New Digger in Ohio

[CharlesSpurgeon]

I found a place loaded with glass on top of the ground mostly all broken ranging from 1970s to 1950s. Did a little digging and found a few milks. My question is how do I tell if this is a dump or a place where they backfilled with stuff? Hope that makes sense?

 

[GLASSHOPPER55]

Get a bottle probe and start stabbin'. That's the quickest and easiest way to see whatcha got. Bear in mind there's not a lot of glass that era that's really desirable.

 

[CanadianBottles]

Hey if you're finding milks in good condition then it's worth digging in my books. I'm not sure I totally understand what you mean by a place that was backfilled with stuff, but if you're finding items from a 20-year span then it sounds like a pretty typical postwar dump to me.

 

[westerndug]

In my experience, dig to the bottom of the newer layer, get a good 4', and 6' probe and search out the entire area with the 4', then the 6' probes. If it is a dump, it should have a 4 to 6' at the most, dead layer, with older dump there.
If this is an intercity dump, it could go 20' or more to the really good stuff.
Hope this helps.
Mark

 

[WesternPA-collector]

Welcome to the site. Like Glasshopper55 said, there's not a lot desirable from that era but there are some. Maybe you can find some embossed bottles. Anything with ACL will be in bad shape. Milks are most valuable. The question is, how much work do you want to put in for stuff that is buried, from such an era?

 

[oldmapman]

Sanborn maps emailed for $1.00 each, all cities

I found a place loaded with glass on top of the ground mostly all broken ranging from 1970s to 1950s. Did a little digging and found a few milks. My question is how do I tell if this is a dump or a place where they backfilled with stuff? Hope that makes sense?

oldmapman@gmail.com

 

[CharlesSpurgeon]

This area is a steep hill on the edge of town on some old maps at the bottom of the hill, which is just swampy now, marked gravel something cant make it out. I'm finding the 50s-70s stuff on the surface of the hillside in an area of about 100yards or so. most of the surface stuff is concentrated at the bottom of the hill which stands to reason it just rolled down over the years. There does seem to be a small area with cork tops and crocks (all broken so far) at the bottom of the hill. I'm planning a test dig in that area to see whats down deeper. This land belongs to the city which makes me think it's an actual old town dump. Its also full of bricks and chunks of old cement which makes it hard to probe. Thanks for all your help. Any further insights would be helpful.

 

[WesternPA-collector]

This area is a steep hill on the edge of town on some old maps at the bottom of the hill, which is just swampy now, marked gravel something cant make it out. I'm finding the 50s-70s stuff on the surface of the hillside in an area of about 100yards or so. most of the surface stuff is concentrated at the bottom of the hill which stands to reason it just rolled down over the years. There does seem to be a small area with cork tops and crocks (all broken so far) at the bottom of the hill. I'm planning a test dig in that area to see whats down deeper. This land belongs to the city which makes me think it's an actual old town dump. Its also full of bricks and chunks of old cement which makes it hard to probe. Thanks for all your help. Any further insights would be helpful.

That sounds like a lot of the areas I find! It's so frustrating that bricks, chunks of cement, and building materials crush most of the good stuff. But there's always a few bottles that survive.

 

[GLASSHOPPER55]

That sounds like a lot of the areas I find! It's so frustrating that bricks, chunks of cement, and building materials crush most of the good stuff. But there's always a few bottles that survive.

10-4 I found one of my rarest local hutches in a shallow dump among those old orange TOC bricks. I'm still amazed it wasn't even chipped, though a bunch of the bricks were broken. I also found a more common local hutch with the neck sticking out of the ground (!).