How did you start collecting and what was your 1st bottle?

[Tandy]

Hi All, it would seem that I did not reply to the earlier topic, so I had better do so for this one.

One Saturday afternoon, wanting something to do, I drove to a country town some 100 kilometres from Adelaide, called Murray Bridge. While I was wandering through the scrubland outside the town, I came across this jar, which had very nicely embossed "Bacchus Marsh Malted Milk", so I picked it up and drove home. I can remember trying to find out about it, and I eventually did so.

From then on, circa 1967, I began to collect bottles.

However, I was foolish enough to sell the jar some time later.

Recently, I found another one, and I still have this one.

You can see a picture of it at

http://www.proforumhost.com/viewtopic.php?t=808&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45&mforum=grimdigger1

 

[Tony14]

i started 2 years ago when i was twelve. I was out visiting a friends house when we saw a deer on the edge of the woods in his backyard, so of course we had to chase it. we were running through the woulds when we spotted a giant barbed wire ball, that thing was so cool we had to check it out. i walked over there and nearly stepped on a bottle, i look at my feet and there was an old medicine bottle. right next to it my friend found a small fingernail polish bottle. we both were hooked ever since. as soon as i get my camera working i will post a pic. im not sure what it is or how old it is. after i found that bottle i didnt start looking again until about half a year later when i stumbled onto a dump wile fishing. i now have a little over 100 bottles and growing.

 

[madman]

hey diggerboy nice idea! in ithe 4th grade my family moved to a house that had a woods and field behind it, well in the woods was a nice early 1900s dump the bottles were sticking out of the ground, so i took some home, my dad said they were cool, see if you can find more, yea i found more thousands more !!! my first bottle was a souders extract bottle. im 36 now and have dug alot of dumps heres what i dug in the past 2 years oh yea and the souders mike

 

[madman]

heres the extract

 

[madman]

some recent dump stuff all 1900plus but fun to find mike

 

[Bottleman]

I realize this is a pretty old post but I figured I would tell my story. I found my first bottle when I was 10 years which was a cobalt blue Triloids poison bottle. We were moving the old smoke house which was used for smoking raw meat in. I was digging around under the foundation for marbles and what ever old I could find when I pulled out the poison. A few weeks later I went to a local antique store with my mom and saw the exact same bottle with a price tag of $20.00 on it. I was just amazed that it was worth that much at the time! Yes, I still have that bottle too! After that I began walking around the farm fields looking for dumps and talking to my dad’s friends to see if they knew of any dumps. I was lucky enough to have one right across the street to go to. At that time I just walked around and picked bottles off the surface for my collection and had no idea that all the good ones were buried. By that time I was 12 and I had a friend in middle school that collected depression glass who I eventually got hooked into bottle collecting so I had a digging partner from the start that understood exactly the bottle collecting addiction. We both pretty much learned the hobby as we went together until at a flea market when we met another “experienced†digger who was in his 30’s and had been doing it his hole life. He showed us the ropes and got us digging 1870s privies when we were only 15. By the time I was 16 I got the nerve to knock on peoples doors and try to get there permission to dig there outhouses. I am 19 right now and this is the first time I have ever told my age on this site because I have been worried that older collectors will think that I am inexperienced and just getting started in this hobby. That is not the case at all though, I have dug at uncountless dumps and dug tons of privies including about four 1850s pontiled holes. At the moment I collect pontiled squat sodas from Philadelphia, PA and local milks. Also any other nice looking bottles I find. I hope you all liked my story and I will keep you posted on all of my recent digs that turn up to be really good.

~~Tom (Bottleman12)

 

[bottlebank]

I found mine in a woods my first bottle was the dirtiest bottle

i will get pics tonight

 

[justarookie]

im 22 i just started collecting bottles about 2 months ago. i got hooked when my dad became very intrested in ginger beer bottles so instead of just buying them i thought i would try ot find mine. The funny thing is about the girl thing is the only person i ever go digging with is my girlfriend. The first bottle we ever found was a skirted coke bottle i dont kow i think it dates somewhere from the 60's . I did alot of looking around for dumps and spotted at an old farm. so finally i got the guts an asked the owner if i could dig there and i dont think she could have cared less. SO i have been digging that dump for he last three days. Friday nigth didnt have much time but brought up a couple marbles and found my first sign of a ginger beer bottle. the bottle was cracked in 2. come to find out that the bottle was a category 4 bottle that is worth $500 and i was excited but yet very depressed at the saem time. The next day my girlfeind and myself spent the whole day there and i would dig and she would get in and pull some bottles out and then we found it the first ever ginger beer bottle we were both real excited it was a sussex ginger beer. Then a couple minutes later she pulled out a big stone jar all intact in perfect condition. Went back today with high hopes but didnt come up with anything to exciting . But anyways this is my story and bottles are all i think about and im so grateful that i ahve a girl friend that is not only cool with it but loves coming with me

 

[WhiteLighting]

Me ive been collecting almost 20 or so years "gonna be hittin 30 in a year..lol",but my mother got me into collecting and also we had a camp that had a dump and like many others as a kid we would throw rocks or thorw the bottles to break um..lol,.....

i still have the first bottle i found when i was around 5 or 6 which was a french gloss bottle,but since then i have collected alot and sold/traded off tons of bottles,also insulators from the old trolly lines and tele lines......but mainly i like the old quack bottles,and sold off my blob tops and milks....but got afew keepers still..
its a strange attraction to glass when really looking and holding the past in your hand...
its a good hobby,even better if ya find somthing worth 500+ bucks...lol
posted is local bottles and a Saratoga that i traded off last year to a local MDer,just thought id show what i got rid of...lol

 

[WhiteLighting]

well i thought i show this also,but sold it 2 years ago 3 days after i found it about 4 or 5 inchs down right next to "strange to find next to each other" a hoods sarasp bottle...
The bottle is 1 of at least 5 known to exist and its a heavy weight in terms of value about 500 to 750 dollars,but it did go to a person who took the other local bottles off me and i know thier in good hands.....
but thought id share this very rare 1850's NY bottle with ya's.......

the strange thing is i was metal detecting and just kicked some pineneedles and dirt over where i was walking and BAMO!.........