Somewhere, a Finds Liaison Officer is opening yet another clanking carrier bag that sounds like a toolbox falling down the stairs. Inside: decimal coppers, mangled pipe, random tractor bits and three and a half ring pulls. On the side, in hopeful biro: “All my finds from Sunday. Please record.”
This is exactly what the Portable Antiquities Scheme is not for.
WHAT P.A.S ACTUALLY IS
The PAS is not a free coin grading service, not a valuation office and not a personal catalogue for every object you have ever dragged out of a ploughed field.
It is a national research project.
Every properly recorded object is a tiny piece of a much bigger picture: where people lived, worked, traded and dumped their junk across England and Wales over thousands of years. One strap end here, a cluster of brooches there, a scattering of early coins over there – over time, patterns emerge. That is the point.
FLOs are there to capture that information, advise on Treasure, support inquests, give talks and keep the whole show on the road. They are not there to sort your scrap bucket.
WHY OVER-RECORDING IS A PROBLEM
When three detectorists turn up in a week with six months’ worth of everything, all mixed together and unlabeled, something has to give. Time is finite. Every hour spent squinting at your twentieth identical musket ball or modern penny is an hour not spent on someone else’s important assemblage, or the Treasure case that actually matters.
We like to say we “support the PAS”. Dumping unfiltered junk on your FLO is not support. It is offloading admin.
WHAT SHOULD BE RECORDED
No one is asking you to be perfect, but you can be sensible.
In broad terms, anything clearly pre-1700 with a recognisable form or decoration, earlier coins (especially pre-1660), unusual later pieces that actually tell you something – named tokens, badges, inscribed items, distinctive tools – and anything that smells even faintly like Treasure territory. Those are worth the FLO’s time and the database’s space.
If in doubt, ask. Send clear photos, basic measurements, where it was found and a grid reference. Let the FLO triage by email before you drive across the county with a bucket.
WHAT DOESN’T NEED TO GO NEAR PAS
Modern decimals. Featureless, shapeless blobs that might once have been “something”. Endless 20th century tractor fittings. A lifetime’s .303 casings. Random beach coppers. Your personal greatest hits collection of ring pulls.
They prove nothing we do not already know: that people farmed, shot, drank and littered in the modern era. No one is going to write a thesis on your 1983 two pence.
The PAS is not meant to be a high-score table for how many records you can get your name on.
CONTEXT IS THE REAL GOLD
What FLOs really need from you is not just objects, but context. A handful of good artefacts, lightly and sensibly cleaned, each tied to parish, field, grid reference, date found and any patterns you noticed, is far more valuable than a rubble sack of metal with a vague “from Joe’s farm” scribbled on the side.
Turn up with small, well-curated batches, bagged and labelled, and you make it easy for the FLO to do quality work. Turn up with an undifferentiated heap and you are asking them to waste time just getting to the interesting bit.
HOW TO BE THE DETECTORIST YOUR FLO SECRETLY LIKES
Batch sensibly. Bring the older and genuinely informative items, not everything. Label finds with locations and grid references. Arrange appointments instead of just appearing. Listen when they tell you what is most useful in your area right now. Treat their time like a scarce resource you are spending on behalf of the whole hobby.
Most of all, remember you are on the same side. They are not an obstacle; they are the reason your best finds end up as permanent data, not just anecdotes.
THE EGO PROBLEM
A lot of “record everything” behaviour is not about saving history. It is about wanting to see your name on records. We have all felt that little rush when a find goes live on the database. The trick is to enjoy that without turning the PAS into your personal scoreboard.
Being a good detectorist is not measured by how many database entries you rack up, but by the quality of what you add, how you handle Treasure, how you share with landowners, and whether your sites are better understood because you were there.
BOTTOM LINE
If you want to be taken seriously as a responsible detectorist, you cannot treat the Portable Antiquities Scheme like a scrap metal service.
Use it for what it was built for: recording objects that genuinely add to the story of the landscape. Respect FLO time. Keep the junk in your own scrap bucket. Ask, learn, filter, then bring your best.
Rant over. Affection firmly intact. Now go and look at that “to show FLO” tray and be brutally honest about what actually deserves the trip.
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