Dear Fellow Landowners,
It was a rumbustious night down at the Black Sheep and Wellies on Friday. I and my farming pals celebrated that a detectorist has just written on his blog: “I will also be letting the farmer know that all items found excluding treasure items belong to him, if there is anything that he does not [want] after the recording of the finds I will let him know I am interested in acquiring them”.
He might have added “once he’s obtained independent advice on them“ but still it’s a step forward and I’ll give a bag of mangel wurzels to any detectorist, archaeologist, lawyer, philosopher or priest that can show why ALL artefact hunters shouldn’t be doing it too. Anything else, like getting the farmer to sign away 50% of his property while still undiscovered (which most detectorists and the whole Archaeological Establishment encourage landowners to do) is plain wrong. Imagine finding your granny had let someone clear her loft when she was out in exchange for 50% of what they said they’d found – and that the Government had urged her to do it!
He’ll get a ton of criticism for what he’s doing but on the other hand he can console himself with the fact he’ll be treating farmers in a fairer and more honorable and respectful way than many thousands of his colleagues as well as English Heritage, the British Museum, the Portable Antiquities Scheme and many others. (Heaven help their grannies!)
Regards,
Silas Brown,
Grunter’s Hollow Farm,
Worfield,
Salop
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PS, Friends, here’s a drinking song I and the lads composed at the Sheep and Wellies. It’s time we farmers stood up for ourselves, don’t you think?
.
The Fifty-Shifty Contract
Just sign this find-sharing contract mate,
It’s written out really good,
We can split your stuff fifty-fifty mate,
(The archies all say we should).
But how do I know you won’t take nine
And show me only one?
What if you take what’s supposed to be mine
And clear off home old son?
It’s all a matter of trust my friend,
Purely a matter of trust,
And I know you’ll agree with me my friend,
That mutual trust is a must.
Fine, then bring me the lot old chum,
Trust me, I’ll give some to you
Just as soon as I’ve taken advice on it chum,
(I think independent advice would be best, don’t you?).
Er um, er, no sorry that wouldn’t be just,
Or at least, not just what we detectorists do,
You see, when we say that trust is a must
We mean the trust must come only from you!
Chorus (ALL FARMERS)
Then get off my laaand you untrusting twister
Get off my laaand, ooh arr!
Your contract’s unfair and you know it is Mister,
So get off my laaand, ooh arr!
.
Update (Nigel Swift): A sockpuppet writeth… that I’ve been banging this drum repeatedly for years and that therefore (presumably) I should now stop. My answer is this: yesterday we reckon about 790 recordable artefacts were dug up but most of them weren’t reported to PAS (according to PAS’s statistics) and most of them weren’t shown to the owner (according to the wording of the Finds Agreements). The same happened on each of thousands of previous days and will apply on each of an unknown number of future days.
So my attitude is simple. When detectorists cease to act in an uncivilised way I will immediately stop pointing out that they are doing so. That’s not unreasonable is it?
Incidentally, I see Silas’s little ditty has been described by a detectorist as “inaccurate”. Trouble is, it’s not. Taking someone’s property home unseen and unchecked by them to Liverpool or Latvia on any pretext or none is plain wrong by any standard. And doing it on the basis that “trust” is essential” is pure nonsense when both a crook and a cad would use the same wording so the wording leaves him open to being swindled. (“Oh but I wouldn’t swindle him” – that’s not the point, an awful lot of your mates would and do, as you know very well, using the same words). Some things are just wrong. Think Granny and loft. Or YOUR loft, for God’s sake! Would you trust Silas or a bloke from the pub to come to your house, take away your stuff without showing you “to report it to the National Stuff Reporting Scheme”? No you wouldn’t! So why would you subject farmers, on any pretext whatsoever, to a greater risk than you are prepared to tolerate at your own house?! Whatever leg you thought you were standing on has just collapsed.
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********** STOP PRESS **********
We’ve just had a text message from Silas. It says:
Here! That detecting fellow said I was a patronising and pathetic stereotype! Well I’m not. Oooh aarr!
I’ll tell you exactly what I am though, and I’m very proud of it. I’m someone who has stood up for the rights of all landowners more than him and his ten thousand mates and all the signatories of the Responsibility Code combined! No amount of abuse or dressing up by the former or guilty silence from the latter can make that not true so bring it on, let’s see what else you can all offer, archaeologists, detectorists and Cabinet Ministers, to justify an army of people taking home vast quantities of other people’s property unseen!
