detection in france

[Fredouille]

Hi, here is my last found jewelry has the beach, I hope that it will please you, Amicalement FRED

 

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[colorado14ers]

if they are gold, then.........awesome finds!! maybe i should move there??

 

[Acquisitor]

sweet diamond !!!!
and the bracelet looks like a killer in weight ) I bet nearly all u find in France is 18k ,just as here in Belgium

 

[TheDane]

Very nice finds !

I thought any kind of detecting was prohibited in France ??

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Dane, there is an oft-circulated alphabetic list of the various European countries, that was assembled many years ago. I think someone in England compiled it. I don't have the web-link handy, but perhaps someone can link it here.

Basically, when you read down that list, it's downright discouraging for perhaps all but England. Either outright "no's", or ..... riddled with discouraging things. But...... what's odd is, in most all those countries, there's no shortage of md'rs. And even the major dealers (Whites, Garrett, Fisher, etc...) will often have dealers in those countries (who presumably sell them to people who ... you would think .... are going to use them, eh? )

One time, I had a used detector listed on a web-classified sale, and it sold to a fellow in Spain, who had agreed to pay for the over-seas shipping. My curiousity got the better of me, because Spain was one of the "discouraging" locations on this list of European laws. So .... I couldn't help myself, and ... like you .... asked the guy "I thought detecting was illegal there?". He replied back that .... for starters .... answers given on a list like that (where someone merely writes a letter to bureaucrats asking "what are your laws?") apply only to federal lands. Ie.: not city, county, etc... (or whatever they call the sub-categories of land-ownership of land in those countries). And, for example, you could hunt on private farmers land, with permission, till you're blue in the face (since the laws applied to public land, not private land). Or quite frankly, the buyer told me, they hunt so far back in the woods, there's no one to care or complain, to begin with.

I mean, the answer you might get from some USA bureaucrats would be the same too "no". Because perhaps they're couching it in terms of federal lands here (Shiloh, ghettysburg, Mel Fisher legal hassles, etc....) Yet we all know you can detect here, so long as you steer clear of obvious historical landmarks.

Many people have taken those web lists at face value. They leave their detectors at home when they go vacation in those countries. Imagine their surprise when they arrive and see other md'rs at their beach resort, and no one pays them any mind? It's probably one of those things where "no one cares, TILL you ask".

 

[Dano Sverige]

You're right Tom. You can see detectorists on the beaches of France and Spain etc and they don't have a problem, but they're detecting at their "own risk"..and basically "illegally". The police generally turn a blind eye to it, but if someone actually calls them to complain then they HAVE to pursue the matter and will possibly confiscate your gear with possible charges/fine ontop!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Dano, a micro-scale version of that (but which would apply to country-scale too), is state of CA beaches:

Years ago, I was looking at a metal detecting forum, and saw that someone had posted a question asking if detecting state-of-CA owned beaches was legal (apparently they were about to come here on a business trip). Since I am from CA, I clicked on it. Then I saw that someone else had already answered their question, so I clicked on that too. What I saw shocked me: The person answering had merely gone to a book called "Treasure Laws of the United States", by a fellow named "R.W. Grim". The page on CA was downright discouraging. Ie.: "alert the ranger upon coming and leaving", "turn in all jewelry to lost & found dept", "flag any old coin signals you get, and alert the state archaeologist", etc.. blah blah blah. I had never heard of such stuff! And what's wierd is, state of CA beaches had .... and are .... routinely hunted all the time, and no one cares! So I began to research how this "Grim" fellow got his answers: He merely sent a xeroxed form letter to all 50 states .......... and asked! Doh! And then printed all 50 replies in his book.

Now I'm sure it probably applies to sacred historic themed parks, but the reality was, that innocuous places like beaches, no one cared, nor does anyone care, till this day. We hunt right in full view of rangers, and no one cares. But how much you wanna make a bet, that if someone were to ask those same rangers "can I? Is this legal?" that they might have to look it up in their books, call Sacramento headquarters for clarification, and tell you "no"? (because perhaps they morph some cultural heritage things to apply to you).

Thus I sometimes wonder if this isn't true on a national scale too, where people just assume some place is off-limits, when in fact, no one cares, unless you are being a nuisance in some other way?