<p><strong>Many thanks to White's for helping me find a family heirloom wedding band this past week.</strong></p> [split] <p>My family owns property near Asheville, NC that has been in my family since before the Civil War. The property has been leased to a zip line company, which is open throughout the summer and fall months. This past fall, a woman who had come up from Atlanta lost her wedding band somewhere along the course. I was talking to the staff a few weeks ago, and they mentioned that a wedding band had been lost and that the woman was heartbroken. I told them I had a White's medal detector and to get me the person's name and phone number. After speaking with her, I had a very general idea of where to look (the property is a 240 acre wooded tract). Honestly, I thought it was VERY unlikely that I would ever find it, but I promised her I would try my best.</p> <p>It turns out the wedding band was a family heirloom. It had originally been given by her husband's grandfather to his wife in 1890 in what is now known as the Czech Republic. When the Nazi's began their rise to power and eventually occupied the area, the grandfather and grandmother were forced to escape and eventually ended up in the United States. Only three items survived the journey- one of them being the grandmother's wedding band. Needless to say, everyone was distraught with the loss.</p> <p>The first weekend I tried, I searched for about 2 hours and found nothing. A month later (and last week), the weather was pretty good so I went back to the property to look again. After piecing together her story and after comparing notes with the zip line staff, I re-focused my hunt to the middle of the course, where there is a repeal platform and water station. She had said that at some point she remembered removing her gloves to get water. I searched around the repeal station and water cooler and found nothing. I then searched down and along the trail about 100 yards to the next zip line platform, which I thought was a fairly unlikely location for the ring. I was ready to quit but thought, "Oh well, I'm outside my search zone but I’ll check around the base of the platform since I'm here." Low and behold, I got a VDI hit of +35 at the front of the platform. I put the detector down and swept below the leaves with my White's pinpointer. It sounded loudly!!!! Peeling back the leaves, there was a gold ring partially buried in the dirt.</p> <p>I immediately placed a phone call to Atlanta and got confirmation of the inscription inside the ring. The initials "LP", which was the grandmother's initials, with the date of 10/19/90.... That’s 1890, NOT 1990. (See photos. My orange coat sits on the spot of the find). It was a remarkable find that I will always remember. Now I, along with my White's V3i, are a part of the family heirloom story.</p>