Abstract: A method for detecting and identifying the magnetic characteristics of materials by generating an interrogating electromagnetic field in which two opposing receiver antenna assemblies are immersed. The material is housed substantially within one of the receiver antenna assemblies so that one end protrudes slightly inside the other receiver antenna assembly to minimize edge effect noise. The responding field is detected, sampled and converted to a digital signal that is compared against pre-stored values that correspond to particular signatures or patterns of the materials being identified. Through computational adjustments of the digital values or adjustments to the interrogating field, the resulting digital values are fitted to the waveform patterns, within preestablished variances.