THE RAREST WEST TENNESSEE HUTCH BOTTLE!?

[hemihampton]

hutchbook link.

Hutchinson Project-Search Results

 

[CreekWalker]

Thanks Leon. I have always appreciated your help on here.

 

[Tigrdog1]

Hey Creekwalker
What a great thread…. I feel like I am right there watching a bottle hunting movie!
Man local bottles are a kick, particularly hutches.
I too love the creek walk…. Is relaxing right there with mother nature and the Lord .
Keep up the great work of learnin’ them young pups the great art of bottle collecting and good luck!!!
Rik in NOLA

 

[CreekWalker]

Hey Creekwalker
What a great thread…. I feel like I am right there watching a bottle hunting movie!
Man local bