Love to hunt....but new to the BOTTLE thing!!

[Terphunter]

I love to hunt...period. It can be arrowheads, fossil sharkteeth, deer or sheds. Over my travels shed (antler) hunting I have come across a number of spots that had bottles. Mostly broken, some old, some newer...but sometimes you would see an intersting bottle. Well about a month ago I started to collect these interesting bottles and after a little internet looking have become quite interested in this bottle collecting...in fact I have already started my small and basic "collection". All of this has been strickly from the surface.

My questions to experts is when digging how far down do you generally need to go and is there a certine techique that works the best without completely busting up the bottles?? Does scraping or a heavy metal rake work?? I would love to get into some older finds and it would make sense the deeper you go the older it gets.

Thanks for any words of advice! Here are some of my finds from the past month....i know its probably all junk!![]

https://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm172/terphunter/Sheds%202012/IMG_1004.jpg

https://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm172/terphunter/Sheds%202012/IMG_1018.jpg

 

[Terphunter]

Here is another shot of some of the beer bottles...I think these are my favorites!

https://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm172/terphunter/Sheds%202012/IMG_1019.jpg

 

[tigue710]

my best advice is pack up your other stuff, bottles will soon dominate your den!

seriously, for surface dumps you'll want to use a small garden tine and get down and dig careful... deer antlers work amazingly well also without damaging the glass as much... some people use potato rakes so they can stand but Ive damaged stuff personally with them so opt not to use them... you will also want a shovel to clear your area and dig deeper... Some bottles hold better then others and are not as easily broken while the real delicate stuff you literally have to slowly remove the dirt around them with a delicate tool...

nice collection you got going!

 

[Terphunter]

Thanks for the advise. I already am thinking about a few spots to poke around a bit and try and get deeper!

 

[JOETHECROW]

Welcome and good luck...Like Tigue says,...better make some room...[] It's a pretty absorbing hobby! Looks like your off to a decent start.

 

[carobran]

Are those green BALL Masons in the pic of your shelf on the bottom right?

 

[dogtx]

I love finding anything that interests me. The older the better.
The harder to find the better. Dig as far as it goes.I dig till
there is no more trash, usually it's pretty obvious when you see original ground.
It varies on depth. But there is something about finding stuff in the ground you are the first person to see and touch an item in a hundred years or so,I can tell if they where poor or rich
if they had kids and so on.
I just love history. Good luck and welcome to the obsession I mean hobby.

 

[Terphunter]

dogtx I am in the same boat! Love finding and figuring out how to find things that are old or its the first time a humans hands have been on them in the case of fossils and shed antlers! Thanks for the info as well. The mason jars do have a very greenish tint...those two were found at the same location. I have another big one that has a more blueish tint to it.


Here are examples of my other collections!

https://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm172/terphunter/digitalcamera004.jpg

 

[Road Dog]

Like those Mako teeth.[]

 

[RED Matthews]

Hello and welcome Turphunter; This FORUM is a great place to visit everyday and a lot of our members are here to help you and each other everyday - when we recognize a questionable subject we can relay information.
As a new member, I can see that your bottle making knowledge hasn't been exposed to the things that help you recognize the age and importance of the bottles you might find. Since this means you are a newbee - I have a file I put together to lend a helping hand. Read it - throw it - and you might even go to my homepage to learn about where I fit into the glass worldl. Here is hoping you will become an active collector of some great examples.

This is a collection of material information for newbee's in the hobby of Historic Bottle Collecting. There are several approaches to bottle collecting, and every one has a different interest, that keeps them going after bottles that represent their interest. My interest in putting this together; is to look at the development of bottle making and the methods that were used when the bottles were Hand-Made and Mouth-Blown. This is intended to mainly cover the bottles that were made in the development of the American Glass Making Industry, the first industry in our country.. New diggers and collectors, need to realize how to identify bottles that were made by Hand and Mouth-Blown vs the bottles that were made on an AUTOMATIC BOTTLE MACHINE (ABM). These glass items can be left for future collecting objectives; or recycled into the batch additive to today's glass production. If there are two vertical seams on the finish of the bottle, leave it or recycle it. The logic is the value isn't going to be worth taking it home; unless it is an unusual figural or fancy bottle. There are a lot of interesting bottles made later, but ones interest has to become more specialized. For example I have a bitg collection of large advertising bottles – that were never even filled. Whiskeys, beers, perfume, Coca Cola and many products. Multiple finish Wolfe bottles, and bottles that were made with special mold designs. So you can’t leave justification for saving others also.
The number one thing to learn is how to identify and know Mouth Blown Bottles. One of the best things to learn is how to identify the pontil marks.
#1 When a bottle has a round ring of glass on the bottom, it is telling us that the ring was made by having an empontiling done with the previous blow pipe with neck glass left on the end of that blow pipe. The diameters (inside and outside) will be about the same as the neck of the bottle under the finish. So this is a Blow pipe or Open Tube Pontil, on the bottom of your bottle. That previous blowpipe was laid on a rack by the glory hole to keep that glass tube end hot enough to stick to the next bottle. These are often referred to as: an open pontil but that is up to the collectors’ use of words.
#2 When the bottle has a contact mark on the bottom that illustrates that what was used to empontil it, that mark will be a round form with different textures in the mark. The mark is made by an iron punty rod and the diameter and style is different for: small to huge heavy glass bottles. These heated punty rods were often soft coated with a sticking agent like: graphite, red lead or white lead . The coated punty is then placed in; an open boxes with: powdered iron, glass chips, glass dust, sand, to mention the main ones. It is then stuck on the bottom of the new bottle to become a handle for the bottle-maker to apply glass to the neck of the empontilled bottle.
Some punties are even just coated with some hot glass from the melting crucible. Identifying the exact method of empontiling is not as important as just realizing it has been on a punty rod.
#3 Now the last thing to look at is the finish on top of the bottle you are thinking of keeping. If the finish was applied hot glass it will be just a ring of glass or it might have lines going around it and down on the neck of the bottle indicating that a pinch action tool had been inserted in the neck and the hot glass rotated to shape the hot glass, that was put on the neck. In this looking at your bottle or jar – if you see two vertical mold lines on that finish – then it was made on an ABM (Automatic Bottle Machine) and left for a future collector. The only exception is if the bottle is a unique figural or has some other indications of being a collectors item. This will come after you have more experience. This is no doubt enough to get you on a good road. RED Matthews <bottlemysteries@yahoo.com>