No measurement would be required to tell if the matter in your hands is strange matter or normal matter.
Strange matter would not be a solid (my misunderstanding), it would not be made of atoms, it would contain no subatomic particles. Both are made of quarks: but with "normal for us" matter, quarks are arranged into subatomic particles, and those subatomic particles are arranged into atoms, and those atoms are arranged into all matter as we know it. If we threw strange into the equation, all those arrangements that give matter its form would cease to function. It would be one big clump of quarks. Carbon, gold, lead, water: none of them would exist anymore, the whole thing would be a mix of up, down, and strange. It's not a change from normal gold to strange gold, it's a change from gold to NOTHING except for a clump of quarks not arranged in any way. The detector you speak of would not just turn from normal to strange, it would cease to exist in any meaningful way. We have atoms, I have "seen" (with an electron microscope) them, therefore we are not made of strange quarks, at least that's how the current hypotheses go *as I understand it*.
Nice, short read:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n9_v135/ai_7420229
We have to draw the finish line right in front of us, that's all we know. And all matter becoming strange, that would be the finishline, because humans (not just humanity) would cease to exist in our current form. All that we know is the map that we are on, we don't know how to get to any others. We may be past the finishline of some other map, but matter becoming strange would be the complete end of our road. Maybe the beginning of something else, but the end of us. And really, at least in my view, that's getting across the line from physics and getting more into philosophy.
Diachi,
Honestly, most all of my particle physics knowledge (which is admittedly very limited) comes from the internet, attached to lots of reading other things (the science-y popular press, ala Nature, Scientific American, etc.). I would not be surprised to be completely wrong about some things if someone who knows better comes around. I just speak to the best of my available knowledge and pick up whatever I can by listening, reading, talking to others. My undergrad degree is in materials science, which has a decent amount of physics in it by nature, but not really this kind of physics. But it's admittedly interesting. We jsut have to remember that the LHC can't end the world, because the Mayans already pegged that at 2012.