Ready to give up

[appliedlips]

ORIGINAL: Plumbata

The empty lots and old abandoned homesteads are your most likely bet for finding undug privys



Stephen,

While I agree with alot of what you wrote,this part could not be further from the truth.Most vacant properties,in areas with good prives to dig have been dug shortly after they became vacant.Years ago,most diggers never thought of seeking permission to dig privies and just dug vacants.ALOT of diggers still do.I used to dig only vacants,but now I dig almost all permissioned,backyards.I find many less dug privies,now.In the case of small,obsolete villiages or other vacant areas the privies will normally be lacking good amounts of trash.They would have burned or dumped.They would have also dug shallow privies with no intention of throwing trash in them.These shallow,glassless pits in combination with large lots make them almost impossible to find.Good luck to everyone,Doug

 

[tigue710]

ORIGINAL: passthebottle

sometimes they are deep

Did someone yell "come out with your hands up, or i'll shoot"
That is deep brother, real deep!

thats the madpaddla getting caught with my lucky shovel!

 

[downeastdigger]

Hey vll970 , do you have a probe? I grew up near the Cape, Hanover Mass. Thats where I started digging back in the '70s. There was lot's to dig there back then. Was there much of a population on the Vineyard back before the turn of the century? If not, your efforts may be futile. I have found some of the best dump on the edge of salt marshes, behind early sea side homes. They are often where the salt marsh ends, and the tree line begins. They can be very isolated and difficult to get to, but that can be a blessing too, because it gives you a better chance that they haven't been discovered yet.
Anything you find that is embossed Marthas Vineyard will be valuable, no matter how common. I had a couple of pyro glazed milk bottles from Marthas vineyard that sold for $75 each.
Privy wize, like the guys say, you'd have to have a cluster of early homes in downtown grid area on the center of the island. Otherwize they through the trash in the ocean. I'd bet you money that there isn't a deep privy full of trash on the island. But if you hit a neighborhood dump, down the end of a road somewhere, you could hit a jackpot. Good luck ! The ground is still frozen up here in Southern Maine, I can't wait to get out, I in a dry spell for finding new dumps or privies lately.

 

[madpaddla]

Tigue taught me the technique. It works well. He makes the holes at the bottom so large, Heck I even saw him at the bottom of a hole with a lawnchair and a red bull. Just playin but he did show me that deep is better. Oh lets do that again mon.
Madpaddla

 

[tigue710]

Digging tomorrow on familiar but undug ground Ben. Just me and the dub dog in Synagogue city! Give me a ring if your out...

 

[Plumbata]

ORIGINAL: mikmis
what you said about the no tresspassing signs .i can't tell you how important it is to get permission from the owner .only from personal experiance you risk the chance of loosing the privlage of being able to dig your favorite or best diging site.i have one that i truly regret. i have been banished from for not getting permission and my buddy has free reign to dig there because he asked .the only thing i have left is i know where the pontiled pit is and ill take it to my grave .

You are absolutely correct, but if the sign was posted by the city on city land, then I don't think asking permission would do any good, which is more what I was getting at. But then again, I could be wrong, as I have never tried to do so before, and I would be happy to be wrong about that anyway!. I am sorry to hear about your banishment, maybe you should shave your head and take some botox, go to a costume shop, and then try asking for permission again! Haha, it might work. []

ORIGINAL: lobeycat
I'm one short step from a plunge into the dark, cold abyss of insanity. [/align]I thoroughly enjoyed your manifesto and sincerely look forward to your next. While my attention span and intelligence (or lack there of) are severely limited I will endeavor to perceiver and muddle my way through. Keep up the good work and please take no offense to my ramblings.[/align] [/align]Ricky.[/align]

Tell me about it, my parents thought I was autistic because I didn't speak until I was almost 3, at which point I started talking in full sentences. Now, I am plagued with the worry of developing schizophrenia, which will probably happen if I don't watch out. I keep trying to push the boundaries to human perception, and I may break through if I push hard enough. I know that my manifesto (lol) was not particularly eloquent, and thus it doesn't take much brainpower to read the crap, rather, patience. I hope that you remain sane, I am not offended, and YOU sir, keep up the better work.

{edit, forgot to add this}

ORIGINAL: appliedlips
While I agree with alot of what you wrote,this part could not be further from the truth.Most vacant properties,in areas with good prives to dig have been dug shortly after they became vacant.Years ago,most diggers never thought of seeking permission to dig privies and just dug vacants.ALOT of diggers still do.I used to dig only vacants,but now I dig almost all permissioned,backyards.I find many less dug privies,now.In the case of small,obsolete villiages or other vacant areas the privies will normally be lacking good amounts of trash.They would have burned or dumped.They would have also dug shallow privies with no intention of throwing trash in them.These shallow,glassless pits in combination with large lots make them almost impossible to find.Good luck to everyone,Doug

Invaluable knowledge, thanks for being willing to correct me. I guess I was thinking that a digger back in the day would focus on places where it was clear people with money for the good bottled products would have lived. I had no idea that one does/did not need permission to dig the vacant lots, which is good to know. Could you elaborate any more on the legality of just going and digging up a lot? Also, for larger lots, lets say where there is just a forest now, how far away typically would they place a privy, and if there are wells near the homestead foundations, how far away from that water source would they deem it acceptable to place an outhouse, if that was a concern?

