It was just a little beach, not a very busy one at all, but I was keen to spend a couple of days detecting while we were having a short break in the caravan. After sweeping along the sand for a while, I decided to head up one of the beach access paths.
Soon I approached within 'squealing' distance of the chains which were under the sand holding the timber boards together, and on the right hand side was an old wire fence which my detector (X-TERRA 70) also picked up. HOWEVER, there seemed to be an extra signal under the fence, so I persevered and started digging.
The signal was consistent so I kept going, and at a depth of about 10 inches saw some gold coloured jewellery, which had tree roots growing right through the middle of a chain.
Initially, I thought it was just a collection of cheap Sunday market jewellery, as the sand sticking to it made it hard to see properly, but when my wife and I had a good look, it was something else again. A wash with detergent and water revealed the real thing, obviously an engagement ring, wedding ring, eternity ring, and 'grandma's' ring, with plenty of baggot diamonds, and some sapphires, all wrapped around a gold chain, which had its own diamond as well.
We both immediately felt the enormous distress which the owner of this valuable collection must have felt when the jewels were lost, and we resolved to do what we could to find the owner if at all possible. Having no engraving markings made the task difficult, but we handed the lot in to the police station thinking that at least we would have tried.
It was a real surprise when the police rang about 10 days later saying that the owner had been located. They had placed a small paragraph in the local paper saying that some jewellery had been found on the beach, and were looking for the owner.
A local shopkeeper's wife remembered a lady 20 YEARS BEFORE being very distressed about losing her jewellery. Unbelievably, the shopkeeper still had a phone number from that earlier time (a silent number as it turned out), rang the number, the lady answered, and the rest is history, as she was able to identify the jewels, and claim them from the police. We were able to meet up with her, and she was overjoyed, as we were, for being able to regain her precious possessions. She said that not a day went by over the previous 20 years when she didn't think of her missing jewellery.
It was an outstanding find with a happy ending, but has been hard to beat since!
Pete - NSW, Australia
