Episode 3: Matt and Metal Detecting

Treasury, Trash, and Tiffany Rings: The Wild World of Beach Detecting with Matt James

Ever wondered what really lies beneath the sand at your local beach? Hint: It’s not just broken seashells and seaweed! In this episode, we chat with Matthew James, an insurance client manager and reptile enthusiast from the NSW Central Coast who picked up a secondhand metal detector at a pawn shop for a bit of "therapy" and accidentally became a local legend. 

Matt takes us inside the fascinating, tightly-knit community of Aussie detectorists. He shares how a casual hobby turned into a high-stakes, 3:00 AM "emergency response service" for frantic beachgoers who have lost everything from wedding bands to car keys. 

What we dive into:

• The Thrill of the Unknown: Why digging up 100 bottle caps is completely worth it when you finally strike gold (or find a 1940s radio dial!). 
• The Race Against the Tide: The heartwarming story of a 2-hour hunt to rescue a 10-year-old girl’s lost Pandora bracelet right before the ocean swallowed it up. 
• Matt’s Backyard Museum: A peek inside his shed filled with pre-decimal pennies, mystery steel pipes, and an unclaimed Tiffany & Co. ring. 
• Pirates vs. Angels: The strict ethical code of true detectorists and how they protect lost items from "beach pirates". 
• Double Trouble Easter: How Matt recovered two different rings worth thousands of dollars in the space of just 90 minutes. 

Whether you’re curious about upgrading from an Aldi machine to a serious rig, want to know how a simple coffee trade works, or just love a feel-good community story, this episode will have you itching to scan the shoreline!  

Mel Loy is a storyteller, community enthusiast, and host of this insightful exploration into the power of individual passions. She’s dedicated to highlighting stories that connect people and inspire action.

You can connect with Mel on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Do you have a weird or wonderful hobby, or do you know someone who does? Then get in touch! Email hello@cuttlefish.group.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Wait, You Do What? The show where we unearth some of the weird and wonderful hobbies of the people in our communities. I'm your host, Mel Loy. I'm recording this on the lands of the other and terrible people here in Meanjin, Brisbane. And I love sharing stories. So sit back, relax, enjoy, and laugh, and maybe be a bit inspired by some of the hobbies our guests share with us on this show. Let's get into it. Matthew, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

G'day, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

So before we get into your weird and wonderful hobby, can you tell us a bit about you?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah, look, uh, okay, so I'm 44, I live on the central coast of New South Wales, um, sort of near Gosford. Um, I'm a reptile enthusiast, uh, I love to cook. Um, you know, I've got two children, uh beautiful partner named Sarah, uh, who you know helps me look after all of the animals and things like that. Uh and between us we have four children, so wow, busy life. Yeah, it's very busy. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

And what's your day job?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Um, I work in insurance as a claim manager. Yeah, so um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So between the job and the animals and the kids, things are a little busy, but you also have another hobby on the side. Can you tell us a bit about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, so um I'm a hobby metal detectorist. Uh it it's something that started um just by going to a uh a porn shop one day, and I I saw this metal detector, and I thought, you know what, that might be somewhat therapeutic. You know, um just you never know what lies uh beneath the surface. Um, you know, I've always been a little bit of a you know relic hunter slash treasure enthusiast, I guess you could call it. And um, yeah, so I ended up buying this secondhand metal detector, and I started just going to the local beaches and uh I joined a couple of groups on Facebook, and it turns out that there was a few other metal detectorists in my area, and I reached out to them and said, um, you know, I've only just bought this new detector or the secondhand detector, and I'm I don't really know how to use it. Um, would anyone be able to you know meet up with me and we could go detecting together and you could teach me what you know all of the frequencies and all of that mean? And I met up with a bloke named Scott and he took me to a beach and he's he ran me through all the different functions of the detector. And before you knew it, we we'd formed this sort of group, and there was more and more people joining it. And uh one day, I think it was it was probably in around 2022, uh, in the local community pages that I'm part of, people started, you know, around summertime, people were constantly posting up about losing things at the beach, wedding rings, necklaces, car keys, mobile phones. Uh, we've got quite a few beaches in my area. And I started responding to them and I just started saying, hey, look, you know, it sucks that you lost your wedding ring. You know, obviously a huge amount of sentimental value there. Uh, did you want me to come and have a look with my metal detector? Because it was only going to improve my skills anyway. And they never said no. So I'd go there and we'd uh we'd spend some time looking for it. And between me and the metal detectress that I met, we'd made this chat group uh on Messenger. And I started to post in, tag, tag them in the posts that people had made about lost items and things like that. And before you knew it, it became like a like an emergency response service for people who have lost things. And we started to coordinate uh between all of our lives who would be the most appropriate to go. Because one thing that we found was that the longer things were lost, the harder they were to recover, especially when you've got tidal movements coming in and people would lose things right close to the to the shoreline or where to where the water comes up. And yeah, we'd start coordinating each other and sending each other out and whoever had the time and who wasn't at work. And we started going at started following the tide. So there'd be times where we'd get up at three o'clock in the morning because that was low tide, and we'd go out and try and find these lost items together, and it just sort of took off from there. And now I'll just have people randomly like I created my own Facebook page, it's called Below the Surface Detecting with Matt James, and people I've used that profile to join all the groups, and my name has gotten out there, and now people just message me directly saying, Oh my god, I'm at the beach now, I've lost this ring. You know, can you help? And that's sort of what happened. And if I wasn't available to do it, I'd just go into the chat group and just say, Hey, is anyone free to go and find this uh this person's lost property? And someone would always go out.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Oh wow. So tell me a bit about that community, because it sounds like people who uh genuinely want to help out, but also have this random interest in metal detecting.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah, well, I mean it's it seems to be a growing hobby for a lot of people. Um, a lot of people do it because they want to actually go prospecting uh for actual gold, but they realise that there's none in the area. You know, if they want to go looking for gold, they have to go inland, they have to go in, you know, towards Bathurst and you know, some of the places north of the central coast.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, I don't remember too many gold fields being on the beach.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

