The story started about 3 years ago when I was asked by a lady if I would try and locate a lost class ring. She continued to add the ring had been lost by her husband’s sister while trimming the grass in a local cemetery. Being a little reluctant, I declined. Then recently we were visiting the couple and she asked the same question again. My first concern was digging in a cemetery and getting into a confrontation with the locals about detecting around graves. She was very adamant when she stated it was a private burial ground and the curators (her family) had final say as to any activity on the property. That being said I agreed to give it a try.
The following Sunday I met her at the location to discuss the ring. The property looked to be about an acre in size and had many old tombstones dated back to the late 1800’s. To be honest, at that point I was thinking, what have you gotten yourself into this time? The lady left and I powered on my Equinox, did a noise cancel and started the long journey around the fence line of the cemetery. Right from the start I knew I had a problem.
Getting within a foot of the fence the detector would sound off and give an ID of 13. At the time I was thinking the last class ring I found also gave an ID of 13 and not having the smaller coil I decided to reduce the sensitivity to allow a little closer swing to the fence. I was amazed at the depth capabilities of the Equinox even at a sensitivity setting of 15 and the amount of metal trash that was in this old cemetery. After an hour I had found nothing but an apron full of trash, nothing modern but older metal items. Almost giving it up for the day I decided to hunt around a few closely placed tombstones in the lower end of the lot and got a solid ID of 21. Pinpointed and down about 4” came this beautiful class ring.
It was a 10K, 1960 class ring with a red stone. Cleaning the ring up a bit I noticed the initials and knew it was the lost ring I was hunting. Returning to the truck, my wife and I decided to make the trip to the lady’s house and give her the ring. She was overjoyed to receive her sister-in-law’s ring that had been lost for many years. Later the same day she returned the ring to her sister-in-law’s son. It was a very emotional moment. He said it was like getting a piece of his mother back.
Mark Gillespie - Virginia, USA