DetectingWales.com

On a similar vein to the "Threat to our Hobby" poll thread. Who actually are against us detectorists?

  I know theres the looney brigade of ultra anti detectorists out there, and I dont suppose programmes like Time Team have helped but surely the majority of the museums and F.L.O's are wholly supportive of us, they work with us via the Portable antiquities Scheme and there does seem to be a fair bit of good positive feedback from these guys.

 Are we maybe guilty ourselves as detectorist of jumping on the slightest negative report on Metal Detecting that we read or here about? Is it maybe a case of if we actually took a step back we'd see that the positive feedback outweighs the negative feedback.

I'm trying to play Devils Advocate here a little, and I would genuinely love to read of who we all percieve as being outright against us.

Maybe we could gather together all negative and positive reports we know of out there, just the links if you like and I'll set them out on a new thread on the articles section.

Im against Detectorists Rob if there was less swingers about id be able to find more lol

On a serious note we are a victim of our own success
all the mags and forums have had a negitive effect on our hobbie mainly because the media portrays Detectorists as some time of I,ndiana jones figures just out for the treasure.

Maybe the Mags and media have brought people like this into our hobby but  they will soon learn that theres not many detectorists get rich and i  bet many who have got rich have spend many 1,000 of pounds looking for the goodies.

Ive stopped dreaming of the BIG ONE years ago
like many of us Detecting is so much more than looking for items of value.

The media arnt ever going to see detecting as us old timers do
In the same way I,ll never understand why people go fishing  lol

all the best
phil Jones

I don't know personally anyone who is dead against us , but i do know of people who look upon us as been "weird", and comparing us with the likes of train spotters , i've heard comments like " what is the point of it ", and "you must be crazy wasting good time , you won't find anything"   and the best is " how much money did you find",,,, i just put it down to complete ignorance and lack of understanding,,,,but none of those have stated " i'm against you doing it".

im yet to meet a person who has a negative attitude towards me when im out detecting mate. I do however get alot of people who i dont know coming to talk to me who are genuinly interested in what im doing and most of them even offer advice on where to try as there has been roman coins found there years ago or the location of an old fort which isnt there any more. I really dont mind chatting to them either.... i enjoy it! Ok so i dont have the knowledge or experience that you gents have but surely detectorists who operate within the law can only be a positive thing for if it wasnt for them museums would not have some of the awesome collections which have been found.

Thats the sort of reaction I think a lot of us have come across Mike, I'm not saying that the anti detectorist lobby dont exist, what I'm asking is. Is it as virulant as we perceive it to be ?

I have yet to speak to someone with a negative attitude towards detecting. I agree with the above we looked upon as trainspotters or geeks etc. everyone laughs about it  (but they all want a go) lol

I think that we are the problem because as soon as we say anything printed about detectorists we always seem to find the bad points in it.I also think that the FID and NCMD seem to do very little to promote the plus points of the hobby,both of the bodies seem to go very quiet when there is any bad press when was the last time anyone seen in a paper that this rally raised x number of pounds for charity until they start to help promote the hobby in a good light to the public there will always be some doubt about detecting even the BNP get more exposere than we do.

there are some dyed in the wool detractors to our hobby.....some of the old school archeologists, some of the english heritage,  some of the national trust and a handful of self opinionated arkies who use their press to slag us off as grave robbers etc....but as stated previously they are in the minority it seems.....maybe we are our biggest threat by taking notice of these radicals !...byron

I was once on Trecco bay
And a fella and his woman came up to me and with a smirk on his face he said ..."I had one of tho,s i never found anything with it You found anything" ?

I must admit i didnt like his attutude so i told a little white lie and pulled out an handfull of change id brough with me roughly £20 and said i found this in about 2 hours detecting  lol
That took the smirk of him smug little face lol

I was in the Army and navy store Pontypridd once buying an ex army shovel
The guy serving me asked did i want the shovel for hunting I said not Metal detecting .
He went mad and called me a Grave robbing thief    :o   It was just after Time team aired that program where 2 friends have been selling viking artifacts from a field on ebay and only stopped because they found a viking grave Ainsbrook ??? it turned out this shop assistant was a 1st year achy student
Ive never been back to that shop since and it was a good job he was bigger than me or id have had him he he he

But he dosnt mind selling air rifle pellets to kids for them to shoot birds or God knows what, or hunting knives to some nutter. Strange world innit.