Complete Beginner, Have I got the right idea? a few questions.

[Rick_Deckard]

My understanding is this: You can generally detect on a beach without permission, but all land is owned, so anywhere else you should get permission.

Does this permission have to be written?
Should you bring a map so you can figure out which fields the land owners say are okay?
And what is the ettiquite with finds, do you offer 50/50 on anything you choose to sell?

My detectors are toys. I was given an 'elenco metal detector with bleep alert' because it was being thrown away.
http://www.studica.com/uk/en/DiscoveryPlanet/metal-detector/edu-36749.html?ex_ref=google_feed&gclid=CjwKEAjws5CrBRD8ze702_2dyjYSJAAAJK9yDxYANE8QyAca6OetzoweogqES2Yh6K2FWupFmWhZsRoCzz3w_wcB

I also have a Viking 1.

I understand these are not motion based detectors.

I think my first purchase will be a second hand Garrett ace 250.

My real question is, will waving the viking 1 around on the beach for a couple of days be a total waste of time, or should I wait until I get a proper detector?

[Chef Geoff]

You can spend £2000 on a machine a waste a whole day detecting and not finding anything worth while but enough important historical finds have been found within the first couple of inches of the surface so that the Viking would have found them, so if your enjoying yourself it's never truly wasted and you'll have twice as much land as you'll need to re-detect it when you upgrade
Written permission isn't necessary a verbal agreement will do and yes it can be beneficial to mark the fields on a map.
ALL finds belong to the land owner "end of", you should show him what you find and let him keep what he wants, in reality they are more interested in what the finds can tell them about the land with only two items in my experience being of real interest and they are musket balls and cow horn protectors, those two items are like shiny beads for the natives
Thankfully the majority of detectorists don't sell there finds but if that's what you plan is then make sure you record them with you local FLO first, under common law there is automatically a 50/50 split of treasure items but it's worth just mentioning it to the land owner.

[Cymro]

One small point - you need a licence from Crown Estates to detect on the beach. It's free - just fill in the online form and they'll send you a copy you can print. In my experience (though maybe not that of others . . . ) the download went awry and I had to contact them to re-send it. It's just a matter of jumping through hoops but it's a simple process.

Got a question of my own arising from that; can one detect on any beach with the licence or are certain beaches verboten - those on National Trust land, for example?

Best bet with the detectors you have is to try them on the beach and see how they go. May be OK on dry sand and rubbish on wet sand, or could be OK all round from the off. If nothing else it's experience, and you may eventually pick up enough loose change to buy a better machine. In that case, it may be a good idea to pick a beach where people actually go . . .

Good luck - enjoy your detecting!

[Chef Geoff]

Got a question of my own arising from that; can one detect on any beach with the licence or are certain beaches verboten - those on National Trust land, for example?

No not any beach Cymro and not every Crown estate beach either this is the link to the map link page which sows which beaches are Crown Estate
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/coastal/metal-detecting/maps/
Some though do have SSSI restrictions on them but this usually means "keep out of the dunes" more than the beach itself, also a lot of beaches such as Barry and Swansea are council owned but detecting is allowed some like Weston-Super-Mare are privately owned but council managed then you have private beaches which you would have to check on,
I don't beach detect any more but one beach I would love to detect is Croyde Bay which has a huge and very popular beach but it's private and detecting is a no no

[Cymro]

I don't beach detect any more but one beach I would love to detect is Croyde Bay which has a huge and very popular beach but it's private and detecting is a no no

Since we're so close to the North Wales beaches it's a good fall-back if our inland permissions are out of action for any reason - fields under crop, silage etc. We've only recently got machines which will actually allow detecting in wet sand, so we're still learning there!

[Rick_Deckard]

Thank you all for the advice!
Potching about on the beach sounds great, so I agree it's not time wasted.
And thanks for the advice about permissons and FLO's.
If I find anything with the viking I;ll be excited and want to upgrade.
If I don't find anything I'll be determined and want to upgrade.
 

[Da Monkey]

Ace 250 is not the best machine for the beach though, not much good on wet sand, I have a dfx or a minelab explorer for the beach, around the £300 now a days, those new Minelab go machines look good value for a starter machine and they always advertise them being used on the beach, but I don't know how good they are on the beach yet as they are so new, someone on here may be able to tell us...

[wagis]

I agree with Da Monkey, Garret Ace is not rhe best beach machine, I used to have one and only took it on the beach once and it went wild on the wet sand.

[Cymro]

I had a Minelab X-Terra 30 which was OK on the dry sand but went ballistic on the wet stuff. Doesn't seem to matter how much you pay either - my buddy tried his C-Scope CS6MXI on wet sand and it was the same.

I've got a DFX now and it loves to play in the sand, as does my mate's XLT.

Horses for courses . . . 

[Chef Geoff]

I've been lucky or in this case unlucky enough to have a short play with the new Minelab Go-Find 40 and all I can really say is "Fisher Price" it's very very plastic and I'm not sure how long it would last if used on sand unless you conveniently carry an air compressor around with you to blow the sand away before folding it up. As a metal detector it works quite well and would certainly not disappoint anyone getting it as a first machine and that's it's intention so Minelab weren't looking for longevity
99.9% of VLF single frequency machines will struggle on wet sand and even those that are stable have to be desensitised to the point where they are a poor imitation to something like a Sovereign, Whites have always had a fairly good name for beach detecting and in fact when I started beach detecting a used a Coinmaster (blue box) and they are just releasing two new entry models the Treasuremaster and the Treasuremaster Pro the later of which looks pretty impressive and should retail for around £300 but as to whether they work on wet sand it's still too early to tell.
So Rick if I were you I'd ask myself how close you are too a beach and how often you can get to it compared to inland sites and while you might not have any they will come and the answer should guid you to which machine to get.....Oh and of course what money you have to spend

[congerman]

If you're  after a reasonably priced detector which can be  used inland and on the beach ,the Garrett EuroAce takes some beating. My wife has one and it's superb for coin shooting on the dry sand and is ok on wet sand just needs to be set up accordingly( by lowering the sensitivity ) its great inland as well  it's light and pretty straightforward  to use hope this helps but as the others have said there are other detectors  by the way be careful on the beaches as some places have soft sand and gullies where the water comes in first before covering the sands and your exit gets cut off    best to practice on the dry sand at the top of the beach for a while till you know the beach you chose