Too many finds?

[liamnolan]

Posting on here as it concerns storage/space
I moved home a year ago and finally getting around to sorting out my finds. I am the worlds worst collector. Gold and iron items are constant buddies amongst the - too many - boxes of finds that stretch back to when there was just Adam & Eve!
For ME, its mostly about the excitement of finding items that unlock a bit more of an insight into eras that I favour, such as Iron Age, then roman and medieval. I have also detected in Ireland and that islands ancient history is fascinating.
The problem - I have too many items. Yes I can get another cabinet and its a big house with just myself and the dog, but there comes a time when too many finds are very similar and plentiful and taking up space, unlikely to be taken out and drooled over any more. An example could be my large box of thimbles. Probably around 60 or so, one or two little gems, silver or ornate perhaps, but mostly similar.
Hammies - the staple "food" of all detectorists and always exciting to find on an outing, an important success box to be ticked Last year I donated a pot of assorted hammies to a colleague who gives school talks on history and the coins create a unique and interesting timeline of history and monarchs but again, many are quite similar and although exciting to find, are destined to storage for their own endless timeline
It must be the same for many of us "oldies" who have been digging holes for ages.
Mortality overtakes us all eventually and I am trying to get tons of finds properly classified and stored, so that someone later on can open the boxes, or empty the trays or read the descriptions and perhaps enjoy all that or donate to a museum or whatever.
For me, the exciting part has happened and I really only examine a few favourite items now and then.
I am now extracting finds any that don't merit any storage space. They will be returned back into the soil, a sort of symbolic gesture, restoring their previous habitat and a nod to history!
Liam

[Phil2401]

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of your post Liam. Although I have only a small fraction of your finds, I've just inherited a number of eclectic collections of various stuff from my brother, mostly junk but including about 3000 coins from the 18th-20th century, unsorted and un-catalogued - nothing too interesting so far but it will take up much time over the next few months to look at each coin individually. Also being of a certain age, I'd hate to leave the same problem to my heirs and have also started sorting out my own finds with that in mind.

As collections grow, you tend to forget the importance of recording and cataloguing stuff properly and just occasionally enjoy the thrill of having found them - some folks are very well organised in that respect, but I'm not one of them!

Phil

[liamnolan]

I quite agree young man Liam

[fred]

Like you I have buckets of bits like buckles, pot legs and steelyard weights and am wondering what the hell to do with them.

The museum donation route is largely a non starter as they now have strict criteria for what they will acquire, even for free. Likewise teaching collections or re-enactors only need a certain number and range of items. Even selling stuff, which I don't really like doing, is not straightforward if you have no provenance e.g. it was found pre PAS or not registered on the PAS because FLOs don't have the capacity.

And it doesn't help that still I'm driven to go out and find more.

[Phil2401]

Amend your will to include an apology to your heirs - it will then be their problem

Phil

[Rank81]

I must admit, many items such as post medieval thimbles, buckles, buttons go to the scrap bin to be recycled these days. As do all worn Georgian coins and the like. Anything that's half decent that's not on disply goes to family , landowners and just about any poor sod that shows and interest till they've had so much they're in the same situation!

As suggested by Fred, pot legs is one for me, got 3 decent examples on disply but then what, huge big lumps some of them and turn them up reasonably often.

Have found homes for some items such as pre decimal coins going to primary teachers. They often cover the Victorians and the teacher was able to hand out real coins. Others coins and small items have been used by artists and upcyclers to set into table tops and the like.

Things that when I started would go on disply are items I nolonger know what to do with.

...that said, I remember the lean days and know how people struggle for permissions etc now the hobby is more popular, so it's an issue we're lucky to have

[liamnolan]

Museums now have more than enough finds, only keen to accept finds of special significance to the era or perhaps local interest and thats understandable. I suppose the reality is that we are finding too much! There will be many museums with stocks of finds that will never be researched. Too few staff and its why I proposed some years back for there to be local groups of experienced detectorists linked to museums who could spend a few mornings each week to go through all the received finds, sift what is important, refer some to archies as needed, but eventually clear backlogs, Liam

[Pedrosky]

Maybe you could post your collections of finds on here for all of us soon to be “oldies” to “drool over”.

[fred]

Maybe you could post your collections of finds on here for all of us soon to be “oldies” to “drool over”.

That doesn't solve the problem.

[Pedrosky]

That doesn't solve the problem.

I wish I knew the answer But you might as well have a problem and make people drool than just have a problem.

[cvno]

Great post I love the idea of re burying some of your finds but bearing in mind the effort of digging them up in the first place I’m not so sure or as fit and young as I was decades ago when I started. I have recently given two large buckets of mostly Roman pottery away one to a young school teacher the other to a 21 year old lad who is just mad about history. My other quite naughty idea is to take say maybe 250 of my Roman grots put them in a modern container say aTupperware tub and bury it for someone else to find in down the line and see if there FLO can make sense of it

[epmg]

Posting on here as it concerns storage/space
I moved home a year ago and finally getting around to sorting out my finds. I am the worlds worst collector. Gold and iron items are constant buddies amongst the - too many - boxes of finds that stretch back to when there was just Adam & Eve!
For ME, its mostly about the excitement of finding items that unlock a bit more of an insight into eras that I favour, such as Iron Age, then roman and medieval. I have also detected in Ireland and that islands ancient history is fascinating.
The problem - I have too many items. Yes I can get another cabinet and its a big house with just myself and the dog, but there comes a time when too many finds are very similar and plentiful and taking up space, unlikely to be taken out and drooled over any more. An example could be my large box of thimbles. Probably around 60 or so, one or two little gems, silver or ornate perhaps, but mostly similar.
Hammies - the staple "food" of all detectorists and always exciting to find on an outing, an important success box to be ticked Last year I donated a pot of assorted hammies to a colleague who gives school talks on history and the coins create a unique and interesting timeline of history and monarchs but again, many are quite similar and although exciting to find, are destined to storage for their own endless timeline
It must be the same for many of us "oldies" who have been digging holes for ages.
Mortality overtakes us all eventually and I am trying to get tons of finds properly classified and stored, so that someone later on can open the boxes, or empty the trays or read the descriptions and perhaps enjoy all that or donate to a museum or whatever.
For me, the exciting part has happened and I really only examine a few favourite items now and then.
I am now extracting finds any that don't merit any storage space. They will be returned back into the soil, a sort of symbolic gesture, restoring their previous habitat and a nod to history!
Liam

Brilliant post Liam, combining metal detecting with philosophy with recovering history and ultimately with the finiteness that applies to us all. On that, I can dig ( no pun intended) your concept of returning finds back to the ground, not everything has to be a 'finders keepers ' game.