No, then yeah, no, that's right. Um so uh yeah, but a lot of people just get into it the same way I did. It's it's just you know a curiosity of how you can use these machines to take up your time and find things. It's people that are similarly minded, they they have this this yearning to find things that were lost in the past ages ago. You know, like I found I found so many pre-decimal coins, you know, from before we converted into our current currency. Uh I think it was in the 1960s that happened. And I'm digging up coins from like the 1940s, 1950s. Wow. You know, pennies, shillings, um threepence, sixpence.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

That's so cool. So yeah, so that's what they do. And what do you enjoy about it?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Um, just sort of the unknown, you know, like it's I don't get upset when I go to a beach or an area that I've never metal detected before, and I come home with a pocket full of um bottle caps or ring pulls off of cans. Like that's that's part of the game, you know. And people any other metal detectorist in any of these groups will tell you that, you know, it's it's a bit like fishing, you know. You'll you'll lose more more time and tackle than you will catch a fish, but every now and again, excuse me, you'll stumble upon something um that means something to you. Like that I found this um I was on a beach one day and I was metal detecting and I found a whole bunch of garbage and junk. And then I came across an old 1940s uh radio like dial, right? And I thought, how did how did this get on the beach? It's it's come off of a of an old antique radio, and I I I could find I could make out what the writing said, so I googled what the writing said, and sure enough, this this giant radio came on, an old old school radio, and I could just make out that it was uh identical to the framing around the where the needle dial was, and that was probably the most interesting, it wasn't worth anything, but it was just really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Um I guess it's those stories behind those pieces. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

And then I keep them like I've got in my back garage, I've got this like museum of things that I found on the beach, you know, like Matt's Museum of Metal Detecting.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

But um, yeah, like I find a lot of um, you know, what they call garbage rings, you know, things that are bought from cheaper um accessory places like uh La Visa and things like that. And no one ever posts up when they lose them, but I I still hold them and add them to my little museum in the back in the in the back shed. So um, but I think really it's it the targeted metal detector, the things where people have lost things, that's the most rewarding. Um a couple of years ago, I uh there was a it was around Christmas time again, and there was a little girl, I think she would have been about 10, and she had been given a Pandora bracelet with a whole bunch of charms. And the Pandora bracelets, you know, the the bracelets themselves aren't worth that much. It's the charms that are the expensive part. And um, she must have had about six or seven charms on there, so she was growing her own collection. And this family was from out of town and they were staying in a in a local caravan park by the beach, and the girl lost it on the beach, and um they did the right thing and they went uh onto the local community page, and then um, as I expected, I would, everyone started tagging me in, and I had I had uh two other uh no, sorry, I had one other mate with me from the metal detecting group, and we scoured that beach. They, you know, they they met us at the beach and they showed us exactly where they were, was sort of near the flags, you know, good responsible parents letting their 10-year-old swim in between the flags. And um, it took us about two hours, and I got down the tide was coming in, and I was I was working my way down from the top of the beach to the where the water line was. And um, yeah, and we found well, I ended up finding this this Pandora bracelet just as the water was hitting it, because and that's where time becomes the essence. Because what happens is with things like chunky rings and um and heavy bracelets, as the when the water hits them, the sand underneath the water softens and they sink deeper and deeper and deeper as the tide comes in and out, which obviously makes it harder for us to find. And the little girl, when I got it, she was so happy. And her dad came down and they posed for a photo with us on our metal detecting page, and they just couldn't believe that, you know, how quick the whole sequence of events happened, you know, from posting it to me responding, getting in touch with my mate to come and join me, and then you know, spending two hours looking, and we came up good with it. And he said, you know, how much do I owe you? I said, We don't charge. This is just something that we do. You don't have to give us anything. So, you know, it was just more worth it to see the little girl get her her Christmas present back.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

