Blob-Top Trifecta (May 2nd 2023)

[UnderMiner]

Went back to the 1910-capped clay pit bottle dump that I have been extensively excavating since January. It is very difficult digging but the trade off is the bottles often come out in great condition. In about two hours of digging I recovered three blob-top beer bottles, one tooled lip med, and one wooden tobacco pipe.

Bottles from left to right:

1. "North Beach Height F Frankel Bottling Co." (Bottle made by the Boley Manufacturing Co.,1898-1911)

2. "Bachmann - Bechtel Brewing Co. S.I. N.Y." (1907-1911)

3. "Jacob Oertel 151 Flushing Ave. Astoria L.I."

4. "Burnett Boston" tooled lip med/extract bottle.

Here is the Bachmann - Bechtel immediately before and after excavation:

Bachmann brewery workers (courtesy of www.taverntrove.com):

On Tuesday April 5th 1910 young William Bachmann died at just 30 years old, and the company went out of business:

North Beach Height F Frankel bottle during and after excavation:

The Boley Manufacturing Co. base plate (I very rarely encounter these):

Jacob Oertel bottle during and after excavation:

That's all for now.

 

[Still]

What a score!!!!

 

[mingoman64]

Absolutely awesome!

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

 

[hemihampton]

Did you find these under the mud by poking them with a Stick? LEON.

 

[UnderMiner]

Did you find these under the mud by poking them with a Stick? LEON.

A big stick yes. Then excavated the area. The best part is I believe I have only begun to scratch the surface.

 

[hemihampton]

Looks like Fun, I wish I was there to help. LEON.

 

[moodorf]

Awesome bottles

 

[Fenndango]

Did you use a privy probe? I'm having issues locating older and hence deeper insulators with a two-prong pitchfork, yet a single probe seems so laborious. I can work a pitchfork fast and cover much ground. I can't imagine using my spring steel privy probes. Perhaps if I made them shorter it would be easier.

 

[hemihampton]

Did you use a privy probe? I'm having issues locating older and hence deeper insulators with a two-prong pitchfork, yet a single probe seems so laborious. I can work a pitchfork fast and cover much ground. I can't imagine using my spring steel privy probes. Perhaps if I made them shorter it would be easier.

I believe I asked a similar question & he answered it. he uses a big stick, not a privy probe.

 

[UnderMiner]

Did you use a privy probe? I'm having issues locating older and hence deeper insulators with a two-prong pitchfork, yet a single probe seems so laborious. I can work a pitchfork fast and cover much ground. I can't imagine using my spring steel privy probes. Perhaps if I made them shorter it would be easier.

I found this place originally by seeing broken bits of old bottles on the surface. I couldn't find any intact pieces on top but knew there was an old dump in the area because of the research I had done earlier. So I began shoving the spade I had brought with me as deep as it could go into the ground. Within a few minutes I hit a solid piece of glass only a few inches deep. I excavated it and sure enough it was an intact bottle from the early 1900's-1910's era. I continued using the spade to probe the area and ended up finding many of the intact bottles that were near the surface.

Thanks to the advice of hemihampton, who commented on one of my posts that I would find more if I probed the ground deeper, I got a long metal dipstick from a truck and brought that to the site. I began using that in the area of highest concentration of finds, and sure enough about 2-3 feet down in the clay I hit more targets. So I got the shovel and excavated the area down about three feet, and that's so far where I am now.

So far the only things I have excavated from this site are glass bottles, pieces of wood, bones, and small chunks of this asphalt-like material. There is no sand, gravel, large rocks, ash, or large heaps of compacted solid material such as would be typical in your average privy, it's all just amazing condition artifacts encased in clay as if someone had put them there like a time capsule. I even sometimes find the lightning stoppers on top of the bottles, the rubber and porcelain still intact like new but with no metal wire, its so bizarre.