Pennsylvania

Yes, on private land with the landowner’s written permission. That is the clearest legal route in Pennsylvania, and it is the only thing we do.

Federal land is closed. Access to state land is decided by Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the rules are not the same at every property. Private ground, with the owner’s written agreement, avoids all of it.

On federal land, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 makes it an offence to disturb or remove archaeological resources over 100 years old without a permit. The National Park Service prohibits metal detecting outright in national parks.

DCNR sets the rules for state parks and state forests, and the position is not the same on every property. Historic and archaeological sites carry separate protection again. Ask the managing office about the specific park rather than assuming the system has one answer.

We do not publish a summary of individual park rules, because they change and they differ site by site. The authority above is the one that decides, and they will answer directly.

Public land is complicated. Private land with written permission is not.

Ask the landowner and get it in writing, or book ground where the permission already exists. Knowing where to look is only half of it. The right to be standing there is the half that decides whether the day is detecting or trespass.

1. Identify the ground. Old maps, cellar holes, vanished settlements and terrain will all point you at likely land in Pennsylvania. None of that grants access to it.
2. Find who owns it. County parcel records name the owner. Knocking on the door still works, and still fails most of the time.
3. Get the agreement in writing. Who may search, which fields, on what dates, what happens to anything found, and who carries the liability.
4. Or skip to the end. Every FieldFinders listing in Pennsylvania is land whose owner has already agreed, set their own rate, and approves each request by name. The written search agreement comes with the booking.

Pennsylvania is where the colonial frontier, the Revolution and the Civil War all left material in the same state. William Penn’s settlement pushed west up the river valleys from 1681, and by the 1750s the province was the contested edge of empire, with Braddock and Forbes cutting military roads toward the Forks of the Ohio. A century later the war came back at Gettysburg. Between those events lie farms in Lancaster and Chester counties that have been worked by the same families since the 1700s.

1. 1681 onwardPenn’s settlement, Philadelphia and the river counties
2. 1750sFrench and Indian War, the Braddock and Forbes roads, frontier forts
3. 1777 to 1778Brandywine, Germantown and the winter at Valley Forge
4. 1863The Confederate advance north, and Gettysburg

The limestone valleys of the southeast are deep, sweet and unusually kind to metal, and Lancaster County soil preserves copper and silver about as well as anything in the country. The ridges are stonier and more acidic. Anthracite and iron districts carry heavy modern ferrous, so the old farms are the cleaner hunt.

Colonial coppers and Spanish silver on the long worked farms, buttons, buckles and camp material along the march routes, and mid 1800s coinage anywhere a village stood. Gettysburg National Military Park, like every National Park Service battlefield, is closed to detecting outright.