cannibalfromhannibal
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- Jan 12, 2009
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Well, haven't been finding much to post lately, reason for absence. Did get a chance to poke about a dirt floor basement to a building under demolition. Wasn't too excited originally, as they tend to be on the lean side of finds around here. I had hopes there might be something from the early days as the building appears to date from at least the late 60's. It was also listed as a saloon from the earliest Sanborn map in 1885 to toc. I initially noticed a mound of rocky debris immediately to my right as I hit the bottom of the stairs, so I made my way over and quickly discovered a monster crude applied neck and top to a large demijohn, likely a 10 gallon size. I moved on throughout the rest of the basement while noting only a couple other areas of possible interest, so I returned to where the neck was found. I pulled out my 3 prong scratcher and got serious removing the brick and rocks. I quickly uncovered one, two and three hutches stacked on top of each other and each un-embossed with the blank label circle. Then up popped a nice, crude round bottom Ross's Belfast soda. That perked up my spirits, and next out of the hole was a nice early hinge mold square bitters. Frustrated it was un-embossed, I was not too convinced when #2 came out, also un-embossed. Then up jumped the devil again! I wiggled out a round base I thought was likely a beer and turned out to be the best of the dig. A nice olive amber, crude, applied drippy lip, lady's leg bitters, with a thousand seed bubbles as a bonus in perfect condition! Next to it was a pontiled base to the ginormous demi top I found earlier. Near those came a crude, olive green 3 piece mold Dr JGB Siegert's & Hijos bitters and an amber CW Abbott's bitters, along with one more plain square bitters. Then the hutches started popping out like mushrooms in the springtime. Counted 14 total, 8 un-embossed and the rest were common locals, though always a welcome preference over the plain slicks. One was a badly damaged transitional between the blobs and the hutch era of which I have only seen 2, and both are in my collection. Last one was a Celery Fo-Mo that I had never heard of before. I filled my back pack and headed out with the better finds and returned later that day for the un-embossed leftovers I recycle to beginning collectors.
