i grew up in a small town in southern ny and was part of a group of poor town kids that ran all over town exploring backyards. this was in in the early 70's and bottle collecting was at a peak. at the same time the township also started running public sewer lines and digging up every ones yards. right next to where I lived they must have hit a privy and bottles just rolled out of the dirt. I still have a green Larkin with the stopper from this time. As kids this was treasure hunting for us and at the same time a fellow opened a bottle collecting store in town. He was an avid hunter, seller and buyer. Every couple weeks the gang would ride our bikes to the shop and share our finds which were amazing. From blobs to hutches and marbles and gingers. We even found and dug a local bottling works dump that we had found! It would not be uncommon for us to get $40 to 50 everytime we saw him and then go immediately to the 5 and dime and load up on candy, comic books and baseball cards. Little did we know the shop owner was giving us about 20% value on all we brought in.
I still have the bug today at 57 yo. but these early days of adventure were some of the most memorable times of my childhood.
I still have the bug today at 57 yo. but these early days of adventure were some of the most memorable times of my childhood.