how did you get into this

[bottlehunt!]

Really anyone it would be interesting to know.

 

[bottlehunt!]

I got into it because I found a $322 dollar bottle while metal detecting.

 

[bottlehunt!]

what I mean is how did you get into bottle digging.

 

[Bob in La Crosse]

The last house I lived in had an old trash pit on a hillside behind the house. I picked up some pieces and then needed a shovel to remove more. I started finding China, stoneware, bolltles, jars, personal effects, old license plates, 2 guns, coins and buttons. With the first bottle I found, I was hooked. Lots of alcohol related stuff. Also found a lot of original barbed wire types.. I started researching. That led me to the County recorders office. we found the original land grant From Millard Fillmore and the transfer records for many sales. some huge local names owned it over time. Two of the names tied to period pieces were John Guns and Gottlieb Hielemann. The pieces of China I collected were all gilded and the personal effects were high end. We had to move before we completed our dig, but the early layers were 1870s and stuff stopped in the 1930s. Tons of bones and even bear teeth. over 200 complete bottles. I was able to rebuild some as well. Hundreds of broken ones.
We donated several pieces to the Historical Society...stuff they had never seen.
I want to find more pits to dig. The history tie ins were magical. I am hooked.
I need someone to help me I.D. my bottles.
we think the China was thrown during a TB outbreak because no one knew how it spread.

 

[bluegrassfan76]

I do a lot of squirrel hunting on govt ground around Lake Shelbyville in central Illinois. Years ago I came across some old bottles in a ravine where someone had dumped their trash years ago before the govt took all the land when they dammed the Kaskaskia River. That got me started on collecting old soda bottles. Most of my collecting has been done at flea markets and antique stores.

 

[GlassKitTin]

Well I’ve always kinda had a fascination with shiny glass and old stuff, but never really did any hunting til recently. We always would go hiking and I pick up cool rocks, or crockery shards, or what have you that caught my eye. Then a few months ago/last fall/whatever I went on a mushroom hunting hike with family, and we were like ooh-ahh-ing spotting all these different mushrooms and looking em up, then as we’re scanning the ground we start seeing this one big area way back in the woods with glass and metal and junk everywhere and we start poking around, finding old beer bottles and the aqua mason jars and zinc lids and stuff so I start grabbing things that made me like ooh check that out! Come here and Google, looking things up, and now I’m hooked! Can’t go on a hike without looking all around for more shiny things to pick up, lol. It’s awesome

 

[Catcat16]

Really anyone it would be interesting to know.

my husband, (boyfriend at the time) would take me to the woods in walking distance from his mothers house back when we first started dating Like 4 months into our relationship, and we would Take a blanket and a pick-nick basket and go have lunch, walk around, shoot cans with BB guns and well, do what new couples do lol (mind you I’m only being so open about this because it pertains to the story)

so wile laying out there on a blanket wile kissing my partner, I kept trying to move myself in a different area of the blanket because something was digging into my shoulder blade. This goes on for maybe two minutes or so of me trying to scoot myself..all wile trying not to ruin the mood. that’s until he finally gets up and says what the heck are you doing? I tell him and he pulls the blanket up and I put my hands under the leaves and feel a cold smooth object. I pull it out and it’s this beautiful cobalt milk of magnesia bottle. I said wow that’s pretty! I wonder how old it is. He looks at it and says dang, you found a good one! I’ve never seen one of those out here. I said wait, there’s more? He says yea and stands up and puts his hand out to help me up.

So he starts walking and pointing at all this glass all over the ground as I follow him I ask him why the hell he would place our (Will say) “kissing” blanket on a bunch of broken glass. Lol he laughed and shrugs his shoulders saying he didn’t think it was in that spot. So from there we walk the woods and start picking up these beautiful bottles right off the top of the ground. They were everywhere. He tells me he’s been getting bottles from back here since he was a kid and that it was just a little hobbie not something he took very seriously.

So after that day every once in a while I would go back and grab as many as I could find just for keeps. That was up until I thought I had succefully gotten them all. We moved away and forgot about it. Last year we moved back and had some car troubles so we were forced to stay home most of the time. I thought about the woods and how if I hadn’t already gotten them all how I could go do that when I was bored.

I went in my closet and pulled out one of my prettiest bottles and looked it up. I see it says its going for a hundred bucks. I immediately got super excited and started looking up other bottles. Eventually my search landed me on a diggers website where I learned how people actually dug for these bottles. So I said “dang if I found all those bottles on top of the ground, I bet there are thousands more under it. So I went out with a shovel one day and found like 30 awesome bottles. On my very first day!!! Mind you these were wayyyyyy better then the bottles I had found on top of the ground.

It’s been a year since then and I go out 3-4 times a week for about 4-5 hours a day to dig. I now have hundreds and hundreds, probably close to or a little over a thousand.

The best part is the more I dig the better stuff I find and these woods are so big I’m constantly finding new areas with different peoples products under the ground! We found our first privy or trash pit about two months ago. I can’t get enough of digging. It’s literally treasure hunting and every day is a new chance to find something amazing and better then the day before! Here’s a couple pictures of my family and I next to our first trash dump/privy (we’re not sure) lol but we were so excited feeling like REAL diggers haha.

 

[hemihampton]

Thanks for the story & pics. A Privy will have it's own unique type of dirt when you get to the bottom of it. Usually a layer of white ash that can be a inch or 2 thick or sometimes a foot or 2 thick then soft fluffy light colored dirt surround by tons of cool bottles (usually) A trash pit is usually obviously different, wider but not as deep & more junk in it & no white ash but some time Clinkers instead. LEON.

 

[Catcat16]

Thanks for the story & pics. A Privy will have it's own unique type of dirt when you get to the bottom of it. Usually a layer of white ash that can be a inch or 2 thick or sometimes a foot or 2 thick then soft fluffy light colored dirt surround by tons of cool bottles (usually) A trash pit is usually obviously different, wider but not as deep & more junk in it & no white ash but some time Clinkers instead. LEON.

Yea no problem! And thanks unfortunately that does sound like we weren’t in a privy then. We weren’t sure only because it looked like there were reminence of a house back there. We could even see what looked like it could have been an old drive way or I guess walking trail to a house where we found pieces of what looked like a foundation of a house. So yea we usually woulnt think a privy would be back in the woods we dig in but all of that plus it was allllll the way in the back far from any other houses so we assumed it possible. Hopefully one day. Although I’m not sure if I could handle digging that far lol. This hole was already dug with bottles all along the sides under the leaves and overgrowth from the years.

 

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

My story is much simpler. I was taking a hike in the woods. I am extremely allergic to poison ivy. Every year as a kid for as long as i can remember i was covered with the rash over 90% of my body. I mean it was everwhere! So i have learned to stay on the trails. On one occasion i had to water the bushes...LOL! I went only 10 feet off the trail and sticking out of the ground was this odd bottle. I finished and bent over to pull it out. I never saw anything like it. It was a nu-grape double bubble 1920 pat date and was embossed " NOT GRAPE JUICE". I went back to find more and the rest is history. I cover up good and shower as soon as i get home. All my clothes including my sneakers go into the wash before i clean up. I still worry but i can't stop. Too much fun. Way better than gambling and much more exciting...at least for me. I still have the bottle. That was over 20 years ago.