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Metal detecting · History · Adventure

Detector Lady: Metal Detecting, History & Adventure

Field notes from the search: what I dig up, the museums I disappear into and the history that makes an object worth keeping. Come along for the questions.

Detector Lady in camouflage and a cap, listening for a signal across an open field

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Metal detecting across places and centuries

Join me in the field for metal detecting adventures and the stories behind my finds. I try to record my videos in English and add subtitles in multiple languages. When I’m out with Czech detectorists in the Czech Republic, we speak Czech with English subtitles so you can follow along.

Explore places connected to wartime history, the Celts and the Romans, and discover beautiful jewellery from the 18th and 19th centuries. Turn the sound on, press play, and enjoy the adventure.

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About

Behind the Finds

I’m Detector Lady, a metal detectorist with a curiosity that follows me from the field into museums, across borders and onto the pages of the book I’m writing.

What draws me to metal detecting is the connection between an object and the person who once held it. What was it used for? How did it end up here? And what can it tell us about everyday life in another time?

Preserving history and working with archaeologists are important parts of my approach. Finding an object is a beginning: understanding its context and sharing its story are what make the discovery meaningful.

Here, I share my detecting adventures, museum visits and the stories behind my finds. You’ll also find moments from my travels, things I’ve learned along the way and places that have made me look at history differently.

Come along for the search, the questions and the discoveries. There’s always another story to explore.

From the field

Finds, mud and the moments in between. Photographs from the search, before any of it reaches a museum case.

  • A silver coin held up in a gloved hand, fresh from the soil
    Silver, straight out of the soil
  • Detector Lady in a Vietnam cap holding a Vietnamese coin she has just found
    A Vietnamese coin, still in the field
  • An American 50 BMG cartridge resting in a gloved hand
    American 50 BMG cartridge
  • An Austro-Hungarian grenade held up in a gloved hand in woodland
    Austro-Hungarian grenade, recorded and left where it belongs
  • Second World War relics laid out on a table for recording
    WW2 relics, laid out before anything is cleaned
  • Detector Lady in the woods, headphones on and a muddy glove raised
    Headphones on, phone out, story started