Yesterday’s article might have given the impression we think Central Searchers have the dodgiest rules in the whole of metal detecting. That isn’t so. That honour goes to The Somerset Artefact Seekers Metal Detecting Club whose rules include this:
“Any items found that are not Treasure Trove become the property of the finder/s unless otherwise stated.” (Changed the next day! See below).
Can you imagine the extreme degree of fiction regarding what might be found that would be needed in order to induce a farmer to agree to that? Keep in mind, inter alia, that the Crosby Garrett Helmet, valued at £3,600,000 was a non-treasure item and if found under the above arrangement would have become the property of the detectorist alone.
PAS (and indeed EH and CBA) are very welcome to use our Comments section to indicate if they support artefact hunting on this basis and whether it is possible that outreach to farmers is a neglected element of outreach. It would also be interesting to hear from Glasgow Uni criminologists (thanks, Paul Barford) and the police and members of the Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage about whether such an arrangement, if shown to be ill-understood by one of the parties, could even be illegal. A fascinating topic indeed. Not one that should engender profound silence perhaps.
Update: Ho ho ho!
An April Fool’s joke on a detecting forum this morning: “Metal Detecting ban announced!“
But the real irony is this: Britain is the only country on the planet where such an announcement would be seen as a joke!!
NB, not that we’ve ever called for a ban, we’ve only ever suggested there should be a law to compel artefact hunters to behave – for which PAS has called us trolls – and thugs have threatened us with violence. Happy 1st April, PAS and all detectorists.
Another Update (April 2nd): Well, well, well!
The crook-helping Rule of The Somerset Artefact Seekers Metal Detecting Club – “Any items found that are not Treasure Trove become the property of the finder/s unless otherwise stated” has now been changed, thereby delivering a confession of how outrageous it was. Non treasure items now become the property of the finder and farmer on the basis of 50/50!
That’s yet another lesson for PAS: if you criticise people for oikish and exploitative behaviour, sometimes they’re shamed into changing it. Why has it taken a bunch of amateurs like us (like happened in the case of Regtons) to bring about an improvement? It’s not us that are paid and instructed by Parliament to outreach, it’s you. How about you now criticise Central Searchers, as you are duty-bound to do? Maybe you can get a similar result? But please, do it in public, that’s the only thing that works, as we have shown – and of course, it would show you give a damn for the interests of farmers more than artefact hunters, something that’s not at all obvious at present.
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More Heritage Action views on metal detecting and artefact collecting
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The Heritage Journal 
11 comments
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01/04/2013 at 14:46
Darren Ross
what specific controls have you suggested? again things are different in scotland so i am interested in the issues in england/wales. these issues you talk about are a bit alien to me regarding nighthawks and artifact selling.
01/04/2013 at 15:08
heritageaction
“what specific controls have you suggested?”
This would be a good start:
http://www.ethicaldetecting.org.uk/
01/04/2013 at 20:10
Darren Ross
Yes I agree and adhere to most of these points but not all are practical up here.
UK. Again i’m only qualified to comment on the Scottish detecting and have no experience of England.
Again up here ALL finds belong to the crown and not the landowner. i inform them that either i can report a find or they can do it themselves and pay the postage and fill in the form etc to treasure trove.
if the landowner is happy for me to detect on his land and refuses the offer to get everything handed over then that’s his perogative. some are interested only in ‘treasure’ some are interested in history. I’m happy to give the farmer say a hammered coin as i’m obliged by law to hand it in anyway.
in scotland you have to be genuinely interested in history or the hobby will get boring very quickly.
01/04/2013 at 20:23
heritageaction
The ten EMDA pledges and the article are about England and Wales.
01/04/2013 at 20:58
Darren Ross
It is unfortunate that distinction is not made between the two countries when criticising the hobby for unethical behaviour.
01/04/2013 at 21:13
heritageaction
Not really. The derisory number of artefacts reported in Scotland indicates Scottish detectorists are mostly grossly irresponsible even as measured by the low standards of behaviour laid out in the Code in England and Wales. So I’m not sure why you would think a distinction should be made.
01/04/2013 at 22:48
Darren Ross
its only derisory if you are ignorant abou the amount of finds in Scotland. Do you know much about Scottish history and artifacts ?
what type of pre british coinage are found in Scotland for instance?
01/04/2013 at 23:37
Darren Ross
…also there are only an estimated 300 detectorists in scotland versus about 10,000 in england
02/04/2013 at 04:46
heritageaction
Latest Treasure Report: 152 artefacts claimed by the Crown and gifted to museums, 87 returned to finders, rewards totalling £36,535 claimed, with individual pay-outs ranging from £15 to £6,000. Not too heroic is it? Even accepting those figures don’t reflect the total submitted to local museums, there’s no way there isn’t significant non-disclosure in Scotland.
However, this article is about England and Wales, not Scotland.
02/04/2013 at 14:01
Darren Ross
here’s some figures for you.
Its widely accepted that there are around 300 active detectorists in scotland. Of these 300 there are a hardcore of around 70 who are out every weekend during Sept/Apr .
(We have been asked NOT to report 17th century turner coins and post-1707 coins.) There is no anglo-saxon or celtic artifacts like the south and very little Roman .
Your erosion counter suggests that an average detectorist will find about 3 or 4 recordable items per month in England/Wales. There is NO WAY that is an average rate in Scotland. It take some club members (including myself) over a year to find a single hammered coin.
This is the reality of Scottish detecting. If you were to create a Scottish erosion counter I would be interested to see your survey findings.
02/04/2013 at 16:31
heritageaction
Please note yet again, the article is about England and Wales, not Scotland.
We can’t construct an Erosion Counter for Scotland as unlike in England and Wales we don’t have finds rate data from surveys. All we have are the Treasure Report figures, which show less than one artefact per detectorist per year!