A most pleasant and rewarding experience

[willong]

It sounds like almost a fantasy or bottle hunters dream but take my word for it, it happened exactly that way and probably never again. I have the pictures to prove it. The site is under water now, too bad....

It's experiences like yours that occasionally make me envious of Easterners!

 

[jwpevahouse]

It's experiences like yours that occasionally make me envious of Easterners!

My brother, a long time bottle collector/digger, lives in Memphis. It's a completely different ball game in the south. He's envious of the quantity and quality of collectible bottles found in this area. I live 50 miles from New York City and the same distance from Philadelphia, 35 miles south of Newark and about 40 miles from Camden all which were densely populated and prosperous cities during mid Victorian times. That doesn't count being only about 10 miles from Trenton and the Delaware River, 35 miles from the NJ coast. Add all that up and it spells large urban population producing enormous amounts of garbage from Colonial times up to the present. We are along the main railroad line between Philadelphia and NYC one of the busiest arteries of commerce in the US. If ya can't find lots of old bottles here, then ya can't find bottles.

 

[bottles_inc]

Here's a few more pictures, Dan and cannon ball, Trenton sodas, fancy pontil bottle, dan digging Morton, Trenton soda, Dan with a days finds, R. Elliott green soda Trenton. GA Kohl pontil green lager beer, PA, We found several Elliott and Morton bottles from Trenton dating to 1860s-70s, several Albert McNamee Hutchinson bottles Plainsboro, NJ, and an assortment of other bottles mostly dating before 1890. Every day revealed some good finds and a lot of bottles in general.

didnt notice until now, I have one of the robinsons from the 2nd pic. its a cool bottle. love any bottle with an x or two on it

 

[Wildcat wrangler]

A local dig during March proved to be in many ways the most unusual digging experience of a 40 year career mining for old glass. The site was right in town along Main Street, easily accessible. Construction of a retaining wall opened up an area long the old mill pond usually flooded. The dirt was easy to dig, clay mixed with humus. The dampness of the soil preserved everything from wood, to leather to cloth and generally the bottles came out clean. The age in some areas ranged from that ideal period of 1850s to 1870s. Glass was plentiful, bottles came out in many cases extra clean. There were numerous local colored sodas and of course a good assortment of patent medicine bottles, inks and a few pontil utilitarian bottles.
Best of all, the construction company employees were tolerant of our presence. They were kind enough to help with their earth moving equipment uncovering areas of the bank. The adjacent land owners were friendly and interested in what we were doing.
The 1850s green soda (Battelle and Taylor) pictured I found sticking out of a big pile of dirt. The photo of bottles is only one days finds. The pepper sauce bottle with contents could probably still be used. The shoes couldn't be worn but for 1870s shoes dug up they are amazingly well preserved. A lot of shoes came out of that dump. A map from 1872 shows a shoe shop about two blocks away.
Besides lots of bottles and other interesting stuff.a Civil War era cannon ball in good condition was found the first week.
It sounds like almost a fantasy or bottle hunters dream but take my word for it, it happened exactly that way and probably never again. I have the pictures to prove it. The site is under water now, too bad....

Wow! How cool is that, anyway? What’s amazing to me is that after putting a retaining wall up, right there- is that it’s even still there. I would think digging around that for footings that someone didn’t notice and dig that baby up! That’s a way cool dig!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk