On the 5th January 2013 David received an email from two of the club members: Jeremy Knibbs and Svetlana Bykova. They had a little fun story with a few photos attached for his information.
The couple were contacted by a friend, Liz, who runs Plank's Farm Shop (Lydeway nr. Devizes. Wiltshire) and who knows they have an interest in metal detecting. She had been unpacking and moving a large number of Christmas trees in one of the farm's storage barns, when she realised that one of her earrings was no longer in her ear. Unfortunately, they weren't Christmas cracker-quality but were in fact diamond earrings from Tiffany – a wedding present from her husband.
Svetlana and Jeremy arranged to pay a visit. They knew that Liz had a pretty good idea where the earring was likely to be, so were feeling pretty confident. They just took Svetlana's Minelab E-TRAC but no tools, as they didn't foresee any digging.
Liz had told them that it was most likely caught in some of the white netting which is used to wrap the trees; she'd kept the netting, so it shouldn't be too difficult so spot the earring. Or so they thought...
They arrived early afternoon on 4th January and were shown to the barn which had a loose stone floor rather than the concrete which they'd anticipated. They thought Liz had a pretty good idea of the location of the missing item, but in reality this just meant 'somewhere in the barn'.
Inevitably, the barn floor was littered with nails and many small bits of random metal including little pieces of tinfoil which looked just like diamonds! The netting was tangled and mixed with bits of Christmas tree, but under torchlight appeared to look like... diamonds!!! Although they could open the barn door widely there was no other artificial lighting, so after 90 minutes or so they decided to call it a day and come back the following morning for another go. They asked Liz to bring her remaining earring, so they could tune the E-TRAC to its profile.
Day 2. This time they were better prepared with Svetlana's E-TRAC and Jeremy with his Laser Hawkeye, gloves, trowels, etc. This time they knew what they were up against.
The earring Liz showed them was beautiful - a chunky diamond, but unfortunately only a very small amount of metal in the mount. To Jeremy’s poor old Hawkeye it was virtually invisible and even with the E-TRAC they knew is wasn't going to be easy to find with such a weak signal.
Jeremy decided to concentrate on the massive pile of netting, and began patiently to run each piece through his fingers, looking for anything which had that 'Tiffany feel' about it. Meanwhile, Svetlana persevered with her E-TRAC, scanning the remaining earring with a couple of different detector heads so she knew exactly what she was looking for.
Jeremy was feeling pretty confident that I'd find the earring in the netting, since it was likely that it had been snagged while the trees were being unwrapped. It was like a massive spider's web, and surely nothing could escape once trapped by it...
After an hour or so, Svetlana and her E-TRAC were triumphant; against the odds, the earring was found amongst the muddy, chunky stone chippings of the floor, completely undamaged. A triumph in the face of incredible adversity!
Liz was absolutely thrilled, of course; she'd found the little spring clasp the day before, so was able to reunite the two pieces and vowed never to wear them to work again.
They've been told to expect a bottle Champagne as a 'thank-you', but the pleasure in finding the treasured item was sufficient reward in itself.
All the best David, see you soon, Jerry & Svetlana
David Rees is the Chairman of Trowbridge District Metal Detecting Club, and the club web site is at:- www.trowbridgemdc.co.uk
Trowbridge Metal Detecting Club offers a free search facility to members of the public and last year a number of items of lost jewellery and keys were recovered. This helps to spread good words about the hobby.