ORIGINAL: tigue710

har, being a know it all I dont care much for other know it alls, especially when they havnt been doing anything long enough to know what to know it all about! I know that for certain.

I remember a claim of yours, stating "I can price a bottle better than any book." You certainly are quite full of, err, "ability" sir, and it is understandable that you have such a high opinion of your prowess in this context, I mean, all the pretty bottles in your collection certainly must prove it.....

And in addition, I have made it a point to NOT claim perfect knowledge of any topic, even when I could write a book on it or when my audience expresses their total lack of proficiency in the subject. I just try to help, in the ways that I can, in the language that I am comfortable with. Just because I know a great deal, it does not follow that I am a person like you. If you read my post, you would see how I gladly claim membership to the "beginner" group immediately, and then offer what I think I know. I was not about to say that I know everything about bottles, and I never will, as I understand intrinsically the folly of such a way of thinking. Read some psychology books and you may understand what I mean. Personally, I sense that your know-it-all status feels threatened by someone like me, who given the time you have had, could exceed your own ability in this field which you seem to define yourself by. And I know that for certain.

But you have no idea how complex I am, nor how precocious I was as a child. I have been collecting and learning about the world using a hands-on, visuokinesthetic style of a depth that no one I have ever met quite understands. I remember when I was 5 and was visiting the Shenandoah Valley with my family, where we went to look at the ruins of a Revolutionary War era brick building. Know what I remember seeing? I saw the building in perfect shape, bustling with people interacting with eachoher, all dressed in 18th century clothes; I saw a great vibrancy of life and activity where now there is bare, broken brick. That, and not the ruins, is what sticks in my memory, the reality of everything that was beneath the shallow present appearance, the deep reality of the past, and such is the way that I see things now, with 15 extra years of knowledge and experience to help me look even deeper within the reality of all that makes up what is, which far exceeds the detail of what I can see with my 20/13 eyes alone, which is quite a bit, let me tell ya. When I hold something, I instantly see how and when it was (or could have been) made, and sense the properties of the elements that are arranged in its tangible form. By the time I was 9, I was so good at perceiving (not knowing, like you) the past, in all of its complexity, that multiple dealers and collectors made a point to comment that I had "The Eye." Being born with a universally useful, deeply intuitive, and at times uncomfortably insightful common-sense ability is a bit better than being an analytical know-it-all regarding a subject as painfully narrow as American glass, eh? I have been serious about digging local bottles for all of what, 8 months now? Nationally available bottles are comparatively boring, and thus, such a proficiency does not interest me all that much yet. In a dozen other fields however, including rocks/fossils/minerals which I believe you enjoy as well, I have been absorbing knowledge and amassing collections for 15 years. What were you doing when you were 5, playing with toys? I didn't have a social life as a (younger) child because I was too busy learning and collecting every single thing and bit of knowledge that I could get my hands on, with a fervor I wish I could recapture now. Another reason was that everyone else my age was so darn childish, which was excessively annoying to me. Unfortunately, it seems that little has changed. []

You pushed, and I followed Newton's third law of motion. It would have been nice to have a level of mutual respect, but you chose against it with the first thing you said to me on this site. You are an excellent digger and can offer the world a great deal of good knowledge, at least if you can someday realize that you can NEVER know it all. You can, however, perceive it.



And Victoria, I apologize for participating in the hijacking your thread. I am not the best one here to give advice, but I sure do intend only the best. The only reason that you feel so defeated is because you lack the access to a database of experience, ranging from the most hellish horribleness to the most celestial magnificence, which so many good people here have built up over their years of collecting. It sounds like your island is quite the pain, but give it time and you will come to understand how to exploit its buried resources. I found my first dump, from the late 1940s, when in 4th grade while exploring the woods with a good friend of mine, and we dug it like the kids we were. Only 10 years later did I randomly walk on top of a place worth excavating. Don't EVER give up, because as my experience has shown, some of the best finds in my life have happened completely at random, without consciously looking for them at that time. Just be open to all that comes your way, and at some point in life you will know how to make use of it. Good luck.

 

[capsoda]

Hum baba, hum baba, hum baba bouw bouw. He sure does. We are in the learning curve now baby! [sm=lol.gif][sm=lol.gif][sm=lol.gif]

We all love glass.[]

 

[Plumbata]

And not to stoop to your level for too long tigue, but if you are wondering if i'm socially acceptable nowadays as well, then look and decide for yourself:

 

[tigue710]

.....

 

[cowseatmaize]

Oh oh, I'm sensing a repeat of a few days ago coming on. Should we ban this thread now or shut up while we can?