Robby Raccoon
Trash Digger
Today I went down to the Lake which has gone over its shores and into the tree line. That forced me closer to the road, and so I found most of these by the road--the pre-1915 Coca Cola Bottling Co. bottle was in the hill holding the road up! I have three others--well, 2.5 now thanks to the guy coming to quote window replacements. Grr. But! anyway, I first found a topless Muskegon Brewery beer bottle amid (and I mean amid! It was touching two 1960s beers and surrounded by a few '60s amber bottles and jars of another kind) that was by a young tree. I was so excited, seeing that it is wider (the more modern bottles always seem to contain less over here, so immediately I knew I had something without seeing the embossing) and pulled it out of the dirt, only to be slightly disappointed when I realized, The neck is missing. [&o] But, as I never owned it to begin with and found part of it, I was still happy. The real shame about it will come later. So, I looked through the other bottles, found nothing of real interest, and set off down the grassy lane dotted with trees separating the road and lake. Soon I encountered a Sioux City cream soda bottle (very modern) with an embossed cowboy! I had just been drinking A&W Cream soda not long before then (A&W makes a darker and richer vanilla creme soda than most other brands.) Soon, again, I found an 1960s ACL Coke bottle, and then another one of a different style! Feeling dumb, as I hadn't expected to find so much I did not bring my pack, I looked for a plastic bag to put my bottles in, having left them on the path I was making to return for. Eventually succeeding, I continued along the way and found a modern bottle with a antique-style closure! I only brought it back for that and the embossing. Finding a few '60s-today cans, I found nothing else of interest and turned around, where suddenly upon the hill I spotted the mouth of a bottle sticking up. Leaping over low branches and ducking to it, I looked and thought instantly by it's color, It has to be an old one. Although it was surrounded by modern flask-style bottles and mouth-wash bottles, the aqua color was too real to be modern (except in rare cases.) And so, asking God that it be intact, I pull it up and I instantly think, No! It's a Coca-Cola, even though I did not grab the low-center embossed section. So, I reach in, feel around for the next piece and it confirms what I had thought--a straight-sided Coca-Cola Bottling Company bottle from Muskegon, Mi. made between 1905 and 1914. I was disappointed. But, hey: when you have three others including one intact identical, who cares? I only want one of each antique embossed/ACL bottle I encounter. So, I pull out the third piece--the base, and carry them in my bag back to the other bottles and leave. I then head down to the next stretch of woods, where I found the piece to my first antique beer bottle: the base to an aqua Muskegon Brewing Company bottle from the early 1900s. This place I have searched well, but always something turns up--usually shattered. I found a mid-'60s beer that had some embossing and designs as well as once a paper label. The neck and designs were of interest. It might net me a dollar at a yard sale one day.
I will soon post comparisons of the broken bottles--from my collection. The Muskegon Brewery bottle, albeit more common and less valuable than the Coca-Cola, is the one I tend to hope to find whilst searching. This one is similar to the hand-tooled version in the Scholink House, a local living and hands-on museum designed to be a 1930s home. Incredible place. That and the Fire-barn and Hackley/Hume homes you should come and tour, if ever you come to Muskegon, Michigan. As for the Hackley and Hume homes, you can't possibly is them as they might rival anything you've ever seen before--no photo shows a quarter of the elaborate details put into them.
I will soon post comparisons of the broken bottles--from my collection. The Muskegon Brewery bottle, albeit more common and less valuable than the Coca-Cola, is the one I tend to hope to find whilst searching. This one is similar to the hand-tooled version in the Scholink House, a local living and hands-on museum designed to be a 1930s home. Incredible place. That and the Fire-barn and Hackley/Hume homes you should come and tour, if ever you come to Muskegon, Michigan. As for the Hackley and Hume homes, you can't possibly is them as they might rival anything you've ever seen before--no photo shows a quarter of the elaborate details put into them.
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