A Guide to Metal Detecting

By Graeme Rushton

The aim of this book is to provide detailed information, practical help, handy hints and tips in regards to all aspects of Metal Detecting. By offering advice and guidance this book aims to make the hobby of using a metal detector fun, interesting and interactive to anyone who wishes to have a go! It will give the reader an insight into following best practice and how to enjoy the hobby in a responsible way, everything will be covered from choosing the right detector & equipment to gaining permission to search land, understanding the law and of course giving the necessary information to make sure that people enjoy their hobby to its maximum potential. From beaches to farmland we want you to be able to feel confident enough to search these types of environments and make interesting discoveries without feeling out of your depth. Information will be passed over regarding potential discoveries of treasure and the law surrounding such finds and also the identification of coins and artefacts that the reader may come across in their adventures. After reading this book, you will be able to enjoy this magical and captivating past-time and have the confidence to unearth some fascinating and historical discoveries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526780690

Book preview

Introduction

METAL DETECTING AS a hobby has been around for many decades, in fact the very first detector was made in 1881 by Alexander Graham Bell, who invented a rather crude device to locate a bullet that was embedded in President James Garfield! This was a far cry from the modern, highly sophisticated machines that we see today. Metal detectors are manufactured in several different countries, including France, the United States, Turkey, Australia and the United Kingdom, and the hobby is enjoyed by many across the globe.

It is of course the fascination of finding buried coins and artefacts from the past that drives people to spend many hours out in the fields, woodlands and beaches in the hope of unearthing something that our ancestors once held; from the medieval silver penny to the Victorian brooch, the finds that come to light are varied and the age range vast.

In the past, a detectorist was associated with being a bit of a ‘Geek’, someone who probably also enjoyed train-spotting and other semieccentric hobbies. However, over the last twenty years or so more and more people have taken up the pastime. This is partially due to the fact that there have been some incredible discoveries such as the Staffordshire Hoard and the Hoxne Hoard from East Anglia, which hit the media and captured people’s imagination almost instantly. We now see families, every weekend trailing up and down fields in the hope of finding a coin, artefact or, dare we dream, a significant hoard!

Of course most of us who use a metal detector never find the ‘Big One’ and only a handful of individuals really make the headlines, but unearthing a Roman coin or a medieval buckle captures our imagination of the distant past in such a way that we will be out every week, in all weathers doing our best to discover and preserve history.

Metal detecting plays a vital role in bringing important discoveries to light; without metal detectorists pursuing their hobby week in week out, some of the amazing historical artefacts and hoards now on display in museums up and down the country would never have been brought to light.

So how do you take your first footsteps into this amazing hobby? You will no doubt be wondering where to start. Is it a simple matter of wandering down the beach on a sunny day with the detector in hand or a search of the local farmer’s fields at the weekend, or on your day off? Well there is a little bit more to it than that; hopefully this book will go some way to help answer all your questions!

The author enjoying an evening’s detecting.

CHAPTER ONE

Choosing the Right Detector & Equipment: Picking a Suitable Machine

THIS CHAPTER WAS always going to be a tricky one, but let’s make it as simple to digest as possible. Going back a few decades or so, the choice for the beginner was a relatively simple one, indeed when I took my first tentative steps into the hobby there were only really a handful of metal detectors to choose from. These arrived plainly boxed from the manufacturer with a paper pamphlet inside giving the user a brief overview on how to use the detector and that was pretty much that: no decent books; no online forums to ask questions; no user groups; no YouTube channels showcasing that particular brand; it was simply a matter of using it as often as possible and getting used to the metal detector’s features and characteristics; very much like riding a bike, the more you did it, the better you became!

Fast forward in time and we now see an eye-watering selection of metal detectors on the market. These are manufactured in countries such as America, Great Britain, France and Australia, with the makers producing many varied models from introductory brands to professional units, some are simple to use, others, it seems need an engineering degree to master!

Venue chosen, ready to go!

So let’s break down the common myths that exist. Firstly, in my opinion you don’t necessarily need to break the bank to own a metal detector. Indeed, some of the introductory units on the market currently have similar performance levels to machines twice their price, maybe slightly fewer features than the more expensive models, but let’s face it, there is nothing more off-putting than trying to use a product that makes you scratch your head more than actually using it. The key to being successful in the hobby and with your new purchase is quite simply this:

Control box of a metal detector showing its features.

SIMPLICITY

No need to over-complicate things with added features on the detector that you will seldom use. To be able to adjust and set the machine quickly and easily is always the best option.

LIGHTWEIGHT

The product has to be light enough for you to swing out in the fields without suffering from fatigue; and be nicely balanced so you can actually enjoy the experience of walking tirelessly up and down a ploughed field or on a windswept beach for hours on end. So make it a comfortable one. Nowadays there is no excuse for manufacturers to make heavy, cumbersome machines.

PERFORMANCE

You can have the most feature-packed detector on the planet, but without the performance to match it then it’s a pretty worthless purchase. A detector has to be able to deal with coins and artefacts buried in and around iron, so the recovery speed must be decent. It must have reasonable depth capabilities to pick up objects buried under pasture fields, and – let’s not forget – if you are wanting to go down the route of being a beach detectorist then your machine must be able to cope with the high levels of mineralisation from the salt in the wet sand. We can cover some of the technical features of detectors later in this chapter

COST

The detector must tick the boxes mentioned above and also come within your budget. As I touched on earlier, you don’t need to break the bank to purchase a decent metal detector; a mid-range machine (which is what my own personal detectors fall into) will be more than capable of finding the coins and artefacts that a lot of the high-end units do.

So