My name is Steve and I’m UK based in the county of Cornwall, southwest England, I’m 53 and have been detecting for around 20 years now.

I have always had a deep interest in history, metal detecting was my way of connecting with the past and I’m fortunate to live in an area that is steeped in history.

My first machine was a Minelab Explorer and that is where I first came across the Coiltek coils and paired one up with the machine back then and it was a good addition to the machine and did great on the local beaches.

About seven or eight years ago I started to take the hobby to the next level and started to do more hunting on land and it was then that I really started to discover the past, finding my first Roman coin and also my first hammered silver coin a James 1st sixpence.

As well as the history side of metal detecting, the main benefits of the hobby are that it’s a great way of exercising as you walk miles without realising it and the mental health benefits as it’s a fantastic way of getting away from the day-to-day stress and being outdoors is good for the soul.

I was fortunate enough to win a Coiltek 14×9” Nox coil for the Equinox in a competition that I entered that was run by a UK supplier called Crawfords and it is now my main coil on my equinox 900 and have had some fantastic results, it has great target separation and pinpointing is really accurate as well as hitting deep targets and has brought my fields back to life, one of my favourite finds with it being a medieval hammered silver coin of Edward 1st.

My advice for anyone new to the hobby or someone that is thinking about starting is this, you will dig a lot of holes and find a lot of pull tabs etc but if you persevere you will eventually find treasure, for some it’s gold but to some of us it is an everyday item that was lost hundreds of years ago, being the first person to hold it gets the mind wondering.

Follow me on Instagram @digging_cornwall.

Many thanks, Steve