New Hampshire
The necklace went to the beach with you and did not come home
Hampton Beach, the Rye state beaches, Winnipesaukee, Newfound, Sunapee, the Saco valley and the north country
Hampton Beach State Park has ocean-front facilities along miles of sandy beach, and a family day there covers more ground than anyone remembers. You swim, you shift the chairs into the shade, you walk up for food and back. By the time you are at the car and the chain is not on her, nobody can say which part of the day it came off in.
Ring Seekers is a lost ring and jewelry recovery service that connects people who lost a ring, wedding band, watch, keys or phone in New Hampshire with a metal detectorist who can search there. Tell us what happened and where. We find a detectorist who can reach the place, brief them with your map and photos, and tell you honestly if the odds are poor.
It is the same for engagement rings and wedding bands, a lost necklace, bracelet or chain, Oura rings and Apple Watches, phones, keys and key fobs, metal-framed glasses and hearing aids.
Narrow it down while you are still standing there
Stand on the patch of sand your towels were on and take two photographs, one facing the water and one facing back toward the road, with something in each frame that will still be there tomorrow, a bathhouse or a lifeguard stand. Drop a pin while standing on it and write down the time. Then look back through the pictures from earlier: one with the chain still on her fixes the hour it was last accounted for.
Send it to us on WhatsApp with a photo of the piece. Looking up metal detecting New Hampshire and ringing round yourself is the part we take off you.
Areas and towns we cover in New Hampshire
- Hampton Beach
- North Hampton State Beach
- Jenness State Beach, Rye
- Wallis Sands State Park, Rye
- Lake Winnipesaukee
- Weirs Beach, Laconia
- Ellacoya State Park, Gilford
- Newfound Lake and Wellington State Park
- Lake Sunapee and Mount Sunapee
- Echo Lake State Park, North Conway
- Cathedral Ledge and the Saco River valley
- Diana's Baths, North Conway
- Lower Falls on the Kancamagus Highway
- White Mountain National Forest and its wilderness trails
- Moose Brook State Park, Gorham
- Umbagog Lake and Errol
- Manchester, Nashua and Concord
Where in New Hampshire it happened
Not everything is listed below. Send the name of the place anyway.
Hampton Beach is long enough that the entrance matters
Hampton Beach State Park strings its ocean-front facilities along miles of sandy beach, with swimming, fishing and a campground for RVs. On sand that long we start with the entrance you used and what you could see from your chairs. There is more than one bathhouse, so naming the nearest one cuts the job down. North Hampton State Beach sits on the same coast.
What Wallis Sands gives you to aim at
Wallis Sands State Park in Rye has ocean-front swimming with the Isles of Shoals in view, a large bathhouse with rinse stations and a grassy picnic area, all useful in a photograph. A ring that slides off while somebody dries a child down is a different job from one lost in the surf. Jenness State Beach is in Rye as well.
Ellacoya looks across Winnipesaukee to the mountains
Ellacoya State Park sits in Gilford on the southwest shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, its sandy beach looking across the water to the Sandwich and Ossipee mountains. Weirs Beach in Laconia is on the same lake. Dry sand at Ellacoya and chest-deep water off Weirs Beach are two different pieces of work, and we ask different things about each.
Two lakes with a state beach on them
Wellington State Park has a freshwater swimming beach on Newfound Lake, with picnic areas and a nature trail along the peninsula, looking at Cliff and Belle Islands. A Fish and Game boat launch adjoins it and kayaks are rented at the store. Mount Sunapee State Park Beach on Lake Sunapee is sandy with clear water, and the same park has alpine skiing in winter.
Echo Lake is a small search and the Saco is not
Echo Lake State Park at North Conway is somewhere to swim and picnic, with trails starting in the park, one round the lake and others climbing to Cathedral Ledge State Park, which looks over the Saco River valley. A lake beach is a patch you can draw a boundary round and moving water is not, so on the Saco we want the hour as well as the bank. Something light may not stay where it went in.
Swimming holes in the White Mountain National Forest
Lower Falls, the most popular stop on the Kancamagus Highway, is where the Swift River drops over smooth granite into a large pool, and people swim, picnic and sunbathe on the rocks. Diana's Baths, off West Side Road in North Conway, is a run of pools and cascades on Lucy Brook, about three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) along the Moat Mountain Trail. Farther in, the wilderness areas such as the Pemigewasset are reached on foot, so give us the trail and the last junction or campsite.
