Metal Detecting Finds...Transformed! My husband "Chicago Ron" Guinazzo leads metal detecting tours twice a year to England. We met in 2012, and I joined him on these trips. We dig all types of items; coins, tokens, buttons, watch winders, buckles, bells, clothing fasteners, etc. All of the artifacts we find are reported to the British Museum, and exported with proper documentation. I personally research, sort, clean, and polish the artifacts. In designing the jewelry piece, I try to maintain the integrity of the artifact. You areYes, by stripping, drilling, mounting them on thongs, a tidy profit can be made in Chicago of bits ripped out of the archaeological record of another country. Please, give a link to the records of all of these items 'reported to the British Museum' - do the buyers of Ms Guinazzo's twee jewellery get a certificate giving the PAS numbers and link to that description of what it is in the PAS record? And a copy of the export licence?receiving[buying] a real piece of wearable history!
So here we have it, detectorists claim indignantly "we ain't in it fer the munny", except when they are. Chicago Ron makes money from Britain's heritage by organizing metal detecting holidays for his paying American pals to go over to England to fill their pockets with artefacts ripped out of sites known-to-be-productive and take them out of the country, his wife takes the things these collectors reject and makes more cash by turning the 'non-collectable' artefacts into tacky trophy jewellery. It's a win-win situation for the artefact coveters, but what loses out is archaeological preservation and the British heritage.
When are these metal detecting holidays organized for legal-innit-looting parties from abroad going to be banned?
.... Or even condemned - either by PAS or detectorists.
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