That's awesome. What a great story. Um and my next question then is what is the weirdest thing you've ever found?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Um It depends on on what you consider weird. I mean the radio thing was yeah, that was pretty pretty weird for me, but um I've I've dug up like these there was this one solid steel pipe that I found, but it wasn't just the pipe, and I don't I to this day I do not what know what it is. It looks like it looks like something that we you'd use for fishing, and it has all these different knobs and dials and things on it, but it wasn't a rod holder. Like I I still do not know it's it's in the it's in the museum, and I don't know what it is, it's that mystery item. Um but yeah, like as I said, you know, 90% of what I dig out of the ground or off the beach is usually stuff that ends up in the bin on my way back to the car anyway. Um but yeah, the more interesting things would definitely be the pre-decimal coins, um and the things that I don't know what they are. So, you know, it's it's it's fascinating stuff. Um, I did mention did find this ring. I don't know if you can see that there. That's a um Tiffany and Co. ring.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, it um I found it on one of the local beaches and it was it was still dark in the morning when I was down there, and I was responding to a man who lost his ring, and this beach that I was on wasn't very big. And I've dug it out before the sun's come up, and I was so excited, and I've taken a photo and sent it to this guy and said, Hey mate, mate, I found your ring. I get a message back, that's not my ring. So I didn't find his ring, I found someone else's ring, and I I've I've still been trying to find the owner of it, and um, no one's ever responded to say it's there, so it just joins the uh museum with the rest of the stuff that I hold on to.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Let's have a quick chat about metal protecting by the numbers. It's hard to estimate how many people are hobbyists, but manufacturing data, club memberships, and licensings can give us some clues. Australia is home to MineLab, which is the manufacturer Matt mentioned. They are considered top-tier manufacturers of metal detectors, especially when it comes to prospecting for gold. They're based in Adelaide in South Australia and sell hundreds of thousands of detectors globally every year. In the state of Victoria, tens of thousands of people hold a current miner's right, which is the licence you need to prospect on Crown Land. In New South Wales and Queensland, you need a fossicking permit or licence to search state forests and other designated areas. And in Western Australia, you also need a miner's right licence to search the goldfields around Kalgooli and Pilbora. As Matt mentioned, there's a lot of trash out there. It's estimated that for every one piece of treasure a detectorist finds, they dig up about 50 to 100 pieces of trash. But it's not all small fry, there's been some infamous valuable finds over the years. For example, in 2023, an amateur prospector in Victoria's goldfields found a 4.6 kilogram rock. And when he got it cleaned, it revealed an enormous 2.6 kilograms of solid gold, valued at around $240,000 Australian dollars. In 2021, two Australian filmmakers were making a documentary in Western Australia about French arrivals in the country. And while they were using metal detectors on a remote beach, they found a one-kilogram 15 centimetre tall bronze Buddha statue. Now, after a few years of back and forth, it was confirmed to be a genuine 15th-century Ming Dynasty artifact. While it could be worth up to $180,000 Australian dollars at an auction, the two finders have spent about $50,000 of their own money over five years paying for testing and travel to get it authenticated. So let's hope they make that money back. Okay, let's get back to Matt. And is that the most valuable thing you found, or have you found other treasures that are worth the five?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Um it's yeah, look, it's probably the most valuable thing that hasn't been reclaimed. Um on the on the uh I had a really good day on the uh Easter weekend just gone by. Uh two different people, so it's an interesting story of how it happened. I think it was um, yeah, it was the night before so the Thursday night before Good Friday, this guy posted up and said, I've lost my wedding ring while I was out fishing with the kids the other day. And um I responded to him and I said, Look, it's high tide now, it's it's a dark beach, I'm gonna go there first thing in the morning. And he said, Great, you know, no worries. So I go out there, wasn't far away, and um I just I I asked him to provide me any landmark or anything to help me be in the exact area, and he sent me a picture of a of a a beach house, and he said I was directly in front of this beach house. Okay. So I go there, it's still dark, I didn't even have a torch, I stubbed my toe on a couple of rocks a few times, um, trying to get to where this guy had lost his ring, and it was the quickest recovery I've ever had. I literally got to the waterline and lined myself up with the beach house, turned my machine on, I swung it about three or four times, and then it just screamed at me. And I thought to myself, I thought, this is either going to be a giant fishing sinker or this is gonna be the ring. Because, you know, metal detectors make different sounds to different metals and you know, um, different, I guess you could say, consistencies of metal. And um, yeah, I I I dropped down and I dug it up, and sure enough, there's this this chunky, it was, it was the ring was huge. I couldn't believe it. It looked like some something out of like a biblical tale or something from like, you know, an Egyptian god or something like that, this giant ring. So I messaged the guy and said, mate, is this your ring? Because I knew from the last guy, you know, to ask them if that's their ring rather than just a shoe. He goes, Oh my god, yes, that's my ring. I said, Great, no worries. Come down the beach, I'll meet you at the car park. And he did, and he was so thankful. And I asked him the story about the ring, and he said, Um, yeah, look, it's insured for three thousand dollars. I don't know what the medals were that made it to make it be insured for that much, but what what he said was that the ring itself was actually forged from his wife's deceased grandparents' wedding rings.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

