The Three ‘Ages’ of Metal Detecting
POSTED: 24 May 2024 ● BY JamesDearmer
By Hopenscope
It wasn't till 1991 when I found metal detecting, meaning I sadly missed out on the Golden Age at the start. Back in the seventies, C.Scope was at the forefront of a huge new hobby capturing the nation’s attention. In no small part to their pioneering machines, history was literally at the fingertips of everybody. Permissions were easy to gain and amazing finds seemed to be turning up all over. Talking to the ‘veterans’ of those days, it’s hard to imagine the volume of coins and artefacts they were retrieving from just a few inches under the ground. The Parks and playgrounds were littered with all manner of coins and artefacts, and the beaches seemed veritable El Dorados from the amount of Jewellery just waiting for a search head to pass over them. Of course, the machines back then cannot be compared with the models of today in terms of balanced construction, sensitivity and discrimination. But that first decade and a half of our pastime was truly amazing for those involved. Museums began to fill up rapidly with newly discovered treasures, much to the chagrin of some in Officialdom.
As the Eighties came to an end, the ‘Silver years’ began, with ever more detectorists able to identify their wide-ranging finds just as effectively as the experts. The hoards kept coming, as did the first version of the Treasure Act. Previous animosity between searchers and the academics became to fade with bridges at last being built between the two groups. Out of this cooperation came the amazing resource that is the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Fabulous hoards still made it onto the front covers of the national newspapers, whilst the stories of a few bad apples reminded us that not everyone was involved in the hobby from a love of history. In the Nineties Farmers were still approachable, but some of the ‘door knockers’ realised historic areas already had ‘someone doing the sweeping’. We would persevere though, as detector technology had come on in leaps and bounds. Swing for more than three hours, and your arm/shoulder/wrist still felt comfortable. Our finds pouches weren’t so full of trash anymore, thanks to the metals being far easier to distinguish now, whether by tone or by meter reading.
I’d put the detecting ‘Bronze Age’ as starting at the turn of the Millennium, and it continues today. The equipment - adapted and improved by nigh on 50 years of experience in the field - cannot be faulted. With no-nonsense and total confidence, C.Scope users can easily turn on their detectors and recover the past in minutes. It needs to be as simple as that, because never has our interest been as under threat as it is now. We are increasingly having to contend with Green waste, acres of Solar Farms, endless building sites gobbling up the farmland, strict Land Stewardship schemes and Trusts that would rather we didn’t walk over the fields anymore.
Paid digs, which on the one hand allow people to get out there and enjoy the experience, are also contributing to newcomers not gaining any permissions of their own to explore. In the background, the laws are being tightened up and the ‘older hands’ are worried that stricter legislation like that on the Continent will come across to the U.K in future. My greatest hope is that they’ll be a ‘Copper Age’ of detecting for our Grandchildren to take up but in the meantime, appreciate your opportunities, enjoy walking in the beautiful countryside and know that every interesting find is a bonus. Step onto the land knowing you’ll be taking out far more than hope, with a C.Scope!
