Reporting by Erin Udell, Fort Collins Coloradoan
After nearly a century of getting passed down through the family, it only took one second to lose the ring — and minutes for a Northern Colorado metal detectorist to save the day.
It was Sept. 6 — the second and final day of Andrew and Savanna Vasko’s wedding weekend in Fort Collins. The couple got married the day before and decided to celebrate the following afternoon with a family barbecue and dip in the Poudre River’s whitewater park.
Andrew Vasko had worn his new wedding ring — a gold band dating back to the 1930s and passed down from his new wife’s grandfather — for exactly two days. After one jump in the river, he realized it was gone.
“I was like, ‘You idiot. In front of both sides of the family?’” Andrew Vasko recalled saying to himself. “I was defeated.”
The newlyweds’ families sprang into action scouring the section where Andrew Vasko had jumped in. Even strangers started helping. A little girl offered up her goggles, and Savanna Vasko’s uncle ran out to buy extra pairs, she said.
In the meantime, one of her cousins searched online for options and came upon an online profile for Greg Secord — a Northern Colorado metal detectorist listed among hundreds for hire through an international association called The Ring Finders.
Secord arrived before Savanna Vasko’s uncle returned with the extra goggles.
“We’re going to get you out of the doghouse today, buddy,” the couple remembers Secord saying.
Within minutes of searching, Secord heard a familiar alert on his metal detector. He had struck gold — Andrew Vasko’s new-to-him gold wedding band, to be exact. He turned to the groom to show off his find.
“The whole place erupted,” Secord said, proudly showing off pictures from that afternoon.
Secord had saved the day and, with it, his 113th ring.
A lesson in metal detecting (and optimism)
Greg Secord, a 75-year-old retiree and Vietnam War veteran, got into metal detecting as a hobby back in 2006. He had some extra time on his hands and had always wanted to try it. He’s been hooked ever since, he said.
Secord usually goes out detecting a few times a week for two to three hours at a time. He favors sandy, heavily trafficked areas, like swim beaches and volleyball pits. While he has a newer model, he typically opts for his Minelab Equinox 800 — an 8-year-old metal detector that’s become like an extension of Secord’s own arm.
“The detector is speaking a language to you, you just have to know it,” Secord said, explaining how the main number on its screen varies based on the material it’s picking up and how the little arrows off to its right indicate how buried an item is.
It can tell Secord the difference between quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies — even down to if a penny is an older all-copper version or a newer zinc one, he said.
His detector emits the same noise for foil scraps and soda can pull tabs as it does for gold, though, so Secord has dug up his fair share of junk. As part of the metal detectorists’ unofficial code, he always picks up trash and throws it away.
“People ask me, ‘Do you find something good every time you go out?’ I say, ‘Well, I don’t find something good every time I go out, but every time I don’t go out I don’t find anything at all,” Secord said. “You have to be an optimist.”
After just over a decade metal detecting around Fort Collins, Secord joined The Ring Finders in 2017. For a fee, he’s registered on their website and pops up when people search for the services of a local metal detector. He is the only Northern Colorado metal detectorist listed on the site.
The work gives him a set target. Some people call him for lost rings, necklaces and other jewelry. A woman in Livermore asked him to detect an arrow her daughter had accidentally shot into one of their pastures.
Another asked him to find a ring she had lost in a small pond on her rural property. It took Secord four years, and many return trips as the pond’s waters receded, to finally find the ring.
If someone loses a ring, Secord said he always encourages them to quickly save a GPS pin in their phone of the location so a detectorist like himself can easily find it later.
If it was dropped in a heavily trafficked area, Secord said time is of the essence. If it was not lost in a public place, “it’s probably still there,” Secord said, adding that he’s found several items that had been lost on private property years later.
“It’s very rewarding. Sometimes it’s very emotional,” Secord said of reuniting people with their lost rings. “Your ring, especially your wedding ring, is a representation of your commitment to one another. It’s years and years of memories.”
Depending on the case, Secord will charge a small call-out fee for his services.
Sometimes, he’ll settle for a smile and some gratitude as payment. Other times, he’ll encourage clients to make a donation to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation instead, which provides mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children.
While Secord said he initially declined a reward from the Vaskos, their families pooled together some money and insisted on tipping him. The couple also dropped off a couple cases of Coors and some banana bread for him a week later.
As for Andrew Vasko’s returned ring?
“It’s getting resized right now,” he told the Coloradoan last month.
One man’s trash can be this Northern Colorado metal detectorist’s treasure
While Greg Secord’s work with Ring Finders has helped him reunite dozens of items with their owners, he’s unearthed plenty of unclaimed pieces.
“This was at Boyd Lake swim beach,” he said, plucking a three-banded ring out of a black tray on his truck tailgate during an interview with the Coloradoan in mid-September.
He never found who it belonged to, and he’s stopped trying to track owners down himself unless a ring has identifying characteristics like a class ring.
“I tried in the early days putting it on the internet and a thousand people own it all at the same time. That doesn’t work,” he said.
Instead, he’s taken to collecting them. After 20 years of the hobby, his tray of “recoveries” is now packed with rings of all sizes, shapes and materials, as well as coins, bracelets, lockets and chains.
“I just keep everything that I find … always in hopes that somebody says, ‘My grandma lost her ring here eight years ago,’” Secord said. To which he’d reply, “Well, show me a picture. If I have it, I’ll get it back to you,” he said.
Of all the items he’s found, rings are the most common.
Well, “except for trash,” Secord said with a laugh. “(I’ve found) lots and lots of trash.”
But that’s alright. After decades, Secord has learned to take the trash with the treasure.
Erin Udell covers business for the Coloradoan.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan.
Related: These are the most dangerous intersections in Colorado
