Eye/Leominster Hoard, Paranoia and Idle Chitchat

Two Welsh metal detectorists allegedly found a substantial Viking-period hoard in the West of England at Eye Court Farm near Leominster, Herefordshire. British law unambiguously states what their legal obligation was (apart from informing the landowner before they removed the haul from their property). They were supposed to inform the Coroner withing 14 days and the items would then be subject to the Treasure Process.

Instead, they are reported to have taken them to a dealer and a fellow detectorist and then another dealer and between them decided to flog them off ("not in it for the munny," you see). 

The problem is that UK metal detectorists, as a tribe may be observed to be abnormally paranoid, they see themselves as 'victims', and perceive the situation to be that everyone is out to get them, cheat them, persecute them. The authorities are out to 'screw' them, they believe. So, talk is rife on detecting forums - including those near you just a mouse-click away (MDF for example) - that the Treasure Valuation Committee allegedly deliberately undervalues material found by artefact hunters that a museum wants to acquire, so the finders feel short-changed. They are sure that on the open market they could've got more. You can see them saying it week after week. 

Another problem for the metal detectorist is that in England and Wales (unlike Scotland, where as we have seen in the recent Derek McLennan case only the finder is entitled to a reward for Treasure finds on another person's property) when a Treasure award is paid out, the landowner gets it, and shares it with the finder. Sometimes the landowner forgoes their share, but then only half of the reward is paid out. In this case, if things happened as reported, the finders apparently begrudged 'sharing' with the landowner, so they did not tell them. That is why they are being tried for theft, did they or did they not steal these artefacts from the landowner? 

This whole situation seems to owe a lot to the conviction among UK artefact hunters that the current system concerning Treasure rewards is somehow not "fair" to them. On the contrary, if these people could see what they are blessed with in the UK looks like in its global context, they would (should) take a different attitude. In many countries all over the world, the mere act of taking a metal detector and spade to an archaeological site would put them at risk of being locked up. People are sitting in jails at this moment for doing what in the UK they think it's their God-given 'right' to do, AND they expect to get paid for it! And they think their property rights as finders trump those of the landowner to the property on their land. Farmers beware of such people.