Me and my mates in the Black Sheep and Wellies are totally, totally agog.
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Another Update! The Trouble with Paul Barford ….. is that he says things Artefacts Hunters wish he wouldn’t and which The British Archaeological Establishment know they should. Like this, that he has just posted on a detectorist’s blog (which no-one logical, honest or heritage-friendly could possibly not cheer. Could they?!) :
“I’ll tell you what is “patronising”, it is going to seek permission without some recent back numbers of “the Searcher” and “Treasure Hunter” to LEAVE with the landowner, to show what metal detectorists do, what they find interesting, and above all to let them see the “finds valuation” pages in both those hobby magazines BEFORE they put pen to any agreement signing away any rights at all to artefact hunters. How many artefact hunters seeking finds agreements do that would you say? On how many forums have you read metal detectorists advising others to go permission hunting with these magazines under their arm so farmers can see how much those buckles, brooches and badges are valued at there? Why not yourself go onto a forum today and suggest it? Let us see what response you get. “
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Update 13 May 2014
It seems we are being misunderstood and misquoted in some quarters so to clarify I’ve just posted this elsewhere. I trust it’s clear enough….
“detectorists are thieves” ….
No. The assertion is that every detectorist ought to bring the owner’s property to him so he can take independent advice upon it – as only that can be regarded as “fair dealing”, given that the detectorist has all the knowledge and the landowner has none. It seems to me so few detectorists do that (judging by the finds agreements) that not doing it has become seen as OK. It’s not. Not when many millions of pounds worth are leaving the fields yearly and the owner is given little information about the objects or their significance or their value or all of them other than what one person tells him. That is not fair dealing and calling it trust doesn’t make it so, nor is using the excuse that “he isn’t interested in them”. He would be if he was properly informed. To say otherwise would be to say he’s an idiot.
“shows the metal detectorist in a bad light”
Damn right it does. What do you want of us? To say the behaviour of most detectorists isn’t unprincipled and profoundly unfair to landowners? I wouldn’t hold your breath!
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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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The Heritage Journal 
28 comments
Comments feed for this article
11/05/2014 at 13:20
Vestibule
….
11/05/2014 at 14:06
Andy Baines
I still have not managed to go out and try this approach but I will be doing soon. I have no problem with the farmer having his finds that I have discovered on his land. For me the main reward is being able to have the opportunity to metal detect, its what I enjoy doing.
11/05/2014 at 14:35
Nigel S
Vestibule, first, as we’ve often observed, whenever we make points artefact hunters can’t answer we get abusive sockpuppetry such as that.
Second, to describe a call for detectorists to bring everything to the owner as a childish rant says all that needs to be said about your agenda and behaviour.
Third, so far as our “Project” is concerned 5,800 people including everyone that’s anyone in British Archaeology and Heritage and an awful lot of farmers now follow us on Twitter – which is a sort of litmus test of how we’re viewed. In 2 years we’ll have more readers of the Journal than there are artefact hunters in the fields. Not bad for a group of “ordinary people” with a clear sense of right and wrong and a long term plan, from a standing start, eh?
11/05/2014 at 14:53
Nigel S
Andy B, well I didn’t say who you were in case the thugs took against you but I look forward to you doing it. (IMO it’s actually not an approach to be tried it’s an obligation owed).
“No Granny there was nothing of importance in your loft”….
“Alright dearie. (What a nice young man!)”
11/05/2014 at 20:07
Legal Beagle
For the purpose of clarity, at law, the landowner does not have title to the objects buried in his or her fields as by legal definition they are classed as lost property, be they a 1 year old watch or a 2000 year old bracelet as the items were not placed for safekeeping but were in fact lost. If a farmer were to draw up an inventory of all they owned, they would not obviously include items they know nothing about. At law, it is the FINDER who, if after a reasonable period of time is not contacted by the original owner (impossible with an artefact) then takes title to the objects. In the case of treasure, the items were not lost but were placed intentionally with the owner expecting to retrieve the items at a later date, but in the cases of treasure these days, the owner obviously never returned therefore the state/crown takes title to the items. In effect, a metal detectorist is asking permission to search the landowners land for lost items that may or may not be there but it is the finder who holds title to the items since he was given permission to be on the land to speculatively search for lost items. Likewise, if a walker strolls along a path over farmland and finds a Rolex watch sat beside the path then it does not belong to the landowner but is in the care of the finder. If no one comes forwards to claim the watch, the finder takes title to the item.
