Built by someone who used to snorkel for rubbish, and kept finding treasure.
Retrievly is a website where you post roughly where you lost something outdoors, and hobby metal detectorists nearby offer to go and look for it. It is run by Kenny. The people who search are hobbyists, and Retrievly handles no money. Here is where it came from and what it is trying to be.
The riverbed
For a while I snorkelled in rivers to pull rubbish out of them. Bottles, cans, a shopping trolley, the usual. What I did not expect was how much of what I brought up was somebody's. Rings, watches, keys, phones that slid out of a pocket on a bridge: I retrieved a lot of personal belongings, and every one of them was a bad day for someone that had been lying there, a few metres from where it fell.
The treasure hunt got under my skin the same way it gets under every detectorist's and magnet fisher's. And the two facts kept sitting next to each other: there are people who love searching, and there are people who have just lost something and have no idea those searchers exist.
Two groups who never met
Someone who loses a wedding ring on a beach searches the sand with their hands, gives up at dusk and tells the story for years. Twenty minutes away there is a person who spends every Sunday sweeping that beach with a detector and would have driven over that evening for the fun of it.
Retrievly is the introduction. You post roughly where it happened. Searchers nearby see a rough area, offer to look, and you pick one. Only that person gets the exact spot. If they find it, they hand it back in person, and whatever thank-you passes between you is yours to agree.
What Retrievly is not
- Not a vetting service
- Retrievly does not check, insure or verify anyone. What you get is a person's profile, rating and record of completed searches, and the advice to meet somewhere public.
- Not a guarantee
- What decides it is how quickly you post and how tightly you can describe the area. Same day, with a spot somebody can stand on, is a very different job from a whole beach a fortnight later. Narrow the circle, and go early.
Who writes the guides here
Every guide on this site goes out under one name. Kenny snorkels the Danube, started metal detecting this summer with an entry-level machine, and says so rather than dressing it up.
More about KennyWrite to me
Questions, a story to share, a problem with the site, or you search a stretch of ground nobody has posted about yet: use the contact form — no account needed, just an address to reply to. I read everything. The legal details are on the Impressum.