Calcarpetbagger & I had the wonderful experience several years back of locating an ancient dump area in the Sacramento Delta region....Numerous wonderful items came to light....Not only was the site an extremely old one for California, but most items were of a high quality....These people wanted only the best & it showed in the quality of the items we recovered....I can't go into detail on much of the dig to protect the innocent (a quote from Dragnet)...I am sworn to secrecy...However, the dig is looked at by me as one of the best I was ever involved in...At that time, I shared with you the "right coast pickle", a beautiful emerald green, highly whittled bottle embossed W.D.Smith N.Y.....There were several colored sodas, bitters , ales & foods that were obviously discarded by the "gold rush community" & we were lucky enough to fine them...In a word EUREKA.......
The above paragraph is now being replicated from a previous post to continue the story with a bit more detail on another bottle found that day. Because of the quality of the other bottles we uncovered, this little jewel slipped into an “also ranâ€....but in my mind barely so. I have found several pontiled inks over my lifetime....the aqua ones now reside in other collections....the colored ones sit on my fireplace mantle. I have found only one master ink of note. I picture it here having taken it from a storage area beneath my bottle display. Every time I handle it, I oohhhh & ahhh and search for an empty place to display it... but I have too many bottles. I'll never part with it....and I justify keeping it by desire only. It's not a high dollar bottle, but it has a hold on me. I believe the bottle to be Stoddard....it has the Stoddard color & the age of a Stoddard piece. So, pictured below is this incredible master ink....It stands a little over nine inches tall. It is a three piece mold with a wonderfully formed pour spout & a sticky ball pontil. Not too bad for an “also ranâ€. This sweet little find was laying between two pontiled black glass ales and lucky to have survived.
The above paragraph is now being replicated from a previous post to continue the story with a bit more detail on another bottle found that day. Because of the quality of the other bottles we uncovered, this little jewel slipped into an “also ranâ€....but in my mind barely so. I have found several pontiled inks over my lifetime....the aqua ones now reside in other collections....the colored ones sit on my fireplace mantle. I have found only one master ink of note. I picture it here having taken it from a storage area beneath my bottle display. Every time I handle it, I oohhhh & ahhh and search for an empty place to display it... but I have too many bottles. I'll never part with it....and I justify keeping it by desire only. It's not a high dollar bottle, but it has a hold on me. I believe the bottle to be Stoddard....it has the Stoddard color & the age of a Stoddard piece. So, pictured below is this incredible master ink....It stands a little over nine inches tall. It is a three piece mold with a wonderfully formed pour spout & a sticky ball pontil. Not too bad for an “also ranâ€. This sweet little find was laying between two pontiled black glass ales and lucky to have survived.
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