Recoveries

Recovered & Returned

Real finds and recovered items shared by detectorists across the directory — lost rings, jewellery, heirlooms and treasures brought back to the surface.

Showing finds by Wellington Metal Detective · see all recoveries

1911 gold and sapphire

1911 gold and sapphire

😉 wouldn’t you like to know. · 2025

In an area I’ve been to hundreds of times. And at least 15 other detectorists have also been to. And literally walked over many times. Myself included, this spot about 3m x 3m produced a lot of old silver coins over the years, at depths you wouldn’t believe, each target took over 10mins to dig out they were that deep. My 15inch coil has a huge advantage on depth. Deeper than any other metal detector it seems for everyone else to miss. I changed one setting on my metal detector. And it lit up all these new targets after I had thought the spot was cleaned out . Over a couple weeks I dug up 13 Gold rings. Worth $10k all 18ct. Plus 30 silver coins. All dated late 1800s to early 1900s this was a great honey hole. This sapphire ring was my favourite from the 13, that I found in this honey hole.

1913 Gold pendant

1913 Gold pendant

2022

Possibly the best find I’ve ever found. 9ct Gold, engraved on the back it says. To Bella one of three waitresses who waited on 630 people in 5.5 hours on Sunday 20th April 1913 I was in a park. Nothing really much exciting was found, lots of bottle caps and ring pulls, the occasional silver coin. This rung up like a bottle cap. Also I don’t know why I dug it up, and was surprised when I did. I intially didn’t think it was gold as I’ve never seen one before. I’ve seen similar in silver but not gold. It wasn’t until I got home and cleaned it that I realised it was solid gold. I did a lot of research trying to find who Bella was. What the event was with not much luck, I did find out the jeweller who made this was called Frank Grady, he also made the gold key to Wellington city,

1916 half Sovereign

1916 half Sovereign

In park in Wellington · 2022

I found a area no one else had discovered, loaded with silver coins but very trashy, I got a ring pull signal and almost didn’t dig it , I don’t know why I did dig it but was pleasantly surprised to see this pop out of the hole