Large 1940's Dump Discovered - Advice?

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CanadianBottles

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Oh by the way that Peerless Ink is local to you as well, they were a Vancouver company. Common, but I quite like the art deco design on those. These posts give me such nostalgia for BC, lots of bottles there that showed up in every BC dump and I never see out here. Not sure why Mrs Stewart's Bluing is so common in BC and yet I never see it out here, since the company was based out of Minneapolis.
 

BottleDragon

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Oh by the way that Peerless Ink is local to you as well, they were a Vancouver company. Common, but I quite like the art deco design on those. These posts give me such nostalgia for BC, lots of bottles there that showed up in every BC dump and I never see out here. Not sure why Mrs Stewart's Bluing is so common in BC and yet I never see it out here, since the company was based out of Minneapolis.

Thanks for the info, I did not know they were local. I'm a fan of the design, too.

What areas of BC did you dig in? I live in Abbotsford and I mainly dig within an hour's drive of here (so basically the Lower Mainland).

I've done a fair amount of research on dumps in the area, so I've got quite a few leads I plan to follow up on. I don't know how well you know this area, but feel free to message me privately if you're interested in trading information.
 

CanadianBottles

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I only ever dug on the Island, so I don't know a thing about sites in the Lower Mainland I'm afraid. I have no doubt that there are plenty of sites around there though. I sure wish I had that kind of opportunity to explore places around here, but living in the city means a lot fewer potential digging locations unless you're into digging privies.
 

sunrunner

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don't know much about B C . but I do know that 1940s and 50s dumps , have very few collectable bottles . soda and milks were returned for deposit , so any that you may find may be damaged . whisky and condiment bottles are the majority of what you well find .
 

CanadianBottles

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don't know much about B C . but I do know that 1940s and 50s dumps , have very few collectable bottles . soda and milks were returned for deposit , so any that you may find may be damaged . whisky and condiment bottles are the majority of what you well find .
That really depends. In my experience the individual household 40s dumps have almost no collectible bottles for the reason you describe, but the municipal dumps can be loaded with sodas. Businesses seemed less concerned with deposits than individuals did. And bottling companies would sometimes dump large numbers of bottles as well.
 

BottleDragon

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You're both kind of right. Most of what I find here is junk. I leave 95% of it, and I probably still take more than I should.

Yes, I find loads of ketchup bottles and those round whiskey bottles with the band at the base of the neck. I think they're Rye Whisky bottles. I've never posted a pic of one in this thread, but they are very numerous.

I've never found an intact milk bottle here. Most sodas are broken, but I've found a few good non-local ones.

I've found just enough interesting bottles here to keep going back, but I spend more time looking for older dumps. Well, I've not been looking much lately due to the weather, but I'm still on the lookout for that holy grail 19th century dump.
 

CanadianBottles

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I've found just enough interesting bottles here to keep going back, but I spend more time looking for older dumps. Well, I've not been looking much lately due to the weather, but I'm still on the lookout for that holy grail 19th century dump.
You'll have a hard time finding one of those larger than a small household dump in the woods unfortunately, at least in B.C. The large woods dumps mostly came from trucks emptying their loads. 19th century dumps were generally easily accessible by foot, so they would be a short walk from the centre of town. You're better off watching for construction sites or digging privies to get back to that era. And finding intact milks of any era is very difficult in BC for some reason. No one seems to find them often, every milk I saw in an antique store was attic mint, never with mineralization. Plenty of sodas out there to be found though!

Speaking of weather, are you still buried under snow out there?
 

BottleDragon

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Yeah, you're right. The most likely dumping spots near the center of towns are already built over top of. I generally look within a 1-mile radius of the main intersection. I know of two dumps that go back to the 1910's... one of them isn't really dig-able, but the other one may be if I can find a way to access it.

Privies are not something I've done before, but I probably should look into that. I gravitate toward dumps because most are out of public view, I can take my time, and not have to worry about tearing up someone's yard.

Yeah, there's still quite a bit of snow here, but less than there was a few days ago. However, there's more expected next week.
 

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