This is a far more relaxing hobby. You just choose a field (make sure it's nice and flat), get that all-important permission off the landowner and off you go. You only have to stop when your machine bleeps at you to tell you that there's a gold coin 3 inches down.

If only!

This is a different hobby to Bottle Digging, not least in terms of the rewards it offers. With Metal Detecting, you seem to get a lot of "cheap" stuff and then (very) occasionally, something major pops out of the ground. Saying that, the hobby is not about money. If it was, all detectorists would be bankrupt (well, perhaps not all !)

I have 2 metal detectors; a Fisher1265 and a Laser B1. They do the same job, but each machine performs better in certain conditions. For example, the Fisher is no good in mineralised ground, but the Laser is.

The thing about this hobby is that you never know what you are going to find. Eric Laws can testify to this. He was detecting in (what he thought was) a "quiet" field in Suffolk when he came across well over a million pounds worth of Roman gold and silver jewellery and coinage. It's now displayed in the British Museum and is quite worth the trip down to view it. The B.M. has a great deal of coins and artefacts that have been discovered by metal detectorists over the years and there is a great deal more left in the ground, ready to be found by someone just swinging a metal detector from side to side!