tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8174756573570334952.post1798238761751976310..comments2024-03-27T04:46:33.198-07:00Comments on Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues: Bottles and Metal, the Early History of Artefact Hunting in the UKPaul Barfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10443302899233809948noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8174756573570334952.post-82802684330703846822019-08-21T06:00:49.566-07:002019-08-21T06:00:49.566-07:00In my case, the egg collectors, bottle diggers and...In my case, the egg collectors, bottle diggers and metal detectorists were one and the same. As a teenager I tended to hang about with kids in the village who were 3/4 years older than myself. They tended to have developed 'hobby's' as I started to hang about with them.<br /> <br /> As a small village on an Island , there was a lot of contact with our environment and the older kids had developed an interest in the collection of birds eggs, with one in particular having quite an extensive collection (It was already illegal by 74, when I was 12). At about the same time, they'd started with stripping the local bottle dump or collecting ww2 artefacts eg bullets, shrapnel etc, with the egg collector being the main force in the bottle collecting. ( as for myself , I collected shells and stones from our local beaches ) . By the time we get to 76/77 metal detectors make their appearance and I remember going out at xmas with the guys who'd got them as presents. The main egg collector/bottle digger became the main detectorist and speaking on the street last year he still practices, generally by travelling to areas in the south east rather than locally.<br /> <br /> Talking to older villagers, it seems as though egg collecting was a 'hobby' that was quite widespread amongst kids in our area from at least the war (even my dad used to do it as a kid. My only egg collection was to take a single egg from gull or duck nests for food, my grandad used to love them). <br /> <br /> Basically, I wonder if the trends you have noted is simply a drift in fashion for the collection of 'things'. At the time our local municipal museum was full of stuffed animals , a collection of invertebrates and the like often donated by the town's previously good and great from the 19th C ( A skeleton in the Dock museum's cupboard is that they have extensive egg and bird collections ). It is almost as though 'Collecting' became part of our identity during the 18th /19th C ( I once worked doing survey of a collection of trees in Tortworth Arboretum , established as part of a bet by a Bristol shipping magnate in competition with what is now our National collection at Westonbirt).<br /> On reflection, the collecting thing was apparent during the late 60's and 70's in other areas. The whole thing with petrol companies giving away 'collectables' eg Esso's 1970 England world cup team, the Brooke Bond 'Tea cards' of the 60's and early 70's. Cigarette cards of the 50's 60's.<br /> <br /> It may be that you have touched on something worthy of a PhD level investigation. If you extended your n-gram searches to include other collecting areas it may be that the collection of cultural objects fit into a larger pattern of more general collecting behaviours that for some reason appeal to our psyche. <br /> Hougenaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13572432580825010946noreply@blogger.com