Metal detecting is becoming increasingly popular as people search for a hobby which is interesting but doesn’t have a huge learning curve attached to it. I’m not saying metal detecting is easy to master, there is enough depth for someone to spend the rest of their life refining their techniques, learning about new detectors and learning about their finds and locations, but also someone who just wants to give it a go can grab a cheap detector and a book and get started an hour from now.
There have been some high profile finds recently which is definitely helping to get people involved in this hobby, and as more and more people get involved then hopefully land owners will be more amenable to letting people search on their land, because without land to search on then this hobby can’t continue. Getting permission to detect on someone’s land is one of the hardest parts of this hobby, but fortunately you can join a club (if there is one near you) and they take care of that for you so you can just go out with them and enjoy yourself.
Don’t be entranced by the high profile finds people have reported though, don’t go out there expecting to find hordes of gold all the time, often only very basic items are dug up by people out detecting, valuable items are much rarer. Yet while an item might not be worth anything to a museum, or might not be made of precious metals or stones, then the joy for most people is in the history of the item and the hunt they went through to find it. As you explore the history of the item then you might find out some really interesting things, like it could have belonged to the lord of the local area, or it could be thousands of years old and then you get to hold in your hand something which someone purchased or made all those years ago, your very own link with the past.
To increase your chances of finding something good then you should aim for places where people have lived for hundreds or thousands of years, that gives you lots of people passing over the ground who could have lost items there. Europe is one of the best places you can go metal detecting, particularly places like England and Scotland where lots of battles took place over the years.
One of the best ways to start off is to get some good books on the subject to teach you the basics, then join a local club and find out which detector they recommend you start with. With their help then you can get a metal detector which gives you clear signals so you don’t get confused by all the readings it gives you, but is still powerful enough to make some really good finds – good luck!
Have a search online for some books on metal detecting and you will find some really interesting ones.