I hope that makes the subject matter clearer.
11/05/2014 at 22:09
Paul Barford
”I hope that makes the subject matter clearer” .
No, not really, you miss out quite a lot here as it applies to dugup relics. First of all, I see you are writing from Canada, are you writing about Canadian law or do you imagine you are giving an account of the current state of the law of England, Scotland, Wales and/or the two Irelands?
“the landowner does not have title to the objects buried in his or her fields”
That is not true on several counts. First of all if we are talking about “lost property”, then there is a clear difference in common law depending on where the found object was. There is a difference if the finder is in a public area (like in the street) or an area where he has privileged access to an area usually private (such as a tractor driver in a farmer’s field, or a guest in somebody’s house – or somebody’s cleaning lady). Despite what you said, the latter does NOT then in a common law situation automatically have finder’s rights to unclaimed lost property. This is exactly the position of a metal detecting guest in somebody else’s field.
Secondly if we are talking about grave goods or a hoard, then there is obviously no “lost” property – this was the difficulty in the application of bona vacantia Treasure Trove law in England leading to its scrapping.
”In the case of treasure, the items were not lost but were placed intentionally with the owner expecting to retrieve the items at a later date
No, if that is what you are discussing, that’s a rubbish definition of the current situation in British law. You are confusing two different things.
In addition to lost (or abandoned) property, you seem to forget that there is also the common law legal category of ‘mislaid’ or ‘misplaced’ property (found in a place where the original owner likely did intend to set it, but then simply neglected to pick it up again, like for example metal items scattered around a settlement). Mislaid property should be handed over to the owner of the premises where found, and if unclaimed DOES belong to the owner of the property. Then there is res nullius, you forget that. Are coins and brooches which potentially can be flooged on eBay for tens of quid, sometimes hundreds of quid res nullius? Likewise a landowner does not own only what he can inventorise. Try shooting pheasants in Farmer Brown’s copse or poaching truffles or digging gravel pebbles or flagstone slabs for your patio from his hollow and you’ll find that out.
12/05/2014 at 05:49
Nigel S
Interesting stuff Paul, thanks.
I suspect our Legal Eagle has been sent by a thieving jackdaw. In any case it’s another huge own goal. I wonder if detectorists in general would be happy to have the claim “what we find on your field is legally ours M8” sent to the farming press?! Or might they say to the real author: go back to your Bournemouth beach and stay there for another forty years, you’re repeatedly costing us dear?!
As I have said so many times, thinking detectorists should form a respectable group with decent rules of behaviour backed up by sanctions and let the rest go hang. (Let’s see PAS and Ed Vaizey continue to defend them then!). Do you know, no-one has ever been blackballed for bringing detecting into disrepute? Not even by prison terms. (A confessed ex-nighthawk runs one of the detecting shops and a villain imprisoned for artefact fraud is now back running detecting rallies for heaven’s sake!) What a club to be in and to feel obliged to defend, shoulder to shoulder with yobs and clodhopping sockpuppets!
So when are you going to make the move gentlemen?
12/05/2014 at 09:23
detectorbloke
I believe you are wrong Legal Beagle, my post on the subject explains why i think you are wrong. If you are correct then Mr Fletcher, in the quoted case, would have won in the Court of Appeal. He didn’t.
12/05/2014 at 11:02
detectorbloke
http://theresponsibledetectorist.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/i-found-it-so-i-can-keep-it-right.html
for the above post
12/05/2014 at 12:14
Cloverleaf
Wow a lot of discussion but who cares? No one does. That’s why nothing changes. If people cared, people would do something about it.
12/05/2014 at 12:43
heritageaction
Maybe neither PAS nor detectorists have explained to them that £20 per artefact x hundreds of thousands of artefacts add up to many millions of pounds?
Do you suppose that might be the reason?
12/05/2014 at 12:58
Cloverleaf
Well the monetary aspect is for the individual to decide, however it may well lead to an increased boom in metal detecting if people realised it can form an additional income for both landowner and finder.