And and some other family member. So you couldn't go to a store and rebuy that ring. And that's what made it so sentiment sentimental for him. And um, that guy actually did give me a reward. He goes, It's very dark, and I noticed that you don't have a torch. And he goes, I'm gonna give you one of my fishing headlamps. So he did. And this thing's this thing's cool. You you clip it onto your hat and you turn it on, and it's just so bright. I'm like, brilliant, I'll take that, you know. And anyway, I get back home because he posted on the community page. I get back home, the sun still hasn't risen yet. And I make myself a coffee and I go to go on Facebook to let the community know that I had found it. And as soon as I logged on to Facebook, there's another post there from another guy. And it it was it had only been up for about five minutes. And he goes, Um, hey guys, I was at this beach with my girlfriend last night, and I lost this uh this really sentimental ring. Now, this beach is the closest beach to me, and I'm like, oh well, won't finish my coffee. I messaged the guy because I knew he was still awake because he'd um he'd posted up about it. I said, mate, I'm literally five minutes away. I'll be there in 10. Right? So I get there and I meet this guy, and um, yeah, he walked me to exactly where he was. Again, two minutes of detecting, bang, the the detector goes off, and I pull this ring out. And he goes, The cafe uh on the beach had just opened. He goes, mate, I insist I'll buy you a coffee. I said, Yeah, all right, I'll take that. Bought me a coffee. And I said, So what's the story behind this ring? He goes, This is the first ring I I ever bought for myself. It's worth $2,000. Oh wow, and it was just something that I I wanted to have for myself for the the rest of my life. I really love this ring. So I got in in the in the space of about an hour, hour and a half, I got two people, two valuable rings back.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

And I got a coffee and a torch for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So that's pretty good, actually. It's a good trade. So it sounds like is there a bit of a code among metal detectors? Like if you find trash that you put it in the bin. If you've if you find something and it's not claimed, what do you do with it? So what's sort of the code, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Okay, so there's different codes here. Um when it comes to trash, yes, definitely. Uh, if you find it, you're expected to take it with you, so it's not left there for other detectors to find. Um, I actually have a bag that I clip around my waist for trash, and you know, it's rather than fill up my pockets, I um, you know, I just stick it all into the trash bag. It never makes it back to the museum. It always ends up in the bin. Um, and then when it comes to valuables, I mean, coins, you know, we collect them and we we hold on. I've got jars full of, you know, 10 cent pieces, five cent pieces, 20 cents, all that. I've got a separate jar for all of my pre-decimal currency that I find. Um, and then with valuables or anything, so there's actually a rule. I'm not sure if it's like how set in stone it is, but there's a rule that if you find something that I think it's if you find something that's worth more than $100, you're supposed to take it to the police station. Um I generally don't. I mean, I should, I guess, but usually when I find something that that that's worth more than that, I can post up about it and someone will claim it. You know, and they'll they'll provide me proof that it's there, so they'll have photos of it or a receipt or something. And um, and yeah, and that's that's pretty much what we do there.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah, okay.

