Just how many of that detect these days, take the time to consider beach detecting as a serious part of our hobby? With Spring here and summer on the way, why waste the time waiting for our fields to be cropped when we could be out there detecting - on the Beach.

As much as we all love to fly abroad to soak up the sun, Britain's beaches still remain almost as popular now as in times bygone.

The purist beach detectorists will argue that the best time to find the goodies on the beach are after the winter storms and who am I to argue with the experts. However, Summer crowds mean there is always a fresh crop of coinage and jewelry just waiting to be found by the average beachcomber everyday.

However, although not a diehard beach detectorist, living on the coast I have enjoyed many enjoyable and sometimes fruitful visits to my local beaches after a particularly breezy day, finding that several inches, sometimes feet of sand and pebbles have miraculously disappeared over night.

My beach finds have included not only modern spendable coinage along with items of jewellery, but some interesting older finds as well, including Roman coins and medieval artefacts...

Beach detecting is fun for all ages with a wide variety of detectors available to suit all pockets and levels.

Over the years both as a detectorist and a dealer I have seen many friends and customers beach finds. I have been in awe of the gold and silver rings that they have found. Even the casual beach detectorist has the chance to make some excellent finds and in time learn to read the beach to the best advantage. There is an art to reading beaches and learning the many areas of the beach that can be searched with good results and some real experts such as Ted Fletcher and Willy the Wizard have published much information on the subject over the years.

Detectors suitable for beach work are as varied as those for the land, although most machines will work well on the dry sand and stones not all will work well on the wet sand at the waters edges.

There are three main types of detectors for the beach, the first is the older technology Pulse Induction machine, no discrimination as such, but excellent depth capabilities, then there are the more simplistic single frequency switch on an go variety, next you have the more sophisticated multi frequency machines, some of which are switch on and go, some which are programmable. There are machines that range in price from just a few pounds for the casual beach detectorist or child, to the more expensive machine that can cost several hundred pounds.

Below is a selection of detectors suitable for beach use, many of them are also very good land machines...good hunting.