12/05/2014 at 13:01
Paul Barford
“Cloverleaf”, the reason why artefact hunters and collectors might like to gloss over that fact is relatively easy to understand, but not excusable. The reason why a Scheme set up to explain portable antiquity issues to the public fails to do so, well there’s a mystery.
12/05/2014 at 13:07
heritageaction
” however it may well lead to an increased boom in metal detecting if people realised it can form an additional income for both landowner and finder.”
Aaah, so we should keep it quiet from farmers how much money is leaving their fields without them realising it should we? Cui bono, precisely?
12/05/2014 at 13:17
Cloverleaf
Well it is a valid point of consideration. Look at the growth of commercial artefact hunting in recent years, fuelled by the farmer getting a payment for the allowing the activity. Conservation and preservation will struggle to keep their heads above water when the mighty £ is added into the equation.
12/05/2014 at 13:36
heritageaction
Well, since detectorists are only in it for the money they surely won’t mind all those millions of pounds going into the farmers’ pockets rather than their own will they? So it follows that they won’t mind if PAS or others publicise the sums involved to the farmers, doesn’t it?
So isn’t that the best way forward?
12/05/2014 at 17:00
Sol
The PAS is not a financial advisor and never has had a financial remit. The issue is the conservation of the historical record so to.turn it into a monetary issue is far removed from conservation. Why not just dig it all up with jcbs,flog it off and be done with it!
12/05/2014 at 17:25
Pat
The PAS is not a financial advisor and never has had a financial remit.
Sounds like someone else desperate for farmers not to be told how much minor finds are worth!
What on earth is wrong with them outreaching to farmers and saying make sure you see everything as it adds up to a lot of money?
The issue is the conservation of the historical record so to turn it into a monetary issue is far removed from conservation.
Unfortunately, it is the very fact the finds have considerable value that is at the heart of the conservation problem so it can’t possibly be ignored.
12/05/2014 at 19:21
Falconer
Forget the PAS. Get Sothebys to inform the farmers ‘there is money in them there fields’ and beat the treasure hunters to it.
12/05/2014 at 19:57
Pat
But it’s not Sothebys who have a clear duty of care towards landowners or an obligation to outreach to them is it?
12/05/2014 at 20:03
Ben
Anyone seen the TV programme where people bid blind on Storage lockers? Do the same with UK farmland. Advertise the rights to what may possibly be in the ground and hold an auction and sell the searching rights by auction for a year and the farmer gets the auction money and the winning bidder gets what he finds in the ground. Obviously the better likely hood of the land having decent finds based on it geographical location raises the auction value. Farmers already do this with standing straw sales and farmers love an auction so it would actually work. Win win all round.
12/05/2014 at 20:26
Pat
“Advertise the rights to what may possibly be in the ground and …. sell the searching rights”
But that’s precisely what some farmers and commercial detecting rally organisers do up and down this country every week! (Isn’t Britain’s attitude towards it’s buried portable antiquities uniquely crass and uncivilised?!)
12/05/2014 at 20:36
Ben
“But that’s precisely what some farmers and commercial detecting rally organisers do up and down this country every week”
But do it by auction and then the farmer gets the true market price of the Heritage Assets he owns and he can do this by selling the rights to individuals, not organisations.
12/05/2014 at 21:15
Pat
But how would that not be just as crass and uncivilised?
13/05/2014 at 11:03
Ben
Well the farmer by selling his artefact hunting rights at auction gets the best price. More than some arbitrary sum offered by a metal detecting
club. Nothing crass and uncivilised in that if he gets the best deal on his property.
13/05/2014 at 11:44
heritageaction
“Nothing crass and uncivilised in that if he gets the best deal on his property.”
Of course there is. It commodifies the archaeological resource and destroys the common heritage for individual financial gratification. Can you think of a WORSE way to treat it?
14/05/2014 at 15:59
Stargazer
Rock and hard place spring to mind. Either the detectorists sell the artfacts or the farmers sell the rights to find and then sell the artefacts. That’s the problem with ownership when what you own has a financial value beyond the value you yourself place in the item.
14/05/2014 at 17:09
heritageaction
Detectorists are in it for their love of history alone. Why would they sell anything?