New to the forums. Lots of unknown bottles

[thebottlelady]

Rusty cans, are you kidding!?! There are so many rusty things and broken glass pieces at this site. I actually found a stone that /was/ in the stone wall that is flat and fairly light-weight that I can move around to sit on. Where can you get citric acid so that I can clean these cans up, too? I thought they weren't worth the effort so we've been throwing them out. I am going to visit the library today if it rains out my digging and see what I can find on this 'mansion'. I should at least make it out to the site and be able to take some pics of the area, rain or shine.

 

[rustycans]

Amanda, nope, not kidding. A lot of bottle collectors don't realize how well cans will clean up. The old ones had really thick paint and thick metal. Of course, cans came out in 1935 (tested first in Richmond) so an older bottle dump won't have any. Basically if it doesn't crumble when you gently squeeze it, it has a chance of cleaning up. (FYI, there are also soda can, food can, oyster can and oil can collectors)

I usually save any cool bottles I find when digging cans. I keep some and eBay the rest. My wife uses some of the jars I have found to store stuff as well.

As for citric acid, email me and I'll see what I can do to help.

Instructions for citric use may be found at http://therustybunch.com/citricacid.htm

mark

 

[thebottlelady]

Wow. That 70% chance of rain just vanished since yesterday. Now's it's at 10% so I can have a great dig today! My camera is fully changed and ready to go!

I was reading about the citric acid and we actually dug up this metal plaque thing that we can read because of the rust. I wonder if that would work on the plaque as well.

 

[rustycans]

It might work on the plaque. It depends on the metal. I have used it to clean rust stains off of bottles as well when I've found bottles that had been laying in a pile of rust.

And cans or no cans, the bottles alone make the dump you found look like a heck of a lot of fun to dig!

 

[Flaschenjager]

Hi rustycans and the thebottlelady and Welcome to Antique-Bottles.Net -

Amanda - I live 'near' you. I sent you a PM a day or two ago. Did you get it? I don't think it's working.

Mark - I've visited the can and cleaning sites very recently. I find 'interesting' cans all the time, but like most glass lovers, leave 'em at the site. []

 

[rustycans]

Meech and a lot of cans collectors leave bottles behind. We need to share! One man's junk is another man's treasure and all that.

FYI, there are a lot of can collectors who dig (ie dumpers) in Virginia.

Mark

 

[thebottlelady]

Well, after a long weekend of fun I can actually post some of the pictures of our dig. Didn't find anything special, except what I thought might be a police badge. Got it home and cleaned it off and it turned out to be a junior police badge. Not a bad find, but still not a sweet bottle. Spent most of my time there trying to fix what we did the first time we went out. I hope our next trip yeilds something awesome! Enjoy the pics! This one is the front of the site...we dig on the right side.

 

[thebottlelady]

Here is one of the stone wall that hasn't been touched yet.

 

[thebottlelady]

This is what we've dug so far.

 

[thebottlelady]

This is the old generator that sits on top of the hill.