Hurrah for metal detectorist Laurence Egerton who found a massive hoard in Devon and stopped digging and slept in his car for 3 days to guard it so it could be excavated by the professionals! Compare and contrast most detectorists. Ever heard of any of them doing that? It’s 3 years since we suggested they should do exactly that (and still PAS hasn’t suggested such a thing on their website!). And what about this lot?
There’s a video of them digging this up. Twenty one detectorists were seen or heard on that but only one is heard to be suggesting the archaeologists should be brought in, and he is quickly shouted down. So that’s less than one in twenty. Their excuse was that if they left it overnight “someone” (by which they probably meant one of them!) would steal it. And no-one was prepared to stay and guard it. Yet Mr Egerton was.
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So how can detectorists be made to “do an Egerton”? Here’s an idea. Never mind a token “bad behaviour reduction” in their reward by the Treasure Valuation Committee. How about giving a stonking 75% of their reward to Mr Egerton or those who behave like him? Do that a few times and the message might get through that bad behaviour isn’t worth it and good behaviour is! Which detectorist would think that was unfair? The message might even get through to the people no other messages reach – like Terry Bull from Kent:
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“I think they did the right thing …. they put the hard work in so can’t see the problem good for them to have found a hord that’s grate if I find a hord I’m digging it out to and have a look inside to see what’s there lol”
Really Terry? What if you stood to lose £100,000?
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10 comments
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02/11/2014 at 10:08
Andy baines
For clarification I believe the hoard you show was up near Durham not down in Kent.
02/11/2014 at 10:37
heritageaction
OK, article amended, thanks.
04/11/2014 at 20:02
kevin benning
I do not think that increasing a treasure value to detectorists from 50/50 to 75% will make any difference at all because if you want to “make a quick buck” you will sell to the black market for less than a fraction of the value or to get your percentage you,more often than not,have to wait for about 2-3years for the treasure process to go through,and that is the one main reason a few detectorists will choose the first option.
I for one will always choose option 2 because i do like to record important finds,and no i do not record everything.Can you imagine every detectorist recording every button and every musket ball.Believe me i have seen the backlog of finds in a museum warehouse it is mind boggling.
So Mr heritage action choose your words very carefully {fat chance}Farmers are doing more damage than us by the spreading green waste and lime over sites of archeological interest.
If you want to see what responsible recording is,get The Searcher magazine in about three months time and you will see mine and the farmers beautiful Saxon disc brooch which has been saved for future generations rather than being smashed up by the plough.
04/11/2014 at 20:16
heritageaction
Like so many detectorists you have entirely missed the point. The disincentive/incentive proposed was with regard to bad practice/good practice respectively, not non-declaration of treasure.
04/11/2014 at 20:29
kevin benning
I think you are a very mixed up person who needs a good woman in his life and retire to a nice little coastal town where everyone loves his neighbour and has a chiwawa [sorry i am only a detectorist did i not spell dog right}
05/11/2014 at 04:57
heritageaction
Having missed the point of a very simple article to such a spectacular degree you are perhaps not too well qualified to accuse others of being mixed up.
05/11/2014 at 10:42
kevin benning
and i suppose you got an A in geography at school having read the first part of this article.
You probably are a very nice person when you are not talking about your favorite hatred.
I can see this going nowhere so i will sign off with a best of luck on your endeavor to find the perfect detectorist or perfect anything
05/11/2014 at 10:52
heritageaction
“best of luck on your endeavor to find the perfect detectorist or perfect anything”
More failure to get the point. No-one is looking for a perfect detectorist. All that’s required is for the 70% who conduct their hobby in a self-seeking and antisocial fashion to desist – and for the rest to have the honesty to admit that’s the problem.
Clan loyalty might go down well amongst your colleagues but thinking people regard it as abetting wrong-doing.
03/01/2015 at 21:22
ScotsFireblade
Heritageaction I think you make many interestring and unpopular observatrions and some ideas for further thought.
However I think you are missing the point in many ways. Something is better than nothing. There will never be a Shrangrila where artifacts are preserved in situ and recovered only in a controlled manner by Archaeologists. History is so large and archaeologists so few. Artifacts if not “looted” as you describe it will be destroyed by chemical action and agricultutal machinery. I never see you commenting on the impact on modern farming on metal artifacts. Also many artifacts are incorectly stored, not by metal detectorists, but by curators and archaeologusts in museaums.You talk about metal detectorists secreting away artifacts but what about museums, I bet you will know what % of artifacts in museums are displayed versus those “in storage” , hint, its nowhere near a third. The PAS is a great succes even if only one third of artifacts are being reported. Thats a third of artifacts that we would not know about.
For this particular article I do agree with you it is better for such a hoard that may be in some kind of contect to be excavated by an archaeologist. However…..I believe way less than a third of metal detecting finds are in contect like this, most are randomly positioned due to movement in the soil due to agriculture. Metal detectors only reliably recover in the top 6 to 9 inches, such finds as this are only found so deep as they are very MASSIVE AND CONDUCTIVE. The main reason detectorists dig up hoards is that they CANNOT GET the archaeologists to come out. I have personally seen this several times as a detectorist on weekends. The one hoard I have found I called the FLO who correctly over the phone deduced it was a purse drop scattered out of context by agriculture and told me to continue recovering and then come and see her with the coins. A circulated coin purse drop was later confirmed during the treasure case by the BM soi I (and they) are happy I did the right thing recovering these coins and no extra knowledge was lost. Further away in this field I found damaged coins from the same era broken by a machine harrow. If I had not recovered the coins I did I am fairly certain that at some point they to would have been broken. So any recovery is better than leaving them in the soil. I dont think we can expect individuals to stay guarding sites for days. I made my find mid week and had to fly to a foreing country on business the next day, and in my case the FLO did not want to see the site anyway. On the Money issue two major auction houses on photos valued my hoard at between 3 or 4 times what the BM did. However I and landowner did not contest and we split the proposed reward 50:50.and the coins were purchased by a museum. Most landowners and metal detectorists I have met are a responsible set of people who are adding to our historical knowledge. I would not mind having to have a licence or following a mandatory code of practice, other hobbies like fishing have this. However I do not understand the rest of the negativity around metal detecting or the PAS.
04/01/2015 at 09:07
Archyfan
“I dont think we can expect individuals to stay guarding sites for days”….
Really? So they owe Society no duty of care but Society owes them a massive ex gratia payment?