Petition Opposing "Spike TV" Metal Detecting Show, 17600 Signatures

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US Coin dealers and collectors are very fond of saying how much "support" they have for their efforts to have freedom from restrictions on the import of coins without documentation of lawful export from source countries. They might compare the several hundred coineys who are pressurised by alarmist tactics to write to the State Department to protest that they are asked to collect responsibly with the results of the ongoing petition about another form of artefact collecting. The 13-episode Spike reality TV show "American Digger" (like the National Geographic Channel's "Diggers") is attracting a lot of adverse attention. The number of signatures on the Change.org online petition protesting American Digger continues to grow - at the moment, there are more than 17,500 signatures. As SAFE notes in a thought-provoking post:

Could Spike executives and Gurney Productions be asking themselves: how many Change.org signatures and how Tweets in a focused campaign would cause advertisers to think twice about promoting their products on American Digger? We may soon find out.

SAFE also asks questions about what the programme's press releases say (a February 15 Spike press release, for example) was the first major metal detecting find of Frank Huguelet [who goes under the name "Ric Savage"]. This was "a hunk of shrapnel he found at the site of the Battle of Cold Harbor, VA, [which] prompted him to form American Savage and continue his pursuit of history and riches." It seems that one year previous to the Hugelet family moving to Virgina,

the Civil War Trust placed the Cold Harbor battlefield on its Ten Most Endangered Battlefields list. So where, and when, did Frank Hugeulet come across the valuable Cold Harbor artifact(s) that prompted him to form his relic recovery business?

What is gratifying is that this whole fuss is actually leading to some very useful public outreach about archaeology and artefact hunting. The Facebook pages on the two programmes report that they are being visited by ordinary members of the US public who are asking a lot of questions, giving heritage professionals an opportunity to explain the issues. (That is unlike the PAS Facebook page in the UK which is mostly populated by backslapping self-congratulatory posts and zero discussion on the treatment of portable antiquities - but I get the impression that this is the way they like it.)