CurbdiggerCarl
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2009
- Messages
- 39
- Reaction score
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This is my first real posting to this site, other than a couple of "What the Hell Did I Dig?" questions.
Love this site!
Anyway, a buddy and I who have been detecting together for a few years now have really gotten the bug for bottle digging.
We made some decent finds at a lake they recently drained out here in Denver, some straight-sided Cokes, bunch of hutches, and some pharms,
but with the huge area to dig, it was mainly luck of the draw.
Any of the houses we've hunted at have been pretty unproductive, a bottle here, a bottle there, nothing fantastic.
This Spring we did manage to dig at two construction sites, and were lucky enough to grab some decent stuff before the speed of the construction crews
reburied or carted off everything.
Where I dug this jug was only a two day window of digging. Stopped by Saturday morning, and starting to scan the area. I saw two ditches that had been dug, one that had a long brick wall that had been exposed, and the other where there was a small area of charcoal and glass fragments were showing through.
Plopped down at this area, and the first thing I saw was a greyish circle staring at me. Figured it was a brick of some sort, and decided to try and pop it out.
Scraping along one side, I saw some markings, what appeared to be a phone number. I knew immediately that I had a jug! Praying to the Gods the whole time, I slowly scraped it out of it's hole.
When I finally dug it out, I nearly had a heart attack! It's a "Court Palace Liquor House" half gallon jug, from Denver, and in very good shape. later research showed that it's from 1905.
I then called my buddy, and told him to haul ass over to the site. Proceeded to spend about eight more hours digging, with nothing else to show for my troubles.
My partners day was just the opposite. he got to the site, and fruitlessly dug for about seven hours, finding nothing. Right around sunset, when it was starting to rain, he finally exposed another jug. he also pulled out a nice local half gallon whiskey.
Needless to say, we were there the following morning.
By now we could tell that it was a brick lined rectangular shaped "box", about eight feet long, and about four feet wide. The construction crew had torn out one side, exposing it for us. Mainly filled with old bricks, it was tough going trying to pull them all out, one by one.
Sunday wasn't as productive, jelly glasses, a few slicks, and only two hutches, mine a common "Standard", his a decent local Denver hutch.
It looked like the crew in the 1900's spent the day filling the box, and at the end, bought a couple of jugs, drank, then tossed on the top of the pile.
Any-who, here's a photo of my jug,
Enjoy!
Carl
Stopped by this weekend, the area is now covered over, with about five feet of added soil!
Love this site!
Anyway, a buddy and I who have been detecting together for a few years now have really gotten the bug for bottle digging.
We made some decent finds at a lake they recently drained out here in Denver, some straight-sided Cokes, bunch of hutches, and some pharms,
but with the huge area to dig, it was mainly luck of the draw.
Any of the houses we've hunted at have been pretty unproductive, a bottle here, a bottle there, nothing fantastic.
This Spring we did manage to dig at two construction sites, and were lucky enough to grab some decent stuff before the speed of the construction crews
reburied or carted off everything.
Where I dug this jug was only a two day window of digging. Stopped by Saturday morning, and starting to scan the area. I saw two ditches that had been dug, one that had a long brick wall that had been exposed, and the other where there was a small area of charcoal and glass fragments were showing through.
Plopped down at this area, and the first thing I saw was a greyish circle staring at me. Figured it was a brick of some sort, and decided to try and pop it out.
Scraping along one side, I saw some markings, what appeared to be a phone number. I knew immediately that I had a jug! Praying to the Gods the whole time, I slowly scraped it out of it's hole.
When I finally dug it out, I nearly had a heart attack! It's a "Court Palace Liquor House" half gallon jug, from Denver, and in very good shape. later research showed that it's from 1905.
I then called my buddy, and told him to haul ass over to the site. Proceeded to spend about eight more hours digging, with nothing else to show for my troubles.
My partners day was just the opposite. he got to the site, and fruitlessly dug for about seven hours, finding nothing. Right around sunset, when it was starting to rain, he finally exposed another jug. he also pulled out a nice local half gallon whiskey.
Needless to say, we were there the following morning.
By now we could tell that it was a brick lined rectangular shaped "box", about eight feet long, and about four feet wide. The construction crew had torn out one side, exposing it for us. Mainly filled with old bricks, it was tough going trying to pull them all out, one by one.
Sunday wasn't as productive, jelly glasses, a few slicks, and only two hutches, mine a common "Standard", his a decent local Denver hutch.
It looked like the crew in the 1900's spent the day filling the box, and at the end, bought a couple of jugs, drank, then tossed on the top of the pile.
Any-who, here's a photo of my jug,
Enjoy!
Carl
Stopped by this weekend, the area is now covered over, with about five feet of added soil!
