What exactly to ask friends, relatives, etc?

Ask Old Timers where they used to swim, hang out, and drink barley pops.

Ask your friends, neighbors, and family "Hey can I metal detect your yard"? I found my best coins within a 100 yards of my house.

Talk about it a lot at family gatherings and show your interest and excitement. Family often wants to share experiences and help each other out. If they see how much it means to you then you may get some offers. Express that it's a lot of fun but not always easy to find interesting places to detect... See if they want you to find their property line pins...had my wife's aunt ask me if I could do this for her and she would pay me, told her no pay, just let me detect your yard when done!


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If you are searching for coins and/or jewelry I think its all about where people congregate. Ask about old fairs, parks, schools, etc. Old timers will have the best knowledge. If they give you a good tip and they are physically able maybe invite them to join you- it could open up even more opportunities. GL and HH. Matt

Think most people's yards have a few nails, and other potentially nasty pieces of metal, from construction, renovations, and repairs. Family, neighbors, and friends are real easy to get a blessing from. Show what you found, everything. Even if you don't find anything to brag about, most people are impressed that you found stuff. Try not to mess the yard up, most people try to keep it looking nice, not always successful, but certainly don't want it to get any worse. You want to generate a positive experience, since these people, will also know other people on your list of friends, family, and neighbors. They will either encourage, or discourage others from letting you dig up their yards. Some will get into the adventure, and help you find older places, or potentially more productive places.

Change the way you word the question. Don't ask where would be a good place to hunt (because most don't really understand what we are doing). Instead ask where did people used to congregate outdoors, are there any old schools, pairs, fairgrounds, etc that have been torn down that you remember where they were? Find out where the old swimming holes were. Also just drive around parts of town you know were the original downtown area and look for old sidewalk strips and parking lots.

I recently got permission to hunt my granny's yard by just simply saying I had this new hobby. She says you got a metal detector? Well do you want to hunt my yard? And here I had thought since I hadn't seen her in awhile I should probably not even be so bold as to ask... and ended up not having to ask. That said so far I haven't found much even though her neighborhood had a skirmish take place during the Civil War and also it's where there were Indian villages and a Fort nearby. So far have found only 4 wheat pennies, loads of square nails, a handle off something, strange pieces of molten lead (not sure if it's bullets) and a broken mirror that was buried upside down. That last one spooked me so much I reburied it. lol