How Many Finds Are Being Reported Responsibly?

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A key question is how many finds are currently being reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme by metal detectorists in Wales. Using the new 'search' facility of the Portable Antiquities Scheme database we can find out:

Statistical analysis of the database for for Saturday 1st January 2011
until Tuesday 1st October 2011

So a total of 724 objects (707 records) in the first nine months of this year is not really encouraging, since the "Detecting Wales" forum has a total of 1418 members. That means for each of these members, less than half a find has been reported to the PAS so far this year.

Let us compare the figures from the whole of Wales with just a few English counties for the same period:
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It can be seen that finders from the whole of Wales are simply not reporting as many of the items they discover as those from a single county in England, even some of those (Avon for example) much smaller in size and with a smaller population.