AH IF I HAD STARTED A LITTLE EARLIER!

[glass man]

I started collecting bottles in 1974...man if I had at least started in the late 6's there were some great dumps to dig at..many hutch cokes were dug in them!One man I knew dug up what was left of a rotting straw basket filled with hutch cokes..some broke and some in bad condition..but still!!Bitters..school house inks on and on were dug. But to have dug a hutch coke wold have been my dream.even as late as 1979 a friend was selling nice examples for $100!! Of course a $100 was not much more then I was making at a factory at the time.. if I had just started collecting just a few years earlier..the dumps around here [the ones from the 1800's] were pretty much dug out by the time I got into collecting...JAMIE

 

[celerycola]

Last Hutchinson Coke I dug was in 1974 (my fourth). It was a rare Talladaga, Alabama. I started the hole Saturday with a high school friend who was a karate black belt and in top shape. By the time we were digging twelve feet down I had to bucket his dirt up and shovel mine while he rested. He called me Sunday to say he was "sick" so I finished the hole myself. Saturday we had dug some Ledbetter Produce Hutch pieces and I knew they had the Coke franchise for Talladega. Sunday I dug two broke and one whole Talladega Hutch Coke. I sold it in 1976 with Hutch Cokes from three other towns to a collector in Chicago.