9th August 2012: DIY Best Practice Guide

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Concerned about the damage to the reputation of their hobby, a UK metal detectorists' forum has attempted to fill the gap with what the CBA and PAS between them could not manage to cough up in association with their television "Secret Treasures" show: UKDN "Britain's Secret Treasures" Beginners' Guide. This starts off rather inauspiciously:

With the long awaited start of the detecting season coinciding with the Britain’s Secret Treasures ITV programme we can expect a rush of people joining the hobby, if that programme has not wetted (sic) peoples (sic) appetites to detect[,] then nothing will. Well done to the finders of all those Treasures for unearthing our past, filling our Museums with tourists, raising the Nations (sic) esteem and to the Portable Antiquities Scheme for all their hard work in their outreach, recording, conserving, researching and on occasion getting down to earth excavating the hoards. 

There's clearly been lots of value in those fifteen million pounds worth of outreach if the result of their involvement in a TV programme results in a "rush of people joining the [site-depleting artefact hunting] hobby"!  This 25 page guide is obviously well-intentioned, but it is a shame that it was not consulted with their PAS "partners" and elsewhere.  Where was the PAS version? 

  

BST: Beginners' Guide to Artefact Hunting

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