Ok you Pontil Hunters!!

[swizzle]

I'm hunting hard and heavy for a new ..uh...old dump to dig. I can usually find a pit with bottles that date to 1880/90's about once or twice a year. I still have yet to pull a pontil!! []
I've dug some pontiled shards but never a whole bottle. I just want to look for some consistency with where pontils are found. Now is there any of you that have dug a pontil dump, not privy..a dump, notice anything different about the area that you didn't see in most or all of your 1880 and newer dumps? More rocks, more water, different plants, anything at all? I've walked miles of stonewalls, ravines, steep banks, creeks, rivers, behind cemeteries, ditches and more. I have no trouble at all find 1940's stuff and the occasional 1880's dumps but I feel like I might be missing something. I've poured over old maps, new maps, my terrain navigator which can give me coords to any place I can find on a map that looks likely, satellite imagery, county atlas's and more. Could it be I'm missing a small detail some where's? I live in an area close to where the dutch settled in the 1600's and I'm only looking for 1800's to 1860's. Why is it so much harder to find a dump that's only 10 to 20 years older and pull some pontils? Any help would be awesome. If any of you can give me a killer tip to put me on a pontil dump with more then shards then I'll mail you the first pontil that I pull out of the dump. Please help me break my Pontil Virginity!! Thanx for reading and have a good night and all that other happy crap. Swiz The Pontil Virgin!! []

 

[old.s.bottles]

yeah same deal over here in CT, I'll give you the pontil you tell me about[]

 

[crozet86]

Well swiz in my own personal experience it seems you should be on the right path as to where to look. My first pontil was found at the base of a old stone wall that after i researched it i found out was a foundation to a very old hotel.After i found that one i always search any old stone walls or foundations as it seems people loved throwing away there trash over walls back then.As far as pontil dumps, if i hit any dump that im finding 1870's or 1880's sign i probe it to death even away from the obvious dumpsite.I find that they pretty much kept their dumpsites rather close together so the older pontils may be just outside the obvious dump and most of the time 4 or 5 feet deep. I have also had good luck probing ravines near homesites. Over the years alot of topsoil can seep into these ravines and even though you think the dump is dug out the pontils may be a few feet deeper than the rest of the dump. When i find a old homesite in the woods or where ever i try to look around for the oldest biggest tree around.This may sound crazy but i have found many nice bottles pontils and non pontils at the base of these trees. If i hadnt searched or probed near those trees i never would have found a thing because there most of the time is no sign of any trash on the surface. Privys are the obvious place to find the pontils as im sure you know.It just seems that they hold up better whole in privys and had less chance of being broken by being near or on the surface. I think very few bottle diggers in general are hitting pontils consistantly unless they are near a big city. It seems at least here where im at in Virginia that i may hit pontil age dumps only a couple times a year and like you only after lots of walking and researching.I was lucky with finding a few pontils ,my parents bought a home in Virginia that dated to 1853.It took me alot of digging but finally i pulled a few more pontils.Nothing great but i felt great and more confident in my ability to find a pontiled bottle. I wish you the best of luck and im sure you will find the pontils soon.Dont know if this helps but hopefully it gives you a few ideas.

 

[JOETHECROW]

Swiz,...crozet has a good suggestion with the stonewall idea,.... I've found consistantly older bottles and shards along stonewall areas too,...otherwise I'm not much help....Deeper usually equates older, but the last two pontils I dug were under 6 inches of black dirt in a 'Treeline" field corner dump that was used into the Toc times,....perhaps just a touch later. The old maple tree's along the wagon/tractor path intersection were real big, so very big tree's really are a good indicator too, as mentioned. Otherwise before that, I found a pontiled slick at the very bottom of me and Tom's bottling works dig behind his apartment 5 or 6 years ago. Granted I'm not a privy digger by nature, but just doing what you're already doing has resulted in perhaps 6-8 pontils over the years for me, I've been digging/collecting for 35 years....not many, but our area was settled later than some also. All I'm sayin' is don't let it get you discouraged.[] Joe
P.S. the other pontils I dug, I think, were later throws in toc dumps.

 

[swizzle]

