SODAPOPBOB
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Buckman Springs Lithia Water ...
I have been hunting, digging, and buying soda bottles for about 40 years and still recall my first dig in the early 1970s when I was about 20 years old which was at the long abandoned ruins of a local bottling plant that began operation in 1875 and shut down in the early 1940s. Over the years I have dug at the site numerous times and found a variety of soda bottles but was never able to find one of their original blob-tops that wasn't broken. Other than the one discussed below, the only other example of one of these early bottles that I am aware of is in a local museum, but that particular bottle is missing it's original paper label. Acquiring one of these bottles has been at the top of my want list for forty years now but I never expected to see one turn up on eBay.
As you will see, the bottle is an amber blob-top with a date of 1909 on the label and is the only example I am aware of that is fully intact. The neck label has deteriorated but it's still an extremely rare bottle. Although the label dates from 1909 or later, the bottle itself is similar to those used by the company much earlier.
When I first stumbled onto the listing the bottle only had one bid of about $20.00 and at the moment I thought I had struck gold. I was prepared to pay as much as $200.00 for it but I never got the chance because it soared to $406.00 the last day of the listing. I have no idea who won the bottle but suspect it was a collector in the San Diego area, which is near to where I currently live. I could easily have placed a bid of $500.00+ and possibly won it, but decided against paying that much at the last minute. But now I regret not bidding because I am fairly certain I will never have opportunity to purchase another one. It's a funny thing about wanting something so bad that it hurts and then to have it slip through your fingers like so much sand through an hourglass. As I sat there watching the clock tick away during the closing minutes of the auction I kept telling myself that I should enter a bid of $1,000.00 and probably win the bottle, but the main reason I didn't is because of my age. I'm 62 years old now and already have so many soda bottles that I have to keep most of them packed away in boxes and only have my favorites on display. I realize this might sound like the winding-down of an old collector, and in some ways I suppose it is, but what else is a guy supposed to do when his kids have no interest in soda bottles and will probably just sell them when I'm gone?
But irregardless of all that, the moral of my story is this ...
Don't let those extremely rare ones get away simply because of the price (especially if you can afford it and aren't in your waning years), because you might never see another one. If I could turn back the hands of time that bottle would probably be mine now.
But this doesn't mean I'm giving up collecting - not by a long shot! In fact, I'm going to a local reservoir today that the county has been draining for several weeks, causing the water level to drop about 20 feet, which in turn caused the sloping shoreline to decrease about 150 feet. One of the Rangers I know and who I spoke with recently told me there are "hundreds" of bottles laying in the mud around the newly exposed shoreline and that they are allowing anyone and everyone who wants to, to gather up all the bottles they could carry away. The dam was completed in 1912 and the lake has been a popular fishing location ever since, so I'm hopeful of finding some possibly rare "keepers."
I hope the following pictures post okay and are readable because they capture ...
"The rest of the story"
By the way, if anybody knows the whereabouts of one of these bottles, please let me know. It's still at the top of my want list and I would dearly like to have a shot at another one. It blows my mind that a bottle like this from a relatively unknown bottler on the west coast somehow ended up in New Jersey. But with the Internet and the way things are these days, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me all that much.
Here's the eBay listing that closed on Thursday, February 13, 2014. Notice the seller doesn't describe the bottle as rare and apparently knew very little about it. I bet he was shocked when it sold for $406.00.
[URL=Http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amber-Buckman-Springs-Lithia-Water-San-Diego-County-California-w-Label-/231153327168?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&is=eNMzarZD4%252Bu36kPnrRHXEw3zfkc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=NC]Http://www.ebay.com/itm/A...ig_cvip=true&rt=NC[/URL]
First, the eBay bottle itself ... Followed by about a dozen then & now pictures of the old Buckman Springs bottling plant.
I have been hunting, digging, and buying soda bottles for about 40 years and still recall my first dig in the early 1970s when I was about 20 years old which was at the long abandoned ruins of a local bottling plant that began operation in 1875 and shut down in the early 1940s. Over the years I have dug at the site numerous times and found a variety of soda bottles but was never able to find one of their original blob-tops that wasn't broken. Other than the one discussed below, the only other example of one of these early bottles that I am aware of is in a local museum, but that particular bottle is missing it's original paper label. Acquiring one of these bottles has been at the top of my want list for forty years now but I never expected to see one turn up on eBay.
As you will see, the bottle is an amber blob-top with a date of 1909 on the label and is the only example I am aware of that is fully intact. The neck label has deteriorated but it's still an extremely rare bottle. Although the label dates from 1909 or later, the bottle itself is similar to those used by the company much earlier.
When I first stumbled onto the listing the bottle only had one bid of about $20.00 and at the moment I thought I had struck gold. I was prepared to pay as much as $200.00 for it but I never got the chance because it soared to $406.00 the last day of the listing. I have no idea who won the bottle but suspect it was a collector in the San Diego area, which is near to where I currently live. I could easily have placed a bid of $500.00+ and possibly won it, but decided against paying that much at the last minute. But now I regret not bidding because I am fairly certain I will never have opportunity to purchase another one. It's a funny thing about wanting something so bad that it hurts and then to have it slip through your fingers like so much sand through an hourglass. As I sat there watching the clock tick away during the closing minutes of the auction I kept telling myself that I should enter a bid of $1,000.00 and probably win the bottle, but the main reason I didn't is because of my age. I'm 62 years old now and already have so many soda bottles that I have to keep most of them packed away in boxes and only have my favorites on display. I realize this might sound like the winding-down of an old collector, and in some ways I suppose it is, but what else is a guy supposed to do when his kids have no interest in soda bottles and will probably just sell them when I'm gone?
But irregardless of all that, the moral of my story is this ...
Don't let those extremely rare ones get away simply because of the price (especially if you can afford it and aren't in your waning years), because you might never see another one. If I could turn back the hands of time that bottle would probably be mine now.
But this doesn't mean I'm giving up collecting - not by a long shot! In fact, I'm going to a local reservoir today that the county has been draining for several weeks, causing the water level to drop about 20 feet, which in turn caused the sloping shoreline to decrease about 150 feet. One of the Rangers I know and who I spoke with recently told me there are "hundreds" of bottles laying in the mud around the newly exposed shoreline and that they are allowing anyone and everyone who wants to, to gather up all the bottles they could carry away. The dam was completed in 1912 and the lake has been a popular fishing location ever since, so I'm hopeful of finding some possibly rare "keepers."
I hope the following pictures post okay and are readable because they capture ...
"The rest of the story"
By the way, if anybody knows the whereabouts of one of these bottles, please let me know. It's still at the top of my want list and I would dearly like to have a shot at another one. It blows my mind that a bottle like this from a relatively unknown bottler on the west coast somehow ended up in New Jersey. But with the Internet and the way things are these days, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me all that much.
Here's the eBay listing that closed on Thursday, February 13, 2014. Notice the seller doesn't describe the bottle as rare and apparently knew very little about it. I bet he was shocked when it sold for $406.00.
[URL=Http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amber-Buckman-Springs-Lithia-Water-San-Diego-County-California-w-Label-/231153327168?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&is=eNMzarZD4%252Bu36kPnrRHXEw3zfkc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=NC]Http://www.ebay.com/itm/A...ig_cvip=true&rt=NC[/URL]
First, the eBay bottle itself ... Followed by about a dozen then & now pictures of the old Buckman Springs bottling plant.
