SIFTING FOUNDATIONS

[passthebottle]

Talking to a guy who made his living digging bottles in the seventies, this is "back when bottles were big". Well they used to tackle random cellar holes , or foundations with stone walls and sift them, and they always used to remove all of the stone from the walls. Removing 3 sides first and piling all of the stone into one corner and then after sifting that they would move all of the stone again to thearea they had sifted then go back and finish the last side. Alot of work!!! Good if you wanted to lose weight. Does anyone remove the foundations walls when digging or sifting??

 

[VA is for Diggers]

I have heard of mixed luck with digging foundations; usually the rewards are not worth the effort; however several outhouses actually touched the house, and probing the perimeter is probably a good idea. Also, stones bring good money; might as well stack them in a pickup while your at it! lol

 

[GuntherHess]

when they used to put in stone foundations they would first dig the area out, build the foundation , then backfill the area outside the foundation. It was common practice to throw all their trash in this fill (just as it is with contractors now days). I can say digging around the out side of my house within a few feet you find bottles and other old trash.
So its worth digging both the inside and outside of foundations.

 

[passthebottle]

The other story that he recalled was when they were digging out the old town dump. The dump was situated along a narrow road that had an embankment and wagons would simply stop and throw everything over the bank . Over the years the road eventually widened out some although it is still to this day a small dead end road. As many as 20 diggers would be digging there at one time and the braver ones actually began to tunnel underneath this roadway, apparently they tunneled about halfway to the otherside when the Dept. of Transportation stepped in and said that was enough. W hen there was a car coming someone would holler "CAR" and the diggers would come running out of the hole in fear of the road caving in, said it was quite comical to see. Eventually someone took a backhoe in there to finish the job and made a real mess of things (for future diggers). I've found 3 or4 early local meds on the fringes of this dump which I totally lucked out on.

 

[RedGinger]

Good info, Gunth. I didn't know that.

 

[deacon_frost]

man i love to sift you would be supprise what gets missed

 

[deacon_frost]

forgot to mention that just a portion of the marbs i found @ one foundation there were hundreds of them also found this

 

[deacon_frost]

backside also found a two cent piece pretty rough and some v nickles

 

[THE BADGER]

passthebottle,i have done exstensive sifting and what i call grid searching with metal detector and i always come out with great stuff.there usually is small return for the amount of effort put in but it depends on the person doing the work if you are happy with quality,quantity or whatever.i sometimes want quantity but dont we all,but you could find an item that just flat out makes your year.thats why its fun.good luck DAVE