it's old photographs of the beach your on !
"there is so much info on old victorian photographs,one place im researching shows them loading tourists onto sail boats hundreds of them ,loads of potential for dropping stuff out of pockets as they were tranfered off the beach itself "
now this place has been fogoten about due to a pier being built in the following years "i haven't been there yet,can't wait "
but this shows the potential out there,the beach im on at the moment iv'e done the same thing also google mapped it, and guess what it showed a bank holiday day on google hundreds of people sitting on a piece of beach iv'e never done before !
so my top tip for beach detecting is:
"don't just turn up, research all the old photographs you can find first then let ripp with th detector " good hunting
Great idea gaz ...well done for thinking that one up 
