Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Talking Your Way onto Land

On a metal detecting forum near you, a constant topic of conversation is "how to get search permissions" from landowners. Forum member Deano shares with his fellow tekkies thoughts on a few sneaky ways to con a landowner into letting you hoik out collectable artefacts from his land.

...you could knock on a farm saying you were crossing his field on the footpath as a dog walker and I lost a ring, car keys, necklace etc and saying I have metal detector at home could I possibly go and get it to help me find my ring etc and if you make it look convincing enough with a very sad distressed face he could say yes ok no problem, and whilst you searching you may find some other surface finds and you can also take along some old silver pre decimal coins/ finds you not worried about too much and go back to thank him saying you found your loss [...] offer him the other finds as well as have some junk like cans, ring pulls and other trash and tell him you’ll take this away to discard carefully, he may say you can detect his land...

Deano is suggesting having some prepared sacrificial junk to show the farmer as if it came from their land, what he does not say is what happens if you find some stuff worth keeping on that first trip. Perhaps he feels there is no need to...

I should also explain to transatlantic readers that these "old silver pre-decimal coins" (unlike their own US coins of the same period) are not actually for the most part silver, nor can they be spent. The point is though that the approached landowner is supposed to see some sort of value in them - which raises the question where they come from, have the finds potentially of value/interest to one landowner been taken from another? 

Finally, it strikes me that among all the little wrinkles passed on about how to get those elusive permissions, I have never, ever, seen one very obvious means of awakening a landowner's interest in having metal detectorists on their land. I stand to be corrected (link please) but I cannot recall ever seeing that any detectorist has suggested leaving half a dozen back copies of Treasure Hunting magazines like "Searcher" or "Treasure Hunter" with a farmer. This seems a really obvious way to show farmers and landowners what artefact hunting/metal detecting are all about.Could it have something to do with the fact that they all have sections showing how many tens of pounds each, even the most mundane, find is valued on today's market? I suppose the landowner might be a bit suspicious if he got copies of the magazines with those pages ripped out.