Artefact Hoiker on Fudgeworld explains .... Responsible Detecting is not LAW, so anyfink goes

Over on Mr Fudge's Metal Detecting Facebook page:

Nick Argent Conversation starter 18 hrs ago Some of my best finds from 2019 [emoticon] [emoticon]

 

Note that "some". I see here 21 coins, all but one PAS-recordable. I see here also 17 other artefacts (is not one of them gold?) - so in total 38 artefacts are "some" of his finds from 2019. Readers will remember that detectorists say that the 30.25 recordable artefacts annual finds rate used at the basis of the HA Artefact Erosion Counter "must  be wrong" (despite it being in part based on a mass of information from forums  precisely of this nature), because "nobody finds that number of artefacts a year". Well, here is one guy who did. Look at the ensuing discussion in the 41 comments: 
Louise Bowling:

Wow, stunning finds there [emoticon] [emoticon]

Andy Lawson:

Curious if you report the coins?????

[Andy, that you are 'curious' is a statement, not a question]

Julie Argent:

Andy Lawson no need, not treasure.
The rarer ones we sometimes record with the flo, but it's not law to

Andy Lawson:

Thank you, just asked for a little clarity.

I think it's really clear what is going on here. So the PAS database does not contain a cross section of what the Argent twins have actually found and removed from the archaeological record that they exploited as a source of brag-worthy collectables. For a start, very few normal sites of any date or in any place have a coin/other artefact ratio anything like 21:17. Secondly by their own admission, these artefact grabbers are only showing the "rare" (ie brag-worthy) stuff, not the material that comprises the bulk of the record they are destroying. That remains hidden from the rest of us. What "value" does a "database" that contains "data" selected on grounds (collectability) determined by a third party and is wholly incomplete and wholly biased actually represent. Honest answers on a postcard pl;ease to the PAS in Bloomsbury. 

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".