Small bottle identification, value?

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dmckee

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I have kept this oddity in original condition for 33 years and I'm curious as to any info anyone may know, here is the story in a nutshell: My father enjoys the hobby of metal detecting, One day during the summer of 1976 when I was 8 years old, I tagged along with him during an outing in west Alabama in and around the community of Pickinsville. I didn't know it at the time but he was detecting an old stage stop at the intersection of hwys 14 & 86. While I was exploring around the outside of the dilapidated wooden building entertaining myself, I pulled a couple of loose boards off at floor level (the building was sitting on brick columns 3-4 feet off the ground). I picked up from within the wallspace this brick/mortar? with small bottles hardened within it. I showed it to my Dad, he thought it was pretty neat as I did, He confiscated it before I could destroy it and it made it home with us. We looked it over at home real good, talking about how and when it ended up there, then we wrapped it in newspaper and placed it in a large paper grocery bag where it been the past 33 years. He gave it back to me when I married and moved out, I've thought about it over the years and took it out looking at it at various times but never showed it to anyone. I can see 3 complete bottles, 1 broken. they are about 1" - 1.25" diameter, 4" - 6" long, The open one has partial stopper or cork inside it. Here it is, what do you folks think? any value? significance?

9678EE747703459DB3FAFD4CDCDB3DCA.jpg
 

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dmckee

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More pictures

C58E480B7E154771882D575B4C9A2EB8.jpg
 

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coboltmoon

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Hello, you have some really old bottles. I can see in the photo that one of the bottles has a pontil mark which dates it to about 1860 or before. A pontil mark is the round circle on the base of the bottle.

From the photos all the bottles look like medicine bottles. Do any of the bottles say anything?
 

dmckee

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I don't see any writing whatsoever, on what little is exposed. Also, the glass is very thin.
 

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GuntherHess

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If the bottles are not embossed then its probably worth more as is.
You need to make sure it has a good story as that will be the selling point.
As a person who has done some minimal building with stone I can appreciate the desire to fill a hole with anything rather than mix more freakin mortar. I wont tell you what i filled my walls with...
 

woody

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I think I would carefully chip away the mortar to reveal what the bottles are.
Although they could just be pontil puffs.
 

GuntherHess

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If you decided you want the bottles out in one piece you can just take it outside and throw it in a bucket of muratic acid. That will disolve the mortar but not hurt the bottles.
 

bostaurus

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I made a comment in another post wondering if any one had been collecting around Pickensville. Unless it has been "picked" over there has to be some good digging there. dmckee are you still in the Pickens county area?
 

capsoda

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It looks like a chunck of log cabin chinking. Chinking is the sand mortat filling in between the logs in a cabin. Bottles and broken glass was used for fill in foundations and anywhere else that needed fill.

The bottle with the flat lip is a medicine the others I can see in the pic look like puffs.
 

CanYaDigIt

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I'd go with the muratic acid. It's pretty cheep, easy to get, and will definetly free up those bottles. Probably clean em pretty well too. Nice find. If you do free them up, be sure to post the pics[;)]
 

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