unknown 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

What's the most common item you find?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Bottle caps, definitely. Right. The most common non-trash is definitely coins. And um, I'd say the most common jewelry would be rings.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Even if they're the cheap ones. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um but uh yeah, so that's that's that's pretty much the ins and outs of metal detecting. Um, we do have what we call pirates, and we worry about them. So if someone posts up that they've lost something expensive. So a pirate in metal detecting terms is someone that will go looking for something for someone without the intention of giving it back.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, yeah, it I know, it gets a little bit sort of um angels versus demons as far as uh detector association. Go. There's park pirates as well. So they park pirates will go to um council parks, dig it up. When they find something, not put the soil back in place, and it looks like you know a group of rabbits have gone through there and just dug up the area. But yeah, but then you've got the pirate pirates that go to find things that without the intention of giving them back. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

I'm hoping they're few and far between by the sounds of things.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, if someone's certain in an area where they've lost something and we can't get there for a couple of hours, I always have in the back of my mind that it's likely that a pirate saw the post and they've gone there with their detector, found it, and it's going to be gone forever, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

So Yeah, that's a bit yeah, that's sad. Um you mentioned at the start that some people do prospecting. So like there's the type of work that you do out on the beaches looking for lost items, that sort of thing. But what do prospectors do in the metal detecting world?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Prospectors, um, yeah, they generally have the higher quality. So when you're talking about um different metal detectors, um, you've got really cheap ones that you get from Aldi for like $100. I I wouldn't recommend them to anyone unless, you know, you're a five-year-old. Um then when you start getting into the name brand detectors like um XP, Mind Lab, Garrett, all of those, um, that's where you're starting to pay a bit of money for them, and that's where the quality comes comes in. So the detector, I've only got one detector, and it's it's it's a low-end uh mind lab detector, but it does the job, you know, and I'm used to it. Some other detectorists are really enthusiastic and they'll have multiple models. And um when you when you start getting up to the you know $2,000 mark, that's where they that's where you're serious about detecting. You got detectors that you can you can dial into um to gold and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

And then you can change the setting to uh jewelry. They're really technical. So the prospectors, basically they'll have these two, three, four thousand dollar machines, and what they do is they'll they'll go out to um you know areas that they can detect in, and they'll just sweep over the surface. And what they're looking for is they're looking for little tiny nuggets that have been buried under the surface. Like these detectors, they can go down, you know, two, three, four feet under the surface, you know, probably more in in some of the expensive um models, but they dial it in in such a way that they'll pick up a tiny little gold nugget. And what they do is they they'll find them, they'll collect them, and they they're building up their gold. Um, and then they usually they'll usually be around creeks and things like that where the the water level has dropped and the creek has either dried up or um, you know, or it very rarely fills up with water, and that's where they use their detectors to find the gold. Um probably something that I'd I'd be interested in doing later on in life, you know, when I'm retired. Um, but yeah, definitely with all my my um domestic responsibilities and work and all of that, definitely don't have the time to be heading out to Bathurst every, you know, every weekend. So sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Do your kids and your partner ever come with you on metal detecting missions?

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Um, no, generally not. Um yeah, the the kids, the kids don't, they they never took an interest in it. Uh my son's more into fishing, he's the oldest, he's he's 15. More into fishing, so sometimes I'll take him fishing, he'll be off doing his thing, and then while he's doing that, I'll be metal detecting. Uh he loves it because I'll come across things like sinkers and lures and all that, and I always bring them back for him. So he gets something out of it as well, even if he doesn't catch anything.

unknown 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Um, so yeah, but uh, but yeah, and I'd generally the rest of the family, yeah, they won't get into it. So it's just it's it's specific to me.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

