Can You Make Money Metal Detecting? Here’s 7 Ways You Could!

Although most people enjoy metal detecting purely for the history and the thrill, some of you out there will probably be just as interested in the financial gain.

It’s a bit of a no-go area in the “detecting world” to admit that you’re in it for anything other than the history or hobby. Mention it on a Facebook group and you’re going to get shot down!

With that being said its only natural that some would find the money attractive! We are human after all.

For me my passion for metal detecting comes from a mixture of all the benefits the hobby has to offer, history, health, the thrill and of course the possibility of finding something valuable!

So can you make money metal detecting? Is it possible to make this a full time money maker?

Its not simple to answer and many people will have different views on this. Here’s my take!

The simple answer is of yes, of course you can make money from metal detecting. There’s a possibility.

But many of you will also want to know just how much, is it enough to quit your day job.

Unfortunately for most, metal detecting is not going to pay the bills.

Not to say that doesn’t for some people.

I lived in Spain for a few years and worked in a cash for gold centre, I met a man that spent the whole summer detecting the tourist beaches every single morning.

He would come in once every couple of weeks to cash in his haul! He told me that during the summer months metal detecting paid his rent and bills. I know this was true because I was the one handing him the cash.

How can you make money from metal detecting?

Making money from metal detecting is highly dependent on where you live and how much land you have to detect.

If you’ve not got the land permissions or places to go, its highly unlikely you’re going to make money from metal detecting, unless of course you strike it lucky. Which as we all know is very rare.

That being said there’s a few ways you could make a little money from metal detecting here’s some ideas for you…

Metal Detecting Beaches

If you’re looking for a consistent way to make money, you’ve got to find the best places to go metal detecting.

As I mentioned before about the gentlemen who would metal detect on tourist beaches during high season.

This is probably going to be the most consistent way to make money metal detecting.

Find a busy beach and one that isn’t saturated with other metal detectorists. Visit early in the morning or late at night and hoover up all of them lost valuables and coins.

Again though I wouldn’t recommend quitting your job or relying on it as a source of income.

Long term there are other ways to make money metal detecting like for example collecting scrap metal.

Selling Metal Detecting finds on eBay

You could also sell your finds on eBay.

Believe it or not some of the things you find that you’d probably consider worthless could have monetary value.

There are collectors out there for just about everything.

If you search on eBay “metal detecting finds” you’ll see that thousands of people are already doing this.

Find lost items for people

Another way to make money from metal detecting would be to offer your services as a detectorist to help discover lost items.

Many people lose precious items of jewellery or other important metallic items.

Some detectorists will offer their services for a finders fee.

They go out to where the person has lost their item with their metal detector and look for the item.

Often this service is offered for free, however I have known of detectorists charging a fee.

Cleaning up after festivals and events

You could volunteer to help with the clean-ups from festivals and events.

Of course followed by a request to metal detect afterwards.

Its highly unlikely you’ll be allowed to dig, however after events have taken place there’s a good chance things have been lost.

These items whether it be money or jewellery could still be sat there on the surface ready for you to find!

Start a metal detecting club

A popular way it seems these days to make money from metal detecting is to start your own metal detecting club.

Many exist all around the world and give people who are struggling to get permission to metal detect on, the opportunity to get out there and enjoy the hobby.

Metal detecting clubs take a lot of organisation and will require lots of work behind the scenes, you’re going to have to find landowners that will allow digs to take place on their land. Usually this is agreed by agreeing a fee to be paid to the landowner.

Once you’ve got the land its time to sell the tickets to detectorists for the organised digs.

Its probably worth noting that this method of making money metal detecting can be quite controversial and somewhat unpopular in the detecting community.

Many clubs work on this business model, many will tell you they don’t make anything and in some cases this is very true however some are making money.

There are of course other ways to monetize a “metal detecting club” such as raffles, selling food, camping events etc

Create a Metal Detecting YouTube Channel

If you’re a member of any Facebook metal detecting groups you’ll probably by now have seen members promoting their YouTube channel and videos.

Another way of making money while doing the hobby you love is to create a channel and build up your subscriber and viewer base.

Once you get to 1000 subscribers on your channel, YouTube will allow you to display adverts and thus generate income with your videos.

However you don’t have to wait to get to 1000 subscribers before you start making money, another way is to review equipment, join the Amazon or eBay affiliate programs and drop links to relevant products in the description area. If someone clicks your link and subsequently buys the product you’ll receive a small commission!

Start a Metal Detecting Blog

OK so it sounds like a lot of hard work, to be quite honest it really is. This blog is now the 3rd I’ve been a part of.

If you’re tech savvy you can start a metal detecting blog and write articles related to the hobby.

The easiest way to do this would be to buy a domain, buy hosting, install WordPress and a ready made template and start writing them articles!

OK so there’s much more to it than that but that’s the basics.

You can make money buy adding Google ads and affiliate links.

Once you’re getting many visits a day, you could approach manufacturers or companies that sell metal detectors and ask if they are interested in a sponsored ad.

Summary

There are of course more ways but the ones we’ve looked at are perhaps the most popular ways.

I personally wouldn’t recommend quitting your job to try your hand at this, that’s not to say its not possible.

Do you have other ways of making money while metal detecting? We’d love to hear them. Leave us a comment below.

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