Loughborough Coin & Search Society (click on the "landowners" tab) has an offer you can't refuse:
Do you own land in Leicestershire? Would you like to earn money for doing nothing? Maybe there is a charity close to your heart such as a local hospice,hospital or Air Ambulance? We will organise a " LCSS " metal detecting dig on your land ..all you have to do is get in touch. A dig can be arranged on any pasture or arable land subject to your terms of access. The rewards can be amazing....an insight into the history of your land & you receive £££`s for nothing. Our Detecting Liason Officer is contactable via this website.
Yay!!! Sounds good, all you do is sign on the dotted line here, just a formality, and let us come and hoover and hoik all the archaeological finds from any sites that may be on your land, and we will pay you a few pounds for the privilege... read a little further down, showing the farmer how much he earns... Something missing isn't there? So what about all those people finding coins and stuff on your land and next week putting what they do not want for their own collections on eBay? Where is the mention of sharing the profits with the OWNER of those finds, the landowner? So a tekkie pays eight quid, but in a weekend might find stuff he can sell for eighty (or more). What he does collect will of course also accumulate in value. No mention here either of treasure rewards is there? The landowner is wooed with the suggestion that "you can get money for nothing" but of course the artefact hunters are getting far more for next-to-no-money.
We actively liaise with Leicestershire County Council, English Heritage and Natural England and can advise how detecting fits in with the many Stewardship and Agri-payment schemes that are in place.yes, all done with Portable Antiquity Scheme backup - so is despoiling the countryside of archaeological evidence REALLY fitting in with stewardship (i.e., conservation) schemes? An odd idea they have of archaeological "conservation" in the UK.
So WHERE is the PAS leaflet for landowners, setting out the archaeological point of view on this whole sort of business? They were ummming and ahhing about it years ago when they still had a Forum, it seems there is not much to show for their efforts to walk the tightrope between being hobby-bobbies and "partners". The rationale of protecting the archaeological resource and keeping landowners informed would say they should have been in the throes of producing the third revised printing of this leaflet by now. Come of guys, forget crawling to the looters and get some more effective archaeological outreach to the landowners organized.
To judge by the mail address given, that "Liaison officer" is a known character, he's been over here moaning that the Nighthawking report was "a devisive (sic) wedge that achieves nothing", (though "achieved nothing" I can agree with). He has also recently bought himself the "depth advantage", and has bought himself a Minelab GPX 5000. Oddly enough, despite that, he is claiming to have passed a University of of Leicester module on Aims & Methods of Archaeology. I really don't see how one can square that, if you're treating it seriously, with organizing commercial artefact hunting rallies, PAS involvement or no PAS involvement. Perhaps he slept through the parts of the lectures about ethics and not wrecking the archaeological resource?
Here is some "detecting eye-candy" of some brave heritage heroes heroically in heroic action, digging heroic holes in the archaeological heritage ( does the commentator say in the car just as he comes onto the Fosse Way "no police"?).
Hooray eh? [Postscriptum to this video: I reached it from a link on the LCSS website [Done the dig? Now watch the movie!!! "Thanks to the clubs new Executive Film Producer (aka Ginge) the link below will take you to a horrifying home movie!! 
Scary Movie]. It specifically says at the beginning that it is the Loughborough Coin and Search Society "dig", and but in the comments to this post, the group's apparent organizer denies this film shows his group in action. Oh well, it's some detectorists in some field digging holes in heavy soil to hoik out some antiquities to collect or sell. The Loughborough lot doing their "coining" and "searching" will look very much the same I guess, but please note this may not be the actual Loughborough Coin and Search Society in heritage heroic action but a simulacrum].*
PAS comment anyone? Unlikely isn't it? Draw your own conclusions.
[Correction: I initially suggested the webpage does not mention Treasure awards, it does - so another incentive to let the lads on your land]
Vignette: LCSS website banner trying to make metal detecting look like African exploration.
7 comments:
Hello Mr Barford,
I often visit your blog with interest, although I accept it unlikely we will ever find common ground.
As regards my further education I feel it better to try & understand the archaeological perspective, would you consider spending time with responsible detectorists?
I attempt to promote responsibility to our club members as we endevour to contribute towards understanding of our collective past.
In a perfect world the archaeological resource would remain undisturbed but our understanding of the past would be much poorer than it is now.
Aside from that thank you for the extra publicity I am sure my hits rate has vastly increased of late!!
