Wednesday 30 April 2014
Its early on a Sunday morning, a quick glance out the window shows its a sunny day, dry, no wind, a perfect day for a raid. You load up your car with all the tools you need to carry out this raid. Your metal detector is your main source of carrying out this theft along with your spade. You buckle on your finds pouch which now becomes your swagbag. Don't forget your gloves, you don't want to be leaving fingerprints on styles and gates. Just before you leave you kiss your wife/girlfriend/partner/cat goodbye and tell them you will be back later with the loot.Arriving at the field all is quiet, not a soul about, perfect. While detecting away your in your own little world, dreaming of any riches you may uncover, when all of a sudden you hear a motor noise. You then realize its the farmer. YIKES!!!!....Do you run and hide behind the nearest hedge, crouch down out of sight in a hole so as not to be discovered. Nope, you give a friendly wave to him and he waves back. Maybe he drives over for a friendly chat and asks you if you have found anything. "Not yet" you reply, "But I'm hopeful". Does the farmer then do 80 miles an hour on his tractor back to the farm house to phone the police. No, of course not, because he has given you permission to be there.
According to a couple of sites I've been reading we are all thieves by taking what we find home with us. Treasure items most of us know must be reported, those that don't know within a very short time they soon find out. The treasure laws are everywhere and can't be missed. Here I am talking about all the odd coins, buckles, buttons, musket balls, pieces of rusted iron, pull tabs, silver foil, anything at all that's found. On one site a farmer tried to class it the same as walking into Tescos, and walking out with some bacon without paying for it lol. Yes I know, we must have laws, and theft laws are important, but how can you class what we do where we have permission from the farmer to hunt on his land. Nighthawking is different, that's breaking the law.
The law regarding all finds are the landowners might exist, but its unworkable. Whats all the fuss about anyway. Those couple of sites are ranting and raving about how much detectorists are stealing from farmers, but they don't mention how many farmers profit from what we do. Take just myself and I know other detectorists do it, I pay to detect. I pay the farmer on the site I go to £10 for the day, as I go at least once a month, maybe twice, but at once a month nets the farmer £120 in a year from me, my detecting buddy also comes along, its his permission, and he pays £10 a day. So farmer gets at least £240 from us both. Tally up if we sold what we find and its us that comes out the losers. Just look at the amount of treasure finds that are made, the farmer gets half of the total amount and some farmers have done really well out of it. Why shouldn't we as detectorists get the other half, we invested in the equipment and put the time in. Okay, by law its the farmers property, but its stuff he never even knew he had, never even knew existed, even stuff he most likely never lost in the first place.
Plus, and this is the big plus, look at the history we uncover, since the hobby of metal detecting started the history of our country has gone through the roof. new discoveries are being made on a weekly basis, isn't that what us and the general public want, always adding to our heritage. Also a lot of charities have benefited because of our hobby.
So what's the answer, gawd knows as I'm just a simpleton as these couple of sites make me out to be. If all the farmers are like the farmers I have met in my detecting which have been brilliant, then I can't see what all the fuss is about other than some bodies trying to get detecting banned. and stressing out about minute details. To those people I say get your head back into the real world. Far far more worse things going on in the world. My opinion is let it be, nobody really gets harmed, nothing is broke regarding the PAS and FLO as they are set up to govern what's important and we should be proud to have such bodies in our country.
Me again lol. I think if we just start from the basis that we find stuff that is the landowners then it doesn't have to be a bad thing due to the fact that many landowners will let you keep the stuff, sell it etc. it's just the principle that it doesn't automatically belong to the detectorist that I think is important. As that old case goes, permission to find doesnt mean permission to take away. As people have already commented many landowners will do a fifty fifty but if it's agreed before hand what will be done about the finds then no one can moan.
ReplyDeleteYour absolutely right Detectorbloke. I can see now how a sort of contract should be drawn up before hand about what to do with the finds. Everyone knows that anything on the land belongs to the landowner, how many people know that anything IN the land also belongs to the landowner, I suppose I half assumed it did, but I never knew there was a law in place to say so. No landowner has ever told me, in fact, I've never met a landowner yet who is really bothered about what I find, they just show a bit of interest in what's been found and are only to pleased that I had found something.
DeleteThat's where sites like yours and Andys come in, promoting responsible metal detecting and making people think about how they go about their detecting. Its certainly made me sit up and think and I've already made changes in the way I detect.
It just gets my back up reading on other sites how we the detectorists flout the laws and get tarred as thieves by a minority. The definition of a thief to me is shoplifting, burglary, pickpocket, etc, To be called a thief for taking away something that's been lost maybe hundreds of years ago and I had permission to search and no one knew it was there in the first place is so wrong even if it seems it is in the eyes of the law. Before people start branding others what might be right and wrong, they should take a look at their own lives. Ye who casts the first stone etc comes to mind.
No one is squeaky clean, everyone breaks a law now and again. Important laws like murder, assault, theft, (here i mean theft as in breaking and entering), drink driving are examples of important laws and we must have them. But this law of whatever I find in the ground with the reasons above is bound to get flaunted, its human nature. Its nothing like pinching a bit of bacon from Tescos as one site put it. To me its on par with throwing a ciggy butt out your car window, picking a wild flower, taking a pebble off a beach, dropping litter....the list goes on. These things are all against the law, but people do it and they know its wrong, its just a minor thing.
If we lived within every nitty gritty bits of laws like these minor ones the world would be a perfect place. It won't happen. Hell, I've said it before, some of the people who make these laws are at it themselves and in a bigger way than taking something away that never existed before we found it. There will never be a perfect world so all we can do is survive as best we can on how far our consciousness will take us.
And then again some people just have nothing else to do but spend all day badmouthing our pastime...
ReplyDeleteWell said Dick, better they put all their energy into something a bit more important and try to make the world a better place.
Deleteif the landowner knows it's theirs but is happy for you to have it then everyone is happy. i know the temptation not to tell the landowner about stuff is only natural, ive done it before.
ReplyDeletei now try to keep to my new mantra 'permission to find doesnt mean permission to take away, unless agreed otherwise (which it usually is it seems)'
I like the wording of your new mantra Detectorbloke and because of the last few days I will never forget it.
ReplyDeleteHehe well don't let the haters get you down in any way and keep on blogging :)
ReplyDeleteUntil I started blogging I never realized that there was such a bad feeling between most detectorists and archaeologists, I say most and not some because of what I've seen around the net in different places. You hardly ever see the two debating in a proper manner, its always a slanging match. The only reason I can see why its like this is because archaeologists see a threat to their jobs. Before the hobby of metal detecting took off you only ever heard of treasures being found by archaeologists but these days your more likely to hear of treasures found by detectorists. So really I can understand their plight. No one likes their jobs threatened. All I can say is what I've been told in the past when my job was threatened, its progress and you can't stand in the way of progress and have to go with it.
ReplyDelete"permission to find doesnt mean permission to take away, unless agreed otherwise (which it usually is it seems)"
ReplyDeleteThat Detector Bloke, is possibly the best statement I have ever seen on a metal detecting website,blog or forum.
Jordan.
Excellent wasn't it, easy to remember and has a ring to it.
ReplyDelete