"LFOs Suck": The Problems of Collaboration with Pay-to-Dig Site Trashing Hoiking Tekkies

                          Gold staters                    

Due to the dodgy small print in the contract they have signed with landowners that ensure the Treasure payments are skewed several thousand quid to the benefit of the finder at the loss of the property owner, Paul Howard of Let's Go Digging infamy is boasting (original punctuation):

LGD can hold their head high every time and say our treasure finds get reported every time, We don’t need sarcastic emails from certain FLO in Gloucester Keep up the good work members don’t give them a chance to have a pop

Members' comments:

Lee Oaker: Them lfo [sic] are assholes sometimes
Paul Howard: We need to remember their [sic] are some very good ones who are not all corrupt

Only partly, eh? At this point, if I were their FLO they'd get more than a sarcastic email from me. But I guess that's why I am not their FLO.

Judith Johnson: The Oxfordshire one [FLO] is really helpful
Judith Johnson: correct, and Worcestershire and Birmingham

Now, I must admit I have never had the pleasure of corresponding with Edward Caswell (Oxf), Victoria Allnatt (Birm) and Susheela Burford (Worcs), but I am sure they are all very helpful to the members of the public to whom they are there to outreach. And I doubt that there really was anything "sarcastic" in the email of the Gloucester when he learnt of the discovery of the group of coins. It does seem however that they are still in the hands of individual finders and in danger of being dispersed, as this warning from Paul Howard demonstrates (original punctuation):

If I find out anyone in this group is contacting finders to sell finds before they even get reported I’ll remove you from the group no questions asked, just so your aware ,

Since it seems that this is what is happening, then the FLO is well within his rights to remind the event's organiser to remind his members of their legal obligations. But LGD as a commercial artefact-looting operation has other reasons for not wanting to work with the Gloucestershire FLO, as Paul Howard explains:

He[']s not a flo LGD Trust[,] he’s made us lose farms once he knows where they are, He has a very bad name and we strongly recommend you report finds to your local FLO not Kurt

More details on this come from Chris Bailey

Kurt Adams cost LGD possibly the best and most productive site they ever had. He went behind the scenes and made arrangements for himself and the local History society to take over the investigations as to a potential major historical discovery and ensured LGD would not be weclome back on that land, regardless of the excellent reputation that had been built between the group and the landowner. In one email he actually stated LGD would not be welcome to attend the geophysical study due to the comments made about this on Facebook. He is the perfect example as to why there is a distrust between many detectorists and the very people who's jobs are reliant on the fantastic finds made by people in this hobby.

The point about this is that 24 years of PAS "outreach" to the public have made no headway in showing that archaeology and archaeological conservation are not about (reliant on) somebody merely making "fantastic finds". An artefact hunters' "best and most productive site" that is "a potential major historical discovery" is not a place to be looted to fill the pockets of a few greedy oiks, but a place to be investigated and documented better than an "X-marks-the-spot-here's-where-I-found-a-fing-now-in-me-collekshun". Artefact hunters (even the commercial treasure hunters like this shower) claim to be "saving" information, but they are not, their hoiking is trashing the information a site holds. Kurt Adams was right to persuade the landowner that this site deserved better than being trashed for LGD members' pocketing everything they fancy up to a value of 3000 quid. Mr Bailey later adds that this site was at Slimbridge. Note how he depicts site conservation as a competition "made arrangements for himself to take over the investigations", yep, that's what archaeologists do when an important site is in danger of destruction.  

The syntax-challenged Paul Howard then adds

It’s not long before legal action will be taken against him for acting corruptly hiding behind the FLO

He sees the archaeologist only as an "employee of the government" (worth pondering on the meaning of 'valuable' here):

Time has come to take action just to teach him a valuable lesson , Stop thieving finds while working for the government, let’s see what his bosses have to say ,

So instead of the archaeologist educating finders, a crowd of commercial digger oiks want to "teach him a lesson". Joe Dodsworth advises

i know exactly where he lives if ya fancie poping round [...].

And that is exactly why archaeologists working from home during lockdown should avoid arranging to meet artefact hunters or their ilk to their home-offices. That notwithstanding, here's Paul Howard again (original spelling and punctuation):

LISTEN CAREFULY [sic] As some of you are fully aware some not all FLO s are corrupt and hiding behind their positions for other benefits, We have heard enough about kurt Adams over the years and had our own bad experiences with him to know , I’m only looking for people who have had finds go missing after giving them to kurt or your bad experiences with him, We are going to look at reporting him to the FLO and government as a club but need your help to do so , Let us know your bad experiences with him and if you’ve had finds go missing comment if you would help assist in filing a report with LGD and if prepared to give evidence if needed Enough is enough

AND Government, eh? Boris Johnson of course not having anything better to do than read a badly-spelt complaint from a bunch of oiks from Wales that say they've lost some coins. Anyway  Wales has got its own government for dealing with the Welsh.