Question about bottle dump / privy.

[Jake12]

Hi , I'm Jake. I'm fairly new to this forum and just love it! I love bottle digging , I'm only 13 in a half so I'm just learning. We live in a What Was once just Farms & We have these woods right by are property which are very old. And I have found quite alot of bottles , stoneware , china , toys , metal stuff ect. However there are these 2 main dumps in there the first one I found sone medicine like castoria and Pinex and some local sodas, however I did find a broken bottle that said dandruff and scalp cure or something like that . The next pit was full of bricks , rocks and alot of ash and rust , I found in this one a broken stoneware crock from 1915 , and just 3 bottles. Should I keep digging or just move on? Would there be some huchinson soda bottles or old blob tops , old medicines ect If I dug farther down? Thank you. And any help would've appreciated . -Jake.

 

[luckiest]

All you can do is look and see for yourself, work as hard as you can, it's easy to quit before you find the good stuff when your not sure anything is there but it's always better to dig the whole area out and if there's nothing there at least you know for sure and then you can move on to the next spot.

 

[botlguy]

I'll leave the digging advise to the real experts here but I would encourage you to DEFINITLY keep digging. It's a GREAT hobby and we all LUV to see young folks get enthusiastic. WELCOME to the forums and Please keep posting and sharing your adventures.

Please try to discover how to take and post pictures, we all enjoy pictures. Good Luck.

 

[Jake12]

Thanks for the advice! I will keep digging and let's hope for some good bottles! -Jake.

 

[RICKJJ59W]

First off I would like to say it is good to see a young person getting into this wonderful hobby. I started diffing dumps when I was 15 so you have a jump on me. I hope the bottle spark stays with you into your adult years as it has for me.

Ok now to your dump/privy. I have a few questions for you. Was there a house standing where you think the privy's are?? Or do you think the privy's are from your house? is there any remnants of a old foundation visible ? What age is your house? That should be enough question for now Oh 1 more did you see a liner in the "privy's" ?

From what you wrote to me in your email me it sounds like you are into a dump not a privy. There is a chance that the foundation "if there is one" could be complacently gone, but I have always found some kind of sign that a old home was near by in a woods setting like you are describing. The corner of the foundation,a cellar hole etc Just something to prove there was a house there.

If you can dig deeper at your site then by all means do so. If i were you ,I would dig down until I hit "mother earth" you will know when you hit it. Natural earth will be hard and clay like.It will look and feel lot different then the ash and fill you are digging now. I do that in privy's and dumps.

When I first started digging I was so excited over the milk bottles I found. It was like finding gold!I was raised on milks you might say. I started out in 1930s dumps.You are digging 1915 stuff. That is a great start Jake. Keep digging in that area you never know what will pop out. That is the reason I love this hobby, the mystery of the dig. "ya never know what your gonna get"
There could be hutches or blobs in your dump. KEEP ON DIGGING!!
Do you have any pictures of the dig site?

PS Be safe do not dig over your head! Get someone older to help you. Recruit your mom

Rick

 

[Jake12]

Hi , I'll get right to the answers. Our home was built in 2006 and we live in a fairly new subdivision . However before it was a subdivision most of the land was farm land. Our property was shown on a map from 1873 and had to buildings from what the map shows. Probably a house & barn. Our property was sold many times from 1870s to the 1960s. I have found alot of yellow cream bricks and alot of rocks piled up together. The privy or dump iv been digging in is shaped like a circle and feilstones and bricks are the liner.

 

[Erik T]

The fieldstone and brick circle could be the foundation of a silo that they knocked down and just filled in with trash. Dig deep you might hit some older stuff.

If this was farmland back in the day i would suggest looking back in the woods and especially in the banks of creeks or streams nearby and on the edges of swamps.

Good luck and post you finds.

-Erik

 

[David Fertig]

Welcome to AB-net and bottle collecting. Best I can tell, I started collecting bottles at the age of 11. Before that, I just enjoyed time in the woods with my dad and poking around in some old dumps with him. He usually found something to take home, although it was not usually a bottle. I'd take whatever looked interesting to a young boy on that certain day.

I'd say take your time and dig it all out. You might get a bunch of 1950's junk, or rare local milk, or some of those ACL sodas that seem to be hot right now. Or you might even find out that someone cleaned out the house of all that old "junk" that had been gathering dust for the last hundred years.

And - yes. We do like pics. Resize them to under 200kb and you'll be fine.

 

[Jake12]

Thanks for the advice! -Jake