I would however suggest that the video link provided is in fact of an event that was not organised by LCSS. Please advise if you would like the correct one.
Kind Regards
John.
Thanks for the additional comment Mr Barford. For your further information you appear to have missed a small but important part of the text on our landowners page.
Your comment "No mention here either of treasure rewards is there?" is rather inaccurate as it clearly states;
"A written agreement is provided ensuring you receive 50% of any Treasure finds or items over an agreed retail value. After every dig we check with the landowner that everything is satisfactory and give a brief resume of what was found."
Its also the first time I have seen "simulacrum" used in a comment. Extra word score for that one.
Since my post on BAJR I have acheived a further two modules on my course and it has certainly changed my perspective on the hobby (for the better of course!)and given me an understanding why so many arcaeologists are "conditioned" against our hobby. From Day One "Excavation is a last resort" is the underwritten mantra.
I`ll still stick with my belief that what we retrieve is at risk from agri-destruction and makes us the "last resort" for the coins & artefacts we recover. Accurately recorded, photographed etc they contribute more than they ever will when they are decayed compounds in centuries time would you not agree?
"although I accept it unlikely we will ever find common ground My fault entirely I am sure, you'll say.
"would you consider spending time with responsible detectorists?" have I not then? Hmmm, so who were they then? Blast it, duped again.
"I attempt to promote responsibility to our club members as we endevour to contribute towards understanding of our collective past."
That sound all very noble, so its not at all about artefact and coin collecting then? Sorry, it looked for all the world like you were a bunch of artefact hunters out there. So how about "responsibly" telling the landowners that you'll split the actual value of ALL the finds you take away with them, whether you decide to sell them or not? Aren't you ripping them off by not doing that? I mean you could show them the finds valuartion section of "The Searcher" to show them how much more money they can make by letting artefact hunters onto their fields. Or am I missing something here about this brand of "responsibility"?
"our understanding of the past would be much poorer than it is now" I really do not accept that argument. What information is being extracted from the PAS database is being extracted to show what a "jolly good thing" the PAS database is. Its propaganda for a policy of destruction. Much of it that has been discussed is neo-Kossinnist culture-historical, Old Archaeology when even New Archaeology has been history in Britain over two decades. We cannot even use it yet to "understand" our own times, the patterns of activities of detectorists.
"Aside from that thank you for the extra publicity I am sure my hits rate has vastly increased of late!!"
Open the closed discussion forum, and you'd get even more people looking in (your landowners too), if counting coup is all you are interested in.
"I would however suggest that the video link provided is in fact of an event that was not organised by LCSS. there was nothing wrong with the link, the thumbnail was the wrong one - you wanted the one showing you grubbing in a hole. I hope you'll forgive me for using another more attractive one. Nice photo.
"I`ll still stick with my belief that what we retrieve is at risk from ari- destruction', Well, you do that. Maybe if you have to write a dissertation, you could pick that as your topic. "Artefact hunting as rescue: true or false?". But I suppose the usefulness of that depends who your supervisor is and how good the university library is I suppose.
it clearly states;
"A written agreement is provided ensuring you receive 50% of any Treasure finds"
_____________________
So it does - and "clearly" as you say.
Precisely how are you in a position to ensure he gets 50% of something that is subject to statutory provisions?
By "receive 50% of any Treasure finds" I presume you mean a 50% "landowner's reward" under the Treasure Act do you? You can't ensure he receives 50% of the finds can you?
Indeed, you can't ensure he receives 50%, 40% or any other percentage as a reward either can you since 1. the reward is by no means an automatic entitlement, 2. it's percentage is by no means fixed and 3. the decision on whether he gets it is absolutely nothing to do with you so you're in no position to tell him you are or to contract with on the basis of such a statement.
So why do you tell him otherwise?
I really can't think you'd want to give him a false picture in order to persuade him to let you detect on his land.
Hello Mr Barford,
Me again! For clarity the contract we sign with our landowners is slightly more lengthy than the ad on the website.
The nuts and bolts are that the landowner agrees certain stipulations binding both parties, from responsible parking to filling in holes and where we aren`t allowed to go (SSI`s,Stewardship areas such as grass verges etc etc). I won`t bore you with all the details suffice to say it is the landowners choice who he allows on his land for any purpose and we do our best to accomodate.
Please ask if any further information requires clarification.
No, I think we can see the rest for ourselves, thanks.
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/11/link-between-buying-selling-members.html
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