A farmer wife lost her wedding ring of 40 years in a paddock and didn't realise, Later the same day they run a plough or some sort of farming machinery over the paddock as they planted it out with grass seed so the ring was likely buried. They're pretty certain it was lost in this paddock so they asked if I could try find it knowing I’ve recently taken up metal detecting and had heard I found an old Gold Miners ring on a prospecting adventure when I went looking for Gold nuggets. The paddock was really junk filled, I went and swung my detector over it for a quick test to see what I was up against and there was iron and junk setting the detector off everywhere in all metal mode. I assume old tractor bits, nails from old fencing and fencing wire offcuts and all sorts of old farming junk. I was quite daunted being new to metal detecting. The paddock was about 3 hectares!!!!! Just over 7 acres so I really had a job ahead of me. I decided to run in Field 2 and notch out everything above 30 on the VDI numbers to try cut the levels of junk and other targets I was digging, I ended up digging quite a few bottle tops and pull tabs I assume from the farmer having drinks while driving around on his tractor and throwing them out the window but with the level of discrimination I wasn’t digging much junk at all considering in all metal the detector was finding something every few meters so I was very happy with how well the discrimination was working. It was saving me so much time and I was just leaving open the numbers I guessed the ring would fall into between 7 and 30. In hindsight I could have probably run between 14 and 22 but I hadn’t at that point seen the ring to know just how big and chunky it was. By lunch I’d had no success so after refuelling my starving body I walked back to the paddock and you wouldn’t believe it!!!! I found it!! right near the gate on the way into the paddock, In the morning I started at the far left of the paddock and was going to make my way left to right walking a line, when I got back from lunch I fired up the detector and was going to run it as I walked to the left side where I left off and was roaming along in the hope I’d find it on my way to save a bit of time, I got a hit right near the gate on my way in and it was a loud signal, a very stable 19 VDI in Field 2 mode and I was certain I had it, a quick dig and the gold was shining through! To say I was excited is an understatement. I promptly ran back to the farm house and showed them the ring, they were very happy people who thought it was lost forever. They couldn’t believe I could find a ring in a 7 acre paddock in a few hours. The EQUINOX was just running so stable and eliminated a stupid amount of junk, if I was walking the lines digging all the junk in this HUGE paddock I think I’d spend a good part of a month trying to find this ring. They tried to pay me for my efforts but the fun of doing it and finding the ring was more than enough payment for me. I just love my EQUINOX.
Simon - Southland, New Zealand
