Business booms at metal detector store after Staffordshire hoard find
Nov 5 2009 by John Marsden, Birmingham Post
The “Staffordshire Hoard effect” has prompted a boom in business for a Birmingham metal detector store.
Sales are soaring for Regton Ltd, in Newtown, from a gold rush of customers hoping to unearth their own treasure.
The store is enjoying some of the best sales in its 30-year history following the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard near Burntwood in July.
The 1,500-piece treasure trove was unearthed by Terry Herbert with the aid of his trusty metal detector, and thousands of people queued for up to three hours to view the collection when it went on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Regton director Nigel Ingram said his store had been packed out with people looking for metal detectors.
He could be set for a further boom with the revelation earlier this week that an amateur treasure hunter in Scotland had unearthed a 2,000-year-old hoard worth an estimated £1 million.
That Iron Age hoard of four gold neck ornaments, or torcs, dating from between the first and third century BC were discovered in September by a “first-time” metal detector enthusiast in a field in Stirlingshire. It went on display today at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Mr Ingram said: “The day after the (Burntwood) discovery was announced our metal detector sales increased by 100 per cent. Interest levelled off slightly but we still had a lot of customers dropping in on their way back from seeing the hoard at the museum.”
A small selection of the hoard went on display at the British Museum this week, and it is hoped that the collection will return to the Midlands once the items have been valued.
Birmingham City Council is working with Stoke-on-Trent’s Potteries Museum to acquire the hoard, which experts say had been buried for about 1,400 years.
Enthusiasts can pick up a child’s metal detector from Regton’s shop from about £25, but more serious detectors might need to pay £1,500 for a top model.
“For the majority of detectorists, it is a hobby,” said Mr Ingram, who stocks more than 70 metal detector models.
“A lot of customers have an interest in history, but we have an incredibly diverse range of customers, from high court judges to homeless people.”