The north country and everywhere this page has not named
Moose Brook State Park is in Gorham, in the White Mountains Region just north of the Presidential Range, with trails, fishing on the Peabody and Moose rivers and a swimming area fed by cool mountain water. Umbagog Lake State Park at Errol has a beach, a boat launch, canoe and kayak rentals, and remote campsites reached only by boat, so a site number helps. Manchester, Nashua and Concord are taken the same way, whether it is a lawn, a park or a parking lot.
The part that happens at our end
One thread from the beach to the search
You write to Bartek on WhatsApp, and he finds the detectorist and writes back himself.
A briefing, not a guess
Your pin, your photographs, the hour and the picture of the piece are handed over as they came in. The detectorist arrives knowing what you know.
When we think the odds are against you
If the spot is a guess, or the piece is small and the ground wide open, we say so. It may be a long shot, and you would hear that from us first.
The questions change with where you were standing
On the seacoast we want the tide and something solid on the sand to line your photographs against. At a lake beach it is the name and how deep you went.
Nobody sets off before you have agreed the cost
We explain the costs before any search is booked.
What moves and what stays put in New Hampshire
Why the hour counts on the seacoast
The mean range of tide at Fort Point, the NOAA gauge on the New Hampshire seacoast, is about 8 and a half feet (2.6 metres). That is a lot of water crossing the sand between one high and the next, so when you were there counts as much as where.
Still water and a beach you can walk back to
Winnipesaukee, Newfound, Sunapee and Umbagog have no tide, and a state park swimming area is a defined patch of shore. A lost ring at a lake beach can be drawn round, as long as you can point to where you stood. Past chest height it needs a detectorist with water gear, so tell us how far out you went.
Two kinds of cold
The sea along this coast stays cold long into the summer, and so does the swimming area at Moose Brook. In winter snow covers the ground at Mount Sunapee and around North Conway.
Necklaces, wedding bands, keys and a phone in the Saco
My daughter's necklace was gone when we packed up at Hampton Beach. We moved our chairs twice. Is that hopeless?
No, but it has to be narrowed. Work out the last moment you are sure the chain was on her, then mark both spots you sat and the line you walked to the water. Photos from the day settle that better than memory does.
My husband's wedding band came off in the waves at Jenness while he was bodysurfing. Is the surf too much to search?
No. It comes down to whether you can put a line on where he went in. Stand where he walked into the water, photograph it with the bathhouse in frame, and say how deep he was. The hour counts too, because the water has to be low enough to work in.
I lost my car keys at Weirs Beach in Laconia and the spare is three hours away. What now?
Photograph the patch of sand you were on before the light goes, with something fixed behind it, and drop a pin while standing on it. Then message us the time you last had them.
My phone went into the Saco River near North Conway. Any point looking?
There is, if you can place it within a few metres, about ten feet. Go back to the bank you stood on and photograph the water with the far side in frame. On a river the spot counts for more than anything else.
My ring came off inside my glove while I cleared snow off the car in Gorham. It is in the pile somewhere. Where does that leave us?
Leave the pile alone. Photograph it from two sides with the car in frame, and say whether the ground under it is gravel, grass or tarmac, because that changes how a detectorist works the spot.
My daughter lost her bracelet on the dry sand at Mount Sunapee an hour ago and my phone is full of metal detector rental near me. Should I?
Go and do it, if you can be back within the hour. A rented machine earns its keep on dry sand or a lawn when the loss is fresh and you know the patch. It gets harder once the sand is wet, the piece is in the water, or the item is a thin chain. Write to us at that point instead.
My engagement ring came off in the shallows at Wellington State Park on Newfound Lake. Who searches a lake?
A detectorist with water gear does. Give us the part of the beach you were in front of and how far out you waded. A photo taken from the water looking back shows where you really were.
My watch came off by our campsite at Umbagog Lake last summer and we are only asking now. Too late?
Not automatically. A campsite is a small fixed place you can point to, and that is the part that matters. Send the site number and which way you faced.
New Hampshire
One message is enough to start
Give us the place, and we will ask for the rest.
A first message does not need to be long. The beach or the lake by name, the day, a dropped pin and a photo of what is missing, whether that is a lost ring, a chain, a watch or the car keys. We write back with what else to photograph.