The "Guess the Stone Circle" Competition in "The Searcher"

And without a pinpointer too... (Nokta)

When I received the advert below from a responsible metal detectorist who'd spotted it in a copy of "the Searcher" metal detecting magazine (No 347 July 2014), cynic that I am, I half-suspected that he was trying to wind me up with a fake advert. But no,  the same promotional picture showing a nonchalant oik crouching beside a hole dug right in the centre of a stone circle appears in another advertising campaign of theirs, (here).   Note the additional message:

coins and relics of the world are now in the hands of privileged FORS CoRa users...

Entitlement writ large. In most parts of the world, for privileged read 'criminal'. In the other advertising campaign, the message is even more disturbing:

With its extreme sensitivity, it will find coins and relics that other detectors miss at unmatched depths

"The Searcher" carries
these adverts (scan by "Bud")

Here I think it is immaterial whether the machine is more capable or asy to use in such mode than any other, or whether the photo is not made on somebody's back lawn with a photoshopped background. Here it is the appalling message being projected, and it is a matter of great interest that "the Searcher" would carry such an advert on its pages alongside articles written by officers of the PAS, for example. Further evidence that the mantra of responsible detecting in the UK are little more than words, leaving real attitudes down at the same level as they were before seventeen yers of ineffective outreach on :best practice". As far as the editors of "the Searcher" are concerned inNocta detectors pays the cash for advertising space, they'll print pictures like this for the rest of us to see and judge the artefact hunting community by.

The firm is based in Istanbul, Turkey, and their website says

Nokta Metal Detectors has been operating under the principle that environmental and community responsibility, customer satisfaction and insistence on high-quality are of the utmost importance.

Not with that photo they are not. It suggests that they have not the slightest idea what the first two terms might entail in the terms of artefact hoiking. The website's videos are also instructive about these notions of 'responsibility', like the 'summer adrenalin', Nazi digging, one. Maybe Nokta's marketing department would like to contact its European customers and ask what kind of advertising material they should be using to promote their products where everybody can see?

and the problem here is not the size of the hole...