Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Farmers Are Greedy, Archaeologists need Paying

Heritage Action comment on the artefact hunters commenting on landowners challenging their attitudes of entitlement ('Farmers are greedy and archaeologists are money grabbing. Only artefact hunters are virtuous!' 24/01/2015).

A farmer is being blaggarded on a forum. Can you guess why: “I’d tell him where to get off!/ he’s taking the YouKnowWhat/ this sets a dangerous precedent/ could spread like a cancer/ As he seems so greedy I would agree and only show him your trash and grots/ Everybody these days want’s [sic] something for nothing!/ cheeky so and so/ he may simply be an arrogant pig head.” His crime? He says they can have ALL the finds from his land up to a value of £50 but he’d like to keep anything worth more. What a monster! Keep in mind, it’s all his anyway, and (according to them) 99.9% of finds are worth below £50 so he’s actually giving them nearly every item, adding up to lots of money and more than enough for any “hobbyist” to collect and study, So much for “in it for the history”! (One of them even reveals a way round it, just as Farmer Silas Brown has warned about: “make sure every thing you find is worth £49.99″. That’s theft, fraud or looting but you need wits or morals to realise that – so how many times has it happened?).

There is also discussion of detectorist "Littleboot" criticising archaeologists for getting paid to do their job. I think she kids herself that by hoiking isolated finds she is doing their job for free. That's what the PAS tells them, and many of them are too stubborn in their ignorance to question it.