First, I found this barber dime at the same site as the “Bizarre Hunt” entry from the other day.

8 inches down, iffy signal, but a typical E-Trac silver.

Anyway, regarding the class ring, also from the “Bizarre Hunt” entry, it was rather quite simple in this case — found the yearbook online, the initials were unique, and a little bit of googling and I knew the guy’s life story within 2 hours.  Prolly had enough info to take out a mortgage in his name.  The internet is scary.

I’ll admit I did two things.  I looked at his house online to see if it was old and detectable (it wasn’t), and I looked to see if he was a good person (he was, volunteering, supporting firefighters and police, which, at least to me anyway, seems good).  I just didn’t want a bad person, like if he was a rapist or something, I would not have returned the ring.  Does the detectorist ethic allow the finder to judge and decide if they want to return the ring? Yeah, at least if it is me.

So, it was really cool, looking at the pic in the high school yearbook from the mid 70s, and a modern pic, and talking to him and all that about the day he lost the ring about 40 years ago, which he remembered quite well, the circumstances of why he was there, his girlfriend at the time who was with him, how he lost the ring, where he thought he lost it and how he tried to find it, and all that stuff.  I could prolly write a pretty decent short story on the whole thing; I just don’t want to, cause its his life.

All I can say is that he was happy to get the ring back after 40ish years.  And no, I did not nail this one, but how could I?  I would have loved to, as it is a great story, (but his privacy trumps my ego).

Anyway, that is what makes metal detecting cool — people who don’t know what they are looking at think it is about the money, as if finding loose change is cool — no, its about puzzles and stories of the past.  A story, in this case, so few will ever know, but it is so cool to experience just the same.  The tapestry of normal people living normal lives, experienced thru a lost ring.