New Idea for "Treasure" in British Heritage Debate and its Likely Consequences

On the proposed changes to the British Treasure ActHelen Geake @HelenGeake · 48 min
responding to a tweet by the head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (non vidi - for some reason known only to himself, he's blocking me from seeing his public outreach on social media)

This the result of much thought and lots of very careful research and legal drafting. It's going before Parliament on Monday, and will take a little time to implement, but will mean more important archaeological objects will go to museums first, not antiquities dealers

Surely what is more likely is that it will be used to take unreported objects off the market when they are spotted when a dealer puts it up for sale - like the so-called Crosby Garrett Helmet and the Haddenham Horse harness brooch. It cannot impose a requirement to report an "important" (in terms of the Act) object within a statutory period, if it is a subsequent and consequent Coroner's inquest that is to define it as such. Likewise no sanction is possible on non-reporting of such a category of object. Just another fluff law from the UK as unfit for the (any) purpose as the UK's pathetic 'Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003'. Where is the "thought" behind it?

Let us recall that neither the so-called Crosby Garrett helmet, nor the Haddenham harness brooch (two of the finds which I suspect the legislators had in mind proposing these modifications) were repoted to the PAS and were only recorded well after they arrived in the saleroom and in the case of the former had undergone extensive restoration. Had they not been spotted on open sale, one might suspect that neither of them would have been recorded.

Another issue is that if items that are suddenly recognised as potentially important and Treasure-worthy can be pulled off sale to have a Croner decide whether to give them legal status, I suspect we will be seeing a lot more freshly metal detected ("orl wiv the landownerz permissin") artefacts appearing now in auction catalogues as "from an old continental collection, before 1970" in the antiquities market's traditional spirit of "they can't touch you for it".