A Few Cold-Water River Treasures

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DeepSeaDan

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Was back in one of my favourite rivers the other day. Some areas had a skim of ice on top, but the main channel remained open. Current was light that day, so I headed downstream along the southern bank - so many 60's and 70's bottles! As we all know, there could be very old gems hidden amongst the newer items, so searching was slow & methodical. For the second dive, I decided to scooter upstream - the bottom is a mix of flat limestone & broken rock, so I zig-zagged my way along, looking in crevices and in, around & under logs. For my 2.5 hours of searching, I found a nice, hand-finished quart with some heavy, bold embossing ( my first bottle from that town! ) & a large case gin. Soon, my local waters will be mostly iced-over, and I'll be dreaming of Spring; till then, we keep on searching!
 

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RCO

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i've seen that campbellford bottle before but never found one here . small town but he seemed to be a fairly well known bottler in that area

the river here was full of 60's and 70's bottles , i didn't really find anything this old when i searched it the last couple summers but always felt something might be hidden but never really found it
 

DeepSeaDan

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i've seen that campbellford bottle before but never found one here . small town but he seemed to be a fairly well known bottler in that area

the river here was full of 60's and 70's bottles , i didn't really find anything this old when i searched it the last couple summers but always felt something might be hidden but never really found it
Keep looking, RCO! I found this one amongst a spread of 70's bottles - almost right in the middle of them. It was near an old dump area I & others had searched many times. True as well is the fact that things are easy to miss, so return again & again to areas where they was lots of human activity - you just might score an old one!
 

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RCO

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Keep looking, RCO! I found this one amongst a spread of 70's bottles - almost right in the middle of them. It was near an old dump area I & others had searched many times. True as well is the fact that things are easy to miss, so return again & again to areas where they was lots of human activity - you just might score an old one!

i know it always felt like there was something more there , i just couldn't ever find it , i'm sure there is still more bottles around here
 

Harry Pristis

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Interesting, Dan. Sounds like you're putting in from a boat launch ramp, not from a boat. That might explain the pavement of newer bottles. I used a jonboat to find old landings by their dilapidated pilings. Do you reverse your scooter to substitute for hand-fanning? I guess it depends on the bottom sediments, but perhaps there is a buried layer with older bottles. These came from buried pot-holes:

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Len

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Hi Deep Sea Dan,
What's the embossment on the lower panel (near the base) of that gin say? Also, about how tall is it? Thanks. --CT Len
 

DeepSeaDan

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Hi Len. Far as I can tell, those are just whittle marks, I can't seen any formed letters anywhere on the glass.

And she's 10 1/2" tall.
 

DeepSeaDan

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Interesting, Dan. Sounds like you're putting in from a boat launch ramp, not from a boat. That might explain the pavement of newer bottles. I used a jonboat to find old landings by their dilapidated pilings. Do you reverse your scooter to substitute for hand-fanning? I guess it depends on the bottom sediments, but perhaps there is a buried layer with older bottles. These came from buried pot-holes:

View attachment 242250View attachment 242251View attachment 242252
Hi Harry,

That was a shore-entry day - access is actually quite good for this river, others that I frequent are much more difficult, due to private property concerns, angle / composition of the riverbank etc.. As to my scooter for blowing sediments: I did experiment with it for such a purpose and had some success, but two problems kept recurring which ended the practice - fishing line would get wrapped around the hub of the prop and sand would infiltrate the trigger mechanism ( essentially my on/off switch & throttle control ), causing it to malfunction. The scooter is great for finding larger, mostly exposed finds, but I'd miss the smaller, mostly buried items, so my use of it for hunting is limited.
 

Harry Pristis

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My experience in the SE USA is that where you can put in is where people launch boats and bank-fish. Downstream of the put-in place is usually littered with newer bottles and other debris. In a tidal river, the upstream area may also be littered. That is not to gainsay the fact that where people today access a river is likely to be the place that people 200 years ago found access. But, it is also likely that other divers have dived the same landing since the 1950s.
I can't remember a problem with fishing line with the machine reversed (I did, once, get hooked on an illegal trotline, but I wasn't using the scooter at the time.) Same with the sand, LOTS of sand, never a problem. You might consider taping a split rubber balloon over that switch. My machine is a TEKNA DV-3X which BTW is for sale (it needs a new 12v sealed lead-acid battery).
 

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