An artefact hunter who has "made more than 500 significant archaeological finds has been praised by the British Museum" ('Lincolnshire metal detector man praised for 500 finds', BBC News, 5 February 2014). Praised for hoiking 500 finds out of the archaeological record? Only in bonkers Britain. I do not think he was praised for hoiking them, but for then reporting them. Many do not report so many finds, which is why Mr Redmayne was singled out for praise.
Tom Redmayne, from North Somercotes, Lincolnshire [...] started metal detecting in 2005, said his interest in history and archaeology began early. [...] Adam Daubney, finds liaison officer at Lincolnshire County Council, said Mr Redmayne was "an ambassador" for metal detector users everywhere.That means that at the most Mr Redmayne has been collecting artefacts for nine years. That works out at 55 finds a year, almost twice the rate of the Heritage Action Artefact Erosion Counter. How typical is Mr Redmayne's finds rate? Just to put that in perspective, if eight thousand artefact hunters were finding 55 finds a year and reporting them all, that would be 440,000 finds to be recorded by the PAS annually, and in a ten year period that would be 4,400,000 objects on the database. In the past ten years the PAS generated 537900 records with 844453 objects. A shortfall of 3,500,000 objects, innit? An "ambassador" for the hobby indeed, revealing perhaps a little too much for some, I'll wager.
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