The Treasure Act Consultation ends on Tuesday. Many detectorists are saying there’s no need for reform”. We disagree. (And since when do exploiters get a say in setting exploitation parameters? How’s that worked out so far?!) Here are some incidents from just this week that suggest massive reforms ARE needed:
. [1.]
Yet more nighthawking (in broad daylight and next to the byelaws notice forbidding it) on Malvern Hills. As usual, no-one said anything. PAS and the Treasure Registrar praise detecting so much people assume everything will be reported, despite it being 100% untrue for nighthawking and 90% untrue for “legal” detecting!
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. [2.]
A British detectorist with a rare gold coin dating from the reign of Henry VII. He “struck it rich” gushed the BBC and he was praised by the FLO, yet guess who gets to keep the coin – him! Finders keepers, innit! And 4 Israeli schoolboys who came across a rare Byzantine gold coin, the first of its kind in their country. They handed it over and were awarded not money but certificates for good citizenship. “Finders-keepers of national heritage” doesn’t apply in civilised countries!
PS, 29/4/19
(Thanks to Paul Barford for highlighting this): Against the background of this national disgrace the DCMS Consultation Document contains two massive lies – designed presumably to re-assure detectorists that reform is hardly needed at all….
“The growth of online markets means that there is more scope for a small minority of unscrupulous finders to sell unreported finds.[…] The growth of online markets has given the rare unscrupulous finder an outlet to sell an unreported find and currently there is no sanction on someone (sic) who knowingly buys such a find.”
Small? Rare? The DCMS knows nothing about it, they rely on advice. Who advised them to put “small” and “rare”? It has to be PAS, surely? Why are we paying that quango to constantly paper over the truth?
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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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28/04/2019 at 09:45
Paul Barford (@PortantIssues)
and that coin in the UK displayed as a trophy by the finder was a product of irresponsible searching on a grassland site – note that in the photo there seem to be earthworks there. and the PAS FLO praised him for it, not a word about any ‘code of responsible detecting’… Some reform there too would not go amiss.