I have to call a guy this morning to see if he has the part for his excavator yet. If his dump has some age I'll be trading labor for digging rights. This dump is along a nice 3 foot tall flat field stone wall. If I'm not finding anything good then maybe I'll have him dig down a little deeper. Most of the dumps that I've found seem to bottom out at 2 feet tops. Maybe I really need to sink the probe in a bit deeper after I've pulled out a few bottles. It just seems like all the dumps I've found to date are small and spread out making it seem like a shallow dumping area. I know one farm that has 2 rock piles that are big enough to hide a hummer underneath. I've found bottles around the base of the one and I really wonder if there's pontils under that huge rock pile. Even if there was could they survive that kind of pressure. I also know of a spot where there is small piles of stone. Maybe 2 feet round and a foot and a half high. I was thinking garbage pits but really didn't want to dig up any dead indians or pioneers either. The 1880's layer just doesn't seem like it should be that far away from a bottle buried a mere 20 to 30 years before it. Now just a crazy thought. Is it possible around the end of the pontil era that disease caused by critters that frequented dumping areas would have caused the pioneers to bury their trash making it that much deeper? To me that sounds like my problem. I'm just not going deep enough. I figured a metal detector would help me find these dumps along stone walls but maybe they are just a bit too deep or devoid of the extra industrial age steel that would set off a detector? I knew about the biggest tree trick and have found 1880's bottles around a few. Now those of you that have dug an actual pontil dump, do you see a drastic reduction in metal? That alone may change the way I search just by taking my probe instead of my detector. Thanx for the help guys. I think we could all learn from a thread like this. I can just about smell the pontils and feel like I'm on the verge of something good. I just hope this labor for bottles trick works. Swiz

 

[appliedlips]

The advice I always give to this question is that if you set out to find older stuff you have to willing to pass by newer stuff. There are dozens of newer dumps for every good old one so you are bound to find them first, not to mention they are bigger,closer to the surface, etc.. If you dig every one you come across your time will not be spent searching for the older dumps. I compare it to deer hunting, nobody ever shoots a big buck if every season they shoot the first doe that walks past their stand. In my experience, most early dumps are smaller and more often than not more covered up. Alot of times they are nothing but a bucket or two worth of trash but have found some much larger ones, including honey dipper dumps. They are out there, lots of them, it just takes alot of work and alot of walking to find them. A metal detector and yes a probe are very helpful. Good luck.

 

[swizzle]

I've been doing the walk by's more and more. I like to poke around at each dump to see if there's anything older a little deeper but I'm usually off and walking again in less then an hour if nothing is jumping out at me. The only reason I'm spending time at this latest 1960's dump is because I'm trying to find some more of the GLEN insulators. I just cashed in a $200 money order today for the one I found a couple weeks back. Other then that its a test hole or 2 and go. I have one TOC close to here but so far have one small screw top that was whole. Everything else is busted. I did pull 2 nice tokens out of there but its time to leave that one behind and look for another. I have a small hand held metal detector that is rather nice and will easily slide into a backpack and allow me to carry my 4 footer without having to balance a full sized detector in the same hand while carrying a 5 gallon bucket in another. I have a few nice places to look but distance and time is my problem on those. I'll keep plugging away and its gotta happen sooner or later. This newest dump has no creek behind it, its on the end of a dead end road, and there use to be a small community along the road. If this guy is telling me right then he has pontils in there and he claims hundreds of the embossed rectangle shaped meds. He also says there's no screw tops in there. The way he's describing the dump area is about 120 x 80 foot and about 3 feet thick. I've got my fingers crossed that its a killer 1850/80's dump. I gotta call him in a bit to see if that part is in yet. Swiz

 

[CazDigger]

Good luck Swizz, it sound promising. The 1st (whole) pontil I found was in a crawl space, all the others have been from privies. MOST of the dumps here in Central NY were dug hard in the 60s & 70s. That doesn't mean there aren't small pockets here and there left to be found, like Doug - AppliedLips said. but they are VERY hard to find and will take alot of time, legwork and a keen eye (luck too). It was definitely easier "back in the day" One guy near here dug 17 pontiled H Lakes Indian Specific bottles and a op. cobalt Wynkoops Sarsaparilla from one spot in the woods around 1970. Legendary spots like that are probably still out there, thats what keeps us going! You are in a good area for age, pontils are out there.
Mark

 

[swizzle]

I'm thinking about trenching at least a foot deep along some stone walls where I haven't found dumps before but feel that I should have. Just wide enough to get my detector down in there and run it along the wall. Another thought I had after reading about another pontil dump was that maybe some people used their stone walls to cover their trash. Take their time building that wall and bury the trash as they go. Any thoughts on that? It might be worth it to probe underneath the stone walls. I'm still trying to brain storm new ways to find old dumps. Swiz

 

[rockbot]

Hi swizzle,
I've found many bottle dumps covered by rocks. Some areas on this island have very shallow soil so back in the day they would pile rocks in a oval shape and fill it with trash. They would cap it with rocks when full and start another one. A lot of the rocks were gathered out of the fields to make way for sugar cane. Not all of these rock piles contain trash as the amount of rocks quickly out number the trash pits that were needed.[]
As far as pontil's, finding an area that was inhabited at that time period is a good start.
I usually find them in deep red soil as most of the metal has rusted away.
Does the density of glass vary depending on the elements used? or does it sink deeper because its thicker? I often ponder that.
What I do know for sure is that most sites of the pontil age will turn up in very small pockets
a foot or two deeper then the 1880's stuff.

Aloha, Rocky