said I would like to look for the ring for no extra cost on my own time on the weekend if they would have me back on the weekend. They agreed but didn’t get their hopes up too high, a wise precaution. My good friend Brad from www.metaldetectorehire.com.au and his diving friend offered to come over later in the day to assist in the search for the ring, we always want the best result for our customers and I looked forward to meeting up with him again. So on Saturday morning when I was fresh and full of renewed inspiration I started going CSI (crime scene investigation) in minute detail on this garden and surrounds. This time working the garden from a new direction as metal detectors can react differently to targets lying at different angles. Still pulling out every metal target in my path. An hour into the renewed search, a beep, a gold beep, the slightest hint of a gold reading being masked by surrounding metal influences. So I changed sweep angles again a stronger gold signal this time. Using the pin pointer to lightly sweep over the wood chips, into the sunlight flipped the solid gold band that was hidden beneath. A lovely and welcome sight. It was my great pleasure to call Peter and his wife who were on their way to shop for a replacement ring as it turns out, I gave them the good news. They meet me in minutes and were ecstatic as the ring was returned to its rightful place on Peter’s finger. I thank you both for allowing me to re-search the gardens. Thank you very much for the ample reward you gave me. A new ring just wouldn’t be the same as the one you took your vows with. I wish you both all the best in the future.
Jul 28 2009
