The Blue Gloves are for....

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The blue gloves are used so that when handling sensitive finds, skin oils and chlorides from perspiration do not get onto the finds...

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Did Sam Moorhead (seen here at the Annual PAS Annual Report Show) change his after wiping them all over his face? What's the point of making a show of the cotton glove treatment if it's only for show? Actually, my theory is that they mainly have a symbolic role, visual markers of the transfer of power over the objects from the ungloved detectorists to the 'professionally equipped' museum "experts". Those same gold solidi were shown in the videos during excavation in the ungloved hands of archaeologists and metal detecting finders who were furthermore roughly wiping the gritty sand off them in the field.  But then, the fact that those videos have now disappeared suggests we are not supposed to see such things.