Digging in Japan

[Hezezilla]

I'm in Japan right now and got the chance to go digging on Thursday (for you in America, that would be Wednesday). Went up way in the mountains looking for a village founded in 1888 and abandoned in 1972. The place had at one point had 14 houses. No one lives there anymore. It's pretty inaccessible too. It's an hour hike from the nearest inhabited village.

On the way up, I noticed that the trail was littered with shattered porcelain. Half way up the mountain, I ran across the remnants of a recent landslide. In the rubble was a fragment of an Oriental Shinyaku. It was a recent break and what made it all the more tragic was that I believe it was a rare and valuable variation.

Well after that, I could not for the life of me find the village (I looked it up later and turns out, I had taken a wrong turn on the trail). On my way down, I found an old grave site with lots of broken porcelain and bottles. An hour of searching resulted in a pinged Nikki juice bottle and a marble.

Gonna try again this Wednesday or Thursday. I'll also be posting soon some photos of my finds at antique stores. We'll see if I can actually find the village this time round.

 

[moodorf]

Digging Japanese I think you're digging Japanese I really think so

 

[CanadianBottles]

I like that bottle you found! Always interesting to see what bottles people find in Asia because I'm used to finding lots of Japanese and Chinese bottles on the west coast but the export bottles could be quite different (and much more limited in variety) compared to their domestic versions. I'll be interested to see what you find next week. By the way, what's a Shinyaku? Is it the blue shard?

 

[Hezezilla]

I like that bottle you found! Always interesting to see what bottles people find in Asia because I'm used to finding lots of Japanese and Chinese bottles on the west coast but the export bottles could be quite different (and much more limited in variety) compared to their domestic versions. I'll be interested to see what you find next week. By the way, what's a Shinyaku? Is it the blue shard?

Yes. Shinyaku means "divine medicine" and at first it was chlorodyne (quack cure). It later changed into anything from morphine to marijuana based medicines.

 

[UnderMiner]

Awesome! Japan has so much history and art, hope you find the village and uncover even more artifacts!

 

[hemihampton]

Good luck. LEON.

 

[Hezezilla]

Went back and found the village. Immediately ran across a dump site from pre-1940. Everything was shattered so I moved further into the village. All the other dumps seemed to be post-war with a lot of modern trash from local loggers. I wander foran hour and then give up.

On my way out I check the first dump once more and somehow found an intact bottle. It's a Noda Shoyu bottle from between 1917 and 1940. Not incredibly rare but by God am I happy. It's amazing that this thing survived. The whole dump was no deeper than 4 inches! Only pill vials and this thing survived. A full day of pure pain and exhaustion and I can say I found a bottle I am happy with! No chips, no cracks. Just a bit mucky.

Now I just need to figure out how to get this back to Hawaii in one piece . . .

 

[moodorf]

Bottle hunting in another country would be so cool! I'd be self conscious though. No weird looks from the locals?

 

[Hezezilla]

Bottle hunting in another country would be so cool! I'd be self conscious though. No weird looks from the locals?

I was stupid and picked just about the most remote spot to dig. I probably should've picked something a lot less mountainous. It's an hours hike from the nearest inhabited village and said village is a nearly three hour train ride from Central Tokyo. Furthermore, the hike takes you up 900 feet in added elevation. It was insane and I don't know how I did it twice. That all said, I didn't see a single other person up on that mountain.

 

[BF109]

Digging Japanese I think you're digging Japanese I really think so

I get it