"It's not about th' munny!" cries the old tekkie mantra, "we only do it out of interest" they say. To see how true that is, just take a look at this thread on a metal detecting forum near you: Very Serious Trouble at ta'Mill - Treasure Act (Post by oldartefact » Wed Oct 11, 2017 7:50 pm). I propose a thought-experiment. Imagine, just for a moment that the topic of the discussion at the Treasure Conference, attended by archaeologists (... us detectorists were outnumbered ... ) was 'how we handle the remains of the past' / 'how society allows remains of the past to be handled' (a not unreasonable suggestion, in the circumstances, I would add). Then look how the tekkie delegates selectively represent what was said, and then look at the subsequent flow of discussion - it is all about the money, money that museums make from 'footfall to see what we've found for them', money detectorists need to prevent them not reporting Treasure finds, suggestions that if a TVC valuation is not acceptable to the finder, they should be auctioned off ...
It is quite clear from this that twenty years of financing liaison officers has not done anything at all to mentally equip artefact hunters to any kind of meaningful dialogue with the heritage community. This thread suggests very strongly that members of this milieu see the issue of 'handling the remains of the past for society's benefit' only through the prism of that social benefit being to the detriment of their own acquisitive interests and nothing much else.
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