No, I love that. And what do people typically say when you say you do metal detecting as a hobby?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Um, it's always the same response. They go, oh okay. Tell me about that, you know. It as I said, it it's a growing uh interest in a lot of people. Um, but yeah, once you explain to them, you know, pretty much everything I've explained to you, they'll ask me the same questions you've been asking me, uh, just out of interest. And, you know, I've inspired a few people to go out and get a detector. And, you know, even some of them have asked if so they'll they'll I've seen what we do in the community, they'll go out and get a detector, and then they'll message us and say, Hey, you know, can I join your group? Like, I want to be one of these people to help you guys do your job. And we we always say yes, you know, like you can never have enough people looking for lost items. And um that's true. We actually grew. We grew in in so it used to be sort of my area plus or minus, you know, like 20, 25ks, but it's grown so much that we cover everything from the Hawkesbury River right up to Port Stevens. Yeah, wow. There's just detectorists scattered all over the place. We all know where each other live, and you know, if something's an hour, hour and a half north of me, I'll tag in the closest person to it and see if they can go. So yeah. That's cool. I mean, looking looking at it from an outsider's perspective, they'd be like, wow, this is a really well-organised group of people.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Like well, that's my next question, actually. Is if somebody's listening to this and they're like, oh, I'm curious about getting into this, where would they start?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Um I guess they so pretty much every large um area of Sydney by say city size, and even I guess some of the smaller cities and that, they'll there'll always be someone who does detecting. Um, but basically, yeah, that you can usually find uh a group of so well, first of all, there's what's called Metal Detecting Australia. Okay, now that group on Facebook, by the way, I'm actually an admin in it somehow. I don't know how I was. It there's 65, uh, 65, 75,000 people in it.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

That's how I found you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So um uh basically that would be the best place to start because that covers the entire country, right? And what they do is they'd say, hey, you know, looking at getting into this after some advice about what machine I should buy, you know, what's good for a first-timer, what's sort of plug and play, uh easy to use, but not something you'd buy from Albi. And um someone will respond and they'll usually be like, okay, well, my advice is buy this machine, say a I don't know, a Mine Lab uh Equinox six or seven hundred, very easy to use. That's what mine is. Um I'd I'd get one of those, you know, invest the couple of hundred uh the six or seven hundred dollars to buy it, because you'll make you'll make that back in the two dollar coins you find over time anyway. But um, but yeah, and then someone will be like, they'll see the comment and they'll be like, well, hang on a second, where are you located? Oh, I'm in Launcester or Mackay, or you know, oh great, I'm in that area, you know, and that's how they meet each other and then they form their own little cells that you know they go out detecting together, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

So okay, so just help online, do a search of a group, get some advice on what machine to start with. Um and I'm sure you can find them online, but also like you did at second hand shops and those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Yeah, so second hand shops usually do have them. Um, I mean, obviously it voids the warranty of the machine, but um other good places to get them from is Anaconda. So Anaconda, yeah, they they don't usually stock the um anything more than say uh one or two thousand dollars. Um there's there's a uh if you want something really good quality and want some really good advice, there's a bloke that used to have a shop uh in Newcastle and he's called the Aussie Detectorist. And um I've actually met him a couple of times, really nice guy. He used to do um podcasts and things like that. Um, but he had to shut down his shop, and what he what he does is he only does online sales now. So uh a very good person to get advice on the right machine. Um you can find he still has his Facebook page, the Aussie Detectorist. Um, and he'll get back to you like I'm a straight away. It's it's still his business, he just doesn't have a shop front to run it out of anymore. But yeah, he'll he'll always take the time to you know address the questions and things like that and match you up with the right machine, and then he can sell them to you online.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

So awesome. And one last question: what's the future of Matt's Museum of Metal Detecting?

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Um, I guess I need to clean it out one day. You know, um, yeah, it it it'll be going on for as long as I can detect, I guess. It's it's just most detectorists have this sort of thing, whether it's a a drawer in a in a cupboard or something where they put all their finds in. But you know, you just clean it out every now and again. Um I mean, by the time I I retire and you know, later on in life, I I I don't know how much uh my money and coins I could have. Yeah. You know, it might be a nice little nest egg for me one day, you know, just one day randomly cash in all my coins and see how much is there. You know, um yeah, it's a holiday fund. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Oh, that's great, Matt. Well, look, thank you so much for spending the time to chat to us today and share the inside world of metal detecting, and uh hopefully a few people will get in touch if they want to. What's the best way to get in touch with you to find out more about metal detecting and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah, probably uh for me personally, it would be my my personal metal detecting Facebook page. So it's called Below the Surface Detecting with Matt James. And there's a picture of me holding my detector with the coil behind me wearing some uh it's like a cowboy hat looking thing. Um, yeah, I thought I'd make myself as rugged as I could for the for the photo shoot, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Awesome. Uh Matt, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yeah, no worries.