TheCoilist
Elite Member
I guess we could also just have a free-for-all of every idiot that watches Oak Island or Youtube and decides to be a treasure hunter, going out and ignorantly trashing our public land and blindly raping anything of any potential historic value for sale on Ebay.
People need rules, simply because most are too selfish, careless, or ignorant, and willing to destroy anything they want to for their own benefit.
I am not sure if you're for or against metal detecting with some of your comments, especially with this post.
I'd like to say that I watch Oak Island and I have watched YouTube. I am even one who posts on YouTube and have a handful of subscribers who have made up the millions of minutes watched on my channel... But I don't see myself as an idiot because I want to be a 'treasure hunter'. I don't post about 'treasure hunting' and the amounts of 'treasure' I have found is pretty much none unless you consider some silver and a tiny bit of gold over 1000's of hunts, treasure.
What is "historic value" to you? Would an indian head penny be considered historic? It is of a value. I would consider any silver coins to be considered of value, but are they historic? I would say some are historic because of their age... Maybe you're new to the forum, and not to metal detecting, but you'll find at least two camps regarding what people do with their finds, treasures, and historically valuable items. Those who keep them and those who sell them. I haven't sold mine, but often wonder why I keep them. They're not worth a dime in my pocket unless they're sold, so they're just a collectors item at this point. But if I do sell them... I would hope I am not crossing the line by having blindly raped the land of an item for the value that it's worth to someone else for their collection.
Going back to the original post, most states have antiquities codes on the books. In Texas' antiquities code, it technically says you can't remove anything from the ground on state property. State property is considered anything not privately owned. Items could not be dug up more than a couple of inches and the items could not be of 'historical value'. No MDing in Texas State parks, obviously no national parks in Texas, and most county parks in the big cities (especially in Harris/Ft. Bend County) were recently added to the metal detecting ban lists. Very lame...
Do people need rules? I don't think they need rules per se, but education. And we all know where we stand on education in this great country, especially with regard to metal detecti... er.. treasure hunting.