....So has anybody ever found any items over the value of $25 if so did they let you keep it after you turned it in? ...
Atom-detector, welcome to the forum. I am going to skip all the other aspects of your question (the particular type entity of government, and the tone of "permitted" or "prohibited, etc....). I'm just going straight to the part of your question that stood out. The part quoted above. Namely, the valuation factor, and "turning in an item", etc..
Let me save you some time: If this is the bugaboo that concerns you, then don't stop at COE land. Keep going to all levels of govt. land. Eg.: city, county, state, federal of ANY of sub-types within any of those. And you will find that all 50 states have lost & found laws. That sound very similar to what you found at the COE level.
They have varying criteria levels of $50 to $200-ish value cutoffs. By which , if you find something worth that much or more, you are to turn it in to the police dept. for proper lost & found procedures. The laws were born out of wandering cattle laws of the 1800s. And they make perfect sense. So that a crook can not say he "found" a mountain bike propped up next to the fountain in the park. Or if a Brink's armored car door swings open on the freeway, you can not scoop up cash and say "finder's keepers". Ie.: there's obligations for you to turn in to the police. Then ... supposedly ... in 30 days, if no one claims it, you can go claim it (if/when you pay storage/handling fees, etc...).
So don't stop at COE. You can't keep valuable items ANYWHERE you find them. So take a look at the other replies you've gotten so far. Take a look down the pages of any md'ing show & tell forums (esp. beach hunting forums where jewelry tends to be the finds). And ask yourself: How realistic is it go running to the police station each time ?
I bet that when such a rule gets SPECIFICALLY spelled out, when it comes to md'ing (such as you found) can probably be traced back to some well-meaning md'r, ages ago, waltzing into some pencil-pushing bureaucrat asking "Can we metal detect here?". They desk-jockey passes it past the legal dept, who finds something to "apply to the pressing issue". Then ... presto: It gets pushed into service and put into the rule book. Did anyone actually ever care ? Probably not.