A change in the treasure payments

[BAJR Host]

Said here and elsewhere we have a serious discussion about another way to deal with payments for Treasure Trove

A finder receives 40% a landowner receives 40% and the rest is placed in a ringfenced pot (20%) to allow for call-out contracts on unexpected discoveries. No more running around looking for favours, no more hoping that some-one can find the cash to pay for an excavation and conservation - no more having to wait til the Monday.

Allowing the finder to be fully involved in the excavation as well.. not as a treat, but as a member of the team that further investigates.

Give it a thought...

after all, the number of times this would be required is small... and the number of lare cases where this would be required is smaller still..

hey you could even get away with 10% total. This would have to be regulated and used only for these cases, and only with the requirement for popular publication - using the staff hoard as a template (apart from the BBC giving away the location! numpties... which add pressure to the whole thing!)

SHould we ask?

[Windbag]

What's a lare case?

[BAJR Host]

oops rare case (bloody backspace does not work!)

[John Walford]

Whilst I think the idea of an emergency kitty is a good idea, I'm not sure that this is the best way to go about it. As far as I understand, the money for the reward comes from the purchase money stumped up by the accquiring museum. So, effectively, all that would happen would be an arbitrary sum of money (depending on what happens to be found) would get shuffled from one part of the heritage 'pot' to another.

I wonder whether a better approach might be a small and carefully targetted tax. Perhaps not on the sale of detectors, as that could stir up too much ill feeling at a time when relationships are gradually improving, but maybe on the sale of antiquities over and above a particular threshold value?

[BAJR Host]

Its an idea, but rather than shuffling money from one heritage pot to another, I see it as retaining 20% of the pot to do arcaheology - the museums can have the pretty things as well!