metal detecting in Virginia

[pops1940]

I'm going to be traveling to Fredricksburg, VA. from May 5th through the 14th, wonder if anyone has any tips about metal detecting and if there are any metal detecting shops nearby. I live in WA and have a Minelab. Any help would be appreciated.

 

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[Deerhunter24]

All the advice I can give you about Virginia is that it depends on what part of the state you are in. I think that has the most to do with it. Some people are funny about it down there as opposed to other places I have searched. I am from Michigan and Virginia is the only other place I have detected in the 2 years I have been in the hobby.

Here is my story about Virginia. My friend Jon (who also detects) and I went down to Martinsville, Virginia in March 2005 to visit my sister. We went down for a week on my spring break from my senior year in colege. First place we wanted to beep was a School that was built in 1918. It was an old high school and now it is a Middle School. Keep in mind...we spent about 8 hours the first day we were there in two separate local libraries. Anyway, we found the school and waited until after 5 to start detecting. We figured school got out around 2 or 3 and decided it would be best to wait for a few hours. Now we have detected public schools before, but have never asked permission here in michigan because it is PUBLIC property. Anyway, we do always ask permission on private and/or if we are not sure who owns it. Anyway...we were there about 5 minutes before this lady barged out of the school and started screaming at us. She was a real B*tch man. She was on a major power trip too. It seemed as though she was on a huge power trip too. In fact, we were attempting to detect across from the school at an even older school that was built in 1906 and was abandoned. Turned out this lady was the principal and was really not very nice to us at all. She told us to leave or she was going to call the police. We tried to leave and explain ourselves, but she didn't want to let us leave. She just kept telling that because of the Homestead Act...only students could be on school grounds. She said that public schools were no longer public land across the nation because of the act. I can assure you that neither of us exactly fit the terrorist profile. Anyway, she interpreted the law the way she wanted.

What was next...Jon and I went to the local sheriff's office to ask if we could hunt the schools and parks. We wanted to know if that was okay for us US citizens to be on public property? Amazingly, they said that as far as scools were concerned...it was up to the principal. As far as parks were concerned...No we could not search there unless nobody else was in the park. And...they only gave us one park in the county that we could search...and it was only 3 or 4 years old. What a scam. I don't understand how one of the oldest states could not know about metal detecting. None of these people even acted as if they had ever even seen a metal detectorist before. It put a damper on things, but the trip didn't end there. We decided to ask around for permission on private property.

We got permission from a man who owned a used car lot that used to be an old drive in, but it opened in the 50's. WE hunted for about 4 hours, but found only clad. Next, we went to my sister's husband's family farm. They have a 350 acre farm with many old home's and foundations that date back to the early 1800's. We hunted here the rest of the time and found about 8-10 wheat pennies combined and I found a colonial copper. All I can say is that everyone we asked seemed dumbfounded by the questions we asked and nobody wanted to give us permission to hunt anywhere. We went to the sheriff's office, the parks and recreations board, the school board. Nobody would give us permission to go anywhere. Some didn't say we couldn't, but they didn't say we could either. It was the biggest pain in the ass ever. We spent 3 or 4 days just trying to get permission to hunt somewhere.

I would do research before you go, make a list of 10 spots, and then try to gain permission on private property instead of public. People down there are really nice, at least people who own their own property. People who run property that is not their own seem to be on a high horse or else they don't seem to know their head from their ass.

Deerhunter24

 

[jmginmd]

All I can say is good luck! I live in Northern VA and EVERYONE here would rather bury it and pave over it than let anyone find anything. I asked the local gov't. about parks and they said no. I asked about property the local gov't. owned but was just a field and they said no. Policy is to deny all requests to any property owned by the gov't. if it is in use or not. I sent them a letter after their response saying that there was no alternative for us if they won't let us use the "public" park land for our hobby. I told them that they accommodate everyones hobby but ours. I never got a response. I hate this place.

 

[pops1940]

Thanks for the reply...doesn't sound too promising does it. I'll let you know how it turns out.