Friday Retrospect: Fate of a Loughborough Private Collection

I have done this before as a Friday retrospect, but I really do think that we need to keep in mind the actual reality (rather than the pro-collectors' imagined shangri-la) of the relation between archaeological evidence from the ground and the artefact hunters' collections. Of course discussing any of this is the last thing the pro-collecting lobby in UK archaeology wants to discuss: Friday Retrospect: Fate of a Loughborough Private Collection

Friday, 26 March 2010Detectorist selling upMetal detectorist waltzerlad_123 from Loughborough, Leicestershire, has a somewhat inarticulate offer on eBay at the moment:

THIS SALE IS FOR A VAST LOT OF DETECTOR FINDS I HAVE PUT A FEW PHOTOS ON BUT THERE IS LOTS MORE I AM NOT LISTING EVERYTHING AS I WOULD BE HERE ALL DAY. I AM SELLING MY COMPLETE COLLECTION HERE. IF ITS FINDS YOU WANT DON'T MISS THIS LOT. LIKE I SAID THERE IS JUST TO MUCH TO LIST HERE, SO HERE IS JUST A ROUGH IDEA OF WHAT THERE IS: BUTTONS_ FASTENERS_ BROOCHES_ TOKENS_ BUCKLES_ SPINDLE WHORLS_ PINS _MOUNTS ROMAN MIRROR BACKS_ RINGS_ NAIL CLEANER ROMAN _SNAKE BELT HOOKS_DAGGER CHAPES BARREL TAPS +KEYS_THIMBLES_CROTAL BELLS COMPLETE _ HOOK FASTENERS _LEAD SEALS + SEALS HORSE DECORATION ITEMS BELL WHISTLES _THIMBLES _LOTS OF NICE ROMAN COINS AND HAMMERED COINS. LIKE I SAID JUST TO MUCH TO LIST. PLEASE READ, THIS SALE IS BUY NOW ONLY AND CASH ON PICK UP OR I COULD DELIVER FOR SMALL COST I WILL ONLY DO THIS UP TO 100 MILES. AS THIS IS PICK UP I WILL ONLY TAKE CASE SO PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS ONLY CASH. THE BUY ME NOW PRICE AND ONLY PRICE SO PLEASE DO NOT TRY KNOCKING ME DOWN OR SORTING THROUGH IS £500 SO PLEASE DO NOT BUY IF YOU DO NOT HAVE CASH OR YOU THINK YOU DO NOT WANT ITEMS. I AM LOOKING FOR A QUICK SMOOTH SALE. THERE IS LOTS HERE AND WHO EVER BUYS HAS ONE GOOD BARGIN. I WILL SAY AGAIN FOR THE THICK ONES THAT DO NOT UNDER STAND FIRST TIME ROUND, THIS IS A CASH SALE PICK UP NO PAY PAL CHEQUE JUST CASH I WILL DELIVER UP TO AROUND 100 MILES FOR PETROL COST THANKS FOR LOOKING. SELLING AS I AM GIVING UP HOBBY I AM ALSO SELLING ALL MY BOOK SOON SAME WAY JOB LOT. NOT EVERYTHING IS IN THE PHOTOS THERE IS LOTS MORE THE PHOTES ARE JUST A TAST OF SOME OF THE ITEMS. THERE IS LOTS MORE THAN THE PHOTES SHOW

It is rather odd though that according to the feedback, the same seller has been buying metal detector finds, mostly in private sales... including just a few days ago. Now why would one want cash in hand payment that do not show on the bank account? I've met this a number of times with UK metal detectorists. Are they doing this while on social security benefits? Or perhaps they do not want the solicitors of an estranged partner knowing how much money they make from selling antiquities?
Sadly we do not see the extent of the whole collection to get an idea of how many finds waltzerlad_123 had made in his detecting career. So I guess this means that he has stopped being "passionately intrestid in the past" then? Of course not all of the material visible in the photos is PAS-recordable, some of it seems to be Old-Timey bygones type stuff, collectable, but not as archaeologically significant as the rest.


The photos show some of the "collection" heaped on open glass shelves, no order discernible. Not a single one has a label attached saying where it came from (neither does the seller see fit to tell the prospective buyer where any of them might have come from). There is no mention of a catalogue accompanying the sale. So basically what is on offer are a heap of totally decontextualised artefacts stripped out of any number of sites and assemblages, who knows when. The coins are in PVC coin envelopes, again we cannot see any national Grid References or even parish names on the labels that can be read. Is this typical of the average British metal detectorists' hoard of archaeological geegaws? If so, what kind of curation of the remains of the past are they offering? How many of these objects have had their findspots recorded with the PAS?

Note that eight years on, no information on the latter has ever emerged from the PAS. Let us guess that the reason for that is not that by entering this discussion, the PAS would show what a jolly good job they are doing mitigating information loss and that 96.5% of the recordable artefacts on those shelves were in fact recorded. I'm going to guess that less than 3% of them were. 

Another thing we do not know is what happened to those artefacts Waltzerland123 had in his brief curation, what has happened to these (by now decontextualised) artefacts taken from the archaeological record, and what was the ultimate purpose of their removal to a personal collection? PAS, perhaps you'd like to comment? Leicestershire FLO, maybe?

UPDATE 29th April 2018
Thought not