Plumbata
Well-Known Member
Well, I had been rooting around for a while in a new TOC dump that I had discovered, which allowed the forces of nature to clear away the dirt and detritus which i had left to clog the creek adjacent to my primary digging site. It has been treating me well since may of 2007, but after hundreds of digs there I am running out of productive refuse layers to exploit. There are a few zones I know of that are very rich and untapped, as I reburied them in my hasty chase of the more easily dug higher layers back in 2007, so there are still plenty of things left to be found. Under 6-7 feet of backfill....
I had engaged in a little bit of passive hydrological engineering, if you will, via damming up certain parts of the creek to help me "dig" and to remove the tailings from my excavations. When i checked the site about a month ago, I found a bottle that had been exposed most fortuitously by the waters from a deep layer, but much to my displeasure it had been broken at the time of its deposition. Thankfully the actions of the creek are not to blame, as I would be kicking myself for quite a long while if i could have prevented the damage.
It is a quart size, slugplate Peoria Coca-Cola soda. There is the regular size also in slug plate, but I have not found a sliver of evidence of it in any dumpsite, as it is extraordinarly hard to find regardless of my experience. The quart size is even more rare, and I am not certain that any complete ones are known, though if they are I will need to get some measurements!
In order to put the rarity of this find in perspective, I show 4 other, normal sized SS Peoria cokes. In the picture below, the bottles on the left and right are early machine made bottles, worth 40-50 dollars. I have dug 2 and bought another for 20 bucks. I don't dig 1920s stuff as regularly as the TOC- early teens so i haven't dug as many. In the middle is a rather rare base embossed coke, one of which just sold on ebay today for 228.00. I have dug one complete one and 2 with the top missing, and no others except shards. In the above picture, the bottle on the left is the most common of the blown cokes, I have dug a 6-pack of them in good shape and the ones without significant cosmetic issues sell for over 110 bucks. I've found over a dozen broken ones. The bottle on the right in the above pictures is the only one of its style I have found, complete or fragmentary (thankfully it is pretty minty) and other club members have verified that it is a very tough one. I would imagine that it is a decent bit more valuable than the one that just sold for 228.00. More attractive too.
Which brings us to the quart coke. I have never seen any slugplate Peoria cokes before now in any form, fragmentary or complete, and a collector friend has been looking for one, of either size, for over 30 years. Probably decently hard to get, I'd wager, relative to the ones I currently have. Such a shame that it has to mock me like this, in its crack-free almost-completeness. [&o]
Good candidate for restoration/retopping, eh? I'm thinking about taking my father's lapidary grinder to it (more like take it to the grinder) using a 600 grit disc and a custom frame to hold the bugger. It would be slow but probably well worth it. Any suggestions?
I had engaged in a little bit of passive hydrological engineering, if you will, via damming up certain parts of the creek to help me "dig" and to remove the tailings from my excavations. When i checked the site about a month ago, I found a bottle that had been exposed most fortuitously by the waters from a deep layer, but much to my displeasure it had been broken at the time of its deposition. Thankfully the actions of the creek are not to blame, as I would be kicking myself for quite a long while if i could have prevented the damage.
It is a quart size, slugplate Peoria Coca-Cola soda. There is the regular size also in slug plate, but I have not found a sliver of evidence of it in any dumpsite, as it is extraordinarly hard to find regardless of my experience. The quart size is even more rare, and I am not certain that any complete ones are known, though if they are I will need to get some measurements!
In order to put the rarity of this find in perspective, I show 4 other, normal sized SS Peoria cokes. In the picture below, the bottles on the left and right are early machine made bottles, worth 40-50 dollars. I have dug 2 and bought another for 20 bucks. I don't dig 1920s stuff as regularly as the TOC- early teens so i haven't dug as many. In the middle is a rather rare base embossed coke, one of which just sold on ebay today for 228.00. I have dug one complete one and 2 with the top missing, and no others except shards. In the above picture, the bottle on the left is the most common of the blown cokes, I have dug a 6-pack of them in good shape and the ones without significant cosmetic issues sell for over 110 bucks. I've found over a dozen broken ones. The bottle on the right in the above pictures is the only one of its style I have found, complete or fragmentary (thankfully it is pretty minty) and other club members have verified that it is a very tough one. I would imagine that it is a decent bit more valuable than the one that just sold for 228.00. More attractive too.
Which brings us to the quart coke. I have never seen any slugplate Peoria cokes before now in any form, fragmentary or complete, and a collector friend has been looking for one, of either size, for over 30 years. Probably decently hard to get, I'd wager, relative to the ones I currently have. Such a shame that it has to mock me like this, in its crack-free almost-completeness. [&o]
Good candidate for restoration/retopping, eh? I'm thinking about taking my father's lapidary grinder to it (more like take it to the grinder) using a 600 grit disc and a custom frame to hold the bugger. It would be slow but probably well worth it. Any suggestions?
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