The Detectorist's Code of Ethics

Metal detecting runs on trust. A landowner's trust that you will leave their ground the way you found it. Another detectorist's trust that showing you a spot will not cost them the spot. The public's trust that the person swinging a coil in the park is a caretaker of history, not a problem. Every one of us either builds that trust or spends it. This is the code we hunt by at History Seekers, and the one we ask every detectorist to carry.

1. Permission comes first, every time

• Get permission before your coil touches private ground. Not "probably fine" - permission, from the person with the right to give it.
• Ask in person when you can, be who you say you are, and accept a no with the same manners you brought to the ask. A polite no today is often a yes next season.
• Honor the terms you agreed to. If the landowner said the yard but not the field, the field does not exist.
• Offer the landowner a look at what you find. On meaningful finds, offer them the find itself if that was the understanding. A find is not worth a burned permission.

2. Leave no trace you were there

• Cut clean plugs, fill every hole, and step it flat. The ground should look untouched when you leave - lawn, pasture, or woods.
• Pack out every piece of trash you dig. Iron, foil, can slaw, all of it. You are cleaning the ground, not resorting it.
• Leave gates the way you found them. Stay clear of crops, livestock, and anything a farmer would have to fix behind you.
• If conditions would force ugly digging (soaked lawn, drought-baked turf), come back another day. The ground outlasts the signal.

3. Know the law, and stay on the right side of it

• Federal and protected historic sites are off limits. Laws like ARPA carry real penalties, and those places are protected for a reason. There is no find worth it, full stop.
• Parks, beaches, schools, and public land all vary by state, county, and town. It is your job to know the rules where you hunt, before you hunt.
• War graves, cemeteries, and memorials are not hunting ground. Ever.
• If you are unsure whether ground is legal, treat it as if it is not until you know.

4. The code between detectorists

This is the part most codes skip, and it is the part that keeps friendships and a community intact.

• Never poach another detectorist's permission. If you learn about a property because someone else hunts it, that door is theirs. Do not go knock on it behind them, and do not send a friend to knock on it for you. Earn your own doors.
• If someone takes you to their spot, it stays their spot. Being invited is a privilege, not a transfer of ownership. You do not go back without them, you do not bring others, and you do not quietly work it "just one more time." Not the next weekend, not next year.
• A shared spot is a secret you keep. No coordinates, no landmarks in your videos, no telling your buddy "roughly where." If it is not yours to hunt, it is not yours to tell.
• Give credit where it is due, split recoveries the way you agreed before the hunt, and settle "what if we find something big" up front, not over the hole.
• Help the new detectorist. Every one of us got shown something by somebody. Teach the code along with the technique.

5. Respect the history you recover

• Document meaningful finds: where, how deep, what was with it. Context is what turns an object into history.
• Significant or historically important finds deserve to be reported and researched, not just pocketed. Local historical societies often welcome the knowledge even when the find stays with you.
• Preserve before you polish. An hour of restraint beats ruining two hundred years of survival with a wire wheel. (Our conservation resources are on the Recommended Resources page.)

6. Represent the hobby

• Every hunt is public relations. Wave at the neighbor, explain what you are doing when asked, show the kids a coin.
• Leave every site, landowner, and bystander better disposed to detectorists than you found them. The next person's permission may depend on how you behaved today.

We hold ourselves to this code in every video we publish and every hunt we take. If you have hunted with us, you have seen it in practice. New to detecting? Start here, and the finds will follow.

The story is more important than the artifact.