Finns coming to Germany for metal detecting - Few questions

[True Vikings]

Hello German detectorists!

Apologies, our German is not as strong as we would like it to be. We did however study it for a couple years in school but that was some time ago Feel free to respond in German or any other language.

Let me introduce ourselves, we are two geologists from Finland who have a Youtube channel about metal detecting. Usually we are metal detecting in Finland, but we have also done it in both England and in California. We are planning to come to Germany next to do some detecting and GoPro filming. Our best finds to date include a Viking silver coin horde in Finland and a gold coin from the 1500's in England. Please check out our youtube videos to put faces behind the username. Our Youtube channel is called True Vikings.

We decided to go to Germany for our next metal detecting trip. Right now we are in the planning stages and hence we reach out to you. This will be a roughly 2 week trip in end of September and early October. We have done some research about laws and places to go to but we would like to have your input as well. Our understanding is that every Bundesland has slightly different laws regarding metal detecting. We do not have a very clear picture yet where in Germany to go to, but we believe the laws in NordRhein-Westfalen and Hessen are the "loosest" and would suit us the best? Maybe someone can confirm this or recommend other places for us. Also to our understanding Both NordRhein-Westfalen and Hessen have the 50/50 split between finder/landowner in the unlikely event of finding something of interest.

Our research tells us that forests are usually OK to go to and metal detect in. If venturing out on arable fields then permission from the landowner has to be had. Known historical places and monuments are of course a no-no. Very similar laws that we have in Finland. Are our understanding of these laws correct? Something might have been lost in translation.

We have a couple questions that we would like to ask our fellow German detectorists;

Which Bundesland would you recommend for two fellas like us?

Which is the most useful webpage to find out about the protected historical sites? So we can avoid them.

Maybe someone would like to show us around? We are able to come to any place in Germany, our trip is very much undecided yet.

When we find old relics/coins then to whom will we report them? In England there is an archaeology office in every town where to bring finds. There they will determine the historical worth of it and log them. We imagine Germany has something similar?

Anything else that could be useful to us is greatly appreciated!


Thank you all in advance! Hopefully you can make it to Finland one day, we will definitely show you around!

Emil and Joel, -True Vikings

[mdstr]

Hey guys,

first of all welcome to the board!

its not that easy to answer all of your questions in a short summary here because there are quite a lot of things which have to be considered when talking about laws, official and inofficial behaviour from your side (e.g. best practices) and so on. Got the next 2 days off from work, will try to find time then to explain the most important things.

Of Course it won't be too much into Detail as it would take hours to write a Response

[True Vikings]

Thank you mdstr! We appreciate you taking the time to help us out. Any information that you think we ought to be aware of will me most appreciated! We will of course buy you a beer when we run into you in Germany (small place isn't it? ) or if you decide to come to Finland.

Cheers!