Twenty years ago Evelien from Tilburg lost her gold ring. He flew out the window of the flat where she then lived and ended up meters lower outside in the grass. The ring was never recovered. Until Friday Wim and Ton made one last attempt with their metal detector.
It is a so-called cold case: twenty years later still searching for a lost ring. But Wim and Ton of the Found Verloren foundation wanted to give it a try with their metal detectors.
The chance that a ring will still be raised above the ground after twenty years does not seem very great. “We sometimes find older stuff, but that is usually by accident,” says Wim. In the case of the ring, there was little chance that it would still be there. “In those twenty years, a mower has of course gone over it. Or maybe the ground had been worked on.”
Wim and Ton got to work anyway. And the first good news came quickly, says Wim. “I found a quarter from 1849. Then I knew: this is very old ground.” And more emerged. A lead plate, a watch, silver foil, “that kind of junk”, Wim says.
But suddenly it happened. “Ton was working on his third job back and suddenly I hear him say: I have it!” The entire search took twenty minutes in all, he says. “Then you just look at each other in disbelief.”
Evelien was equally surprised when the two men approached with her lost ring. “She was completely stunned, completely taken aback. She even doubted whether it was the right ring.” Wim sees this more often in people who have lost something for so long. “Some people just can’t believe it.” But Evelien’s husband could confirm: this was indeed the ring that had been lost twenty years ago.
The day was almost as good for Ton and Wim. “The moment you find him is so wonderful,” Wim says. “People react so differently. That’s wonderful. And vice versa: if we don’t find it, then we are just as disappointed.”