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How can I find a gold ring lost in my bedroom, kitchen, or living room? I've already read this question, but it seems that many of the answers given there wouldn't apply to a search inside. It was lost only yesterday, and I've managed to narrow down the prospective areas to just those three rooms.

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    Well it was eaten by snakes. Or a magpie stole it.
    – ott--
    Sep 8, 2016 at 20:59
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    honestly, if you have little kids tell them to find it. They think differently and may look where you didn't. Sep 13, 2016 at 19:35

8 Answers 8

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A gold ring is, in effect, a tuned circuit. Though a metal detector would find lumps of any type of metal, such as nails in the wall, a grid dip meter (GDM), used by electronics and radio amateurs, or "hams, could identify a closed loop of a good conductor such as gold alloy.

Calibrate the GDM by comparison with another ring of close to the same diameter, and then scan each room from floor to bureau-top. You'll need to be within 30 cm or so, so if the ring's under a bed, take off the mattress to check underneath.

4

Here are few methods to find the ring.

This might look a bit complicated but this method helped me to find few small objects on floor.

Keep a torch in your hand and place your head on the floor in such a way that one of your eyes will be just above floor ( your sight should be almost parallel to the floor ). Close your other eye which is far from floor.

Then, turn on the flash light and focus it towards where you are looking. Again, even the torch light should be almost parallel to floor to minimize the light on floor. This makes sure that ring will be kind of obstacle to light from torch. If you do it right, the light should fall only on the ring and not on floor.

Now, you can easily find the ring as the ring will be reflecting little light due to torch light falling on it.

The above method works well if done on low lit or dark areas (You can do it at night or by closing all curtains and doors to reduce light in the room, etc.).


If you can't find it on floor, and want to search on other places like bed, couch, etc., you can try vacuuming to suck up ring or blow air to make it fall on floor and then search on floor again. Off-course, you can do this first but I think quicker method must be done first and searching floor will be quicker than looking at other places.

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  • If using a vacuum cleaner, an appropriately-placed stocking may help avoid the mess of opening the vacuum cleaner once it picks up the ring.
    – Lawrence
    Sep 2, 2017 at 13:44
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Close the blinds & drapes, turn off all the electronics, wait until night, and use a very bright flashlight.

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+100

I think there is only one way that is pretty sure to work. One by one, empty each room of every object. You'll need an empty room or a large clear area to stage removed objects.

An alternative to this, though less reliable is to picture each room as a grid. Work methodically through the grid, lifting, opening, prying, whatever to clear that grid. This is what search parties do when looking for lost sailors, children, etc.

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  • what if the ring is in or on of one of the objects you remove?
    – miracle173
    Jun 4, 2017 at 0:59
  • @miracle173 Continue by recursion. Take each object, empty it systematically ... . :P
    – Lawrence
    Sep 2, 2017 at 13:36
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Try making it all dark in the house and using a flashlight/torch you can also ask around to see if anyone has seen it also so you don't have to go up to someone who thought they had a cute ring and say "hey that's my ring" get the word out fast and search everyday till you find it

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This may seem very silly but call for it. There have been studies that show calling for an inanimate object makes it easier to find.

Other than that do a fingertip search, work from one end of the search surface and then work in a methodical way. For cupboards and draws, once searched put a postit note on it so you can see what you have and havent searched.

Search everywhere, no matter how unlikely it is to be there. If you have searched every place it could be then it must be in a place it cant be.

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    [citation needed] :) Sep 19, 2016 at 0:56
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    Please provide links to those studies! Sep 19, 2016 at 11:18
  • I have not been able to find the study that i read about this in and i have spent over an hour looking. The effect is put down to you concentrating on the item more and therefore less likely to overlook it. I'm not a quack that thinks calling it effects it,i believe it effects you. Sep 28, 2016 at 9:27
  • 5
    When searching for the study, did you try calling for it? =P
    – Sidney
    Feb 24, 2017 at 15:32
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    psych.upenn.edu/~swingley/papers/lupyanSwingley_qjep11.pdf After all this time I've found it. It was mentioned in a scishow video which gives its sources. (Yes I did try calling for it) Aug 21, 2017 at 23:48
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I've been able to find lost things using a pendulum and an accurate handmade map of the location (divining). Not everyone can do this, but a surprisingly large number find they can.

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    at what scale should this map be and how accurate? should the pendulum have a pointy bottom or would a ball on a string work? Oct 14, 2016 at 15:56
  • It doesn't really matter - its more a mental thing. The pendulum/ball should start to rotate as you near the item over the map. Obviously a tiny map isn't going to make it easy. Its about channelling your mind; some people can do it, some can't. The sort of people who break computers by touching them tend to be good at it. Oct 18, 2016 at 8:02
  • If youre going to downvote me, it would be polite to say why? My method works for me and is widely enough documented to appear to work for other too. Jun 27, 2017 at 12:50
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Search everywhere but there no matter where you lost it! Its your own decision brave one! (sorry for dramatic consequences, just for fun) If it is outside or when you are at the door and checked your ring, its lost then, find only near your house

               (*don't go far elsewhere if it is lost long ago!*)

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