Did you know your bottle may be worthless?

[whiskeyman]

RHONA...I dig a lot of Sauer's here. You should also as it was made in Richmond,VA. There are assorted variants with different lettering sizes and also both a BIM & ABM version.


The dump I am presently working was closed in the 1950s; Not sure when it was begun, but have found BIM bottles. Most of what we're digging is from the 1920's to 1930's...White House Vinegar, Jumbo Peanut Butter, some Deco Sodas, corker Clorox, Lysol, Listerine, Sauers, etc,etc,...and assorted odds and ends.

Someone tell me...why is it you can dig about 20 plain ketchup bottles that have NO damage and the 3 Deco sodas you dig are all cracked, chipped, bruised?...HA!

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone.

 

[RazorsEdge]

hey all this talk about worth and you guys saying that some 1900 stuff is worthless....The only dumps I ever find are 40s at the earliest.....Is there even a possibilty of finding a valuable item? Is anything from the 50s valuable? i will keep digging because i find cool stuff, but i would like to know if i should stop expecting to pull out a bottle where my eyes turn into dollar signs when i see it

 

[whiskeyman]

yes...there are collectible...ie...not worthless, bottles from the 50's. Candy containers come to mind right away....baby bottles, milks, some sodas. canning jars...And, there's always the possibility someone cleaned out their attic/basement/garage and threw away older stuff.....Also cities/towns doing urban renewal demolition work may have dumped some older items as well. Marbles are good too.

 

[Trying not to break it]

HI WHISKEYMAN, maybe because i live so close to balt. and mcormick spice was so big here is why i find so many of them. where i'm digging now i have found things from 1900 to an no return no deposit pepsi bottle. i keep hoping to find the older things, the foundation of the 2 houses are shown on an 1860 map. oh yes. my family names from sw va. are hodge and ferguson. good luck digging and finding. rhona

 

[RazorsEdge]

HOW did you find a map that old i would love to see something like that of my area!!!

 

[madman]

well said d boy

 

[baltbottles]

Well all I have to say about this topic is that as of right now this forum has 2829 members that’s a lot of collectors. And we come from different backgrounds, different cities, and even countries. But I would bet most of us started out collecting common stuff because we thought it was cool looking or old or mite be worth something. My collecting interests have changed over the years as I’ve learned more about the bottles and due to other aspects of my life. I remember as a kid about 11-12 finding ACL soda and milk bottles and thinking there were the greatest things ever. I used to save anything I liked but as time went on I had hundreds of bottles and no ware to keep them all. But having read many books at the time and talking to other collectors I decided to just collect blown bottles and having found a few turn of the century dumps made this possible. As time went on I soon had several hundred blown bottles so then it was time to get rid of all the blanks and just collect blown embossed bottles. Buy this time I started buying a bottle every now and then at a flea market or antique shop. Nothing really rare but just stuff I liked. After a couple years I had several hundred bottles again so I decided to just focus on blown embossed bottles from Baltimore. This lasted about 4 years until I had almost 800 Baltimore bottles. But I could only display about 1-200 at a time so I made the decision to sell everything but about 25 bottles and just collect Pontiled Baltimore bottles. Now its been about 4 years since that decision and I have a nice collection that I am proud of. But this has taken me about 12-14 years to get to this point (from ACL milks to colored Pontiled whatever’s). But I must also say not all of the members of this site have been at it that long (many are just starting out) so give them time let them decide what the like and want to collect. And many of then don't live near a large city were you can find those early bottles. Its almost imposable to find stuff older then the 1880s in many parts of the country and some places even 1900 is the limit. And how many of you have actually dug a pontil era woods dump I can say I never have, there just not around. I never found my first pontils until I got into privy digging. And try privy digging in places other then large cities or towns. It takes an already challenging thing and makes it almost imposable. But all I really wanted to say is let the newbies be newbies. Let them collect whatever they can find and let there interest and knowledge grow and when they are ready for those flasks and bitters and pontils the collector at heart will find a way.

Chris

 

[Trying not to break it]

state archives. i did genealogy (sp) research. rhona

 

[madman]

hey whiskeyman, i feel your pain, ive dug hundreds of kechup bottles also frenches mustard, all in perfect shape when all the good stuff was damaged!!! what gives mike

 

[madman]

heres some bottles on the worthless list, but i always keep them cause it was the first bottle i ever found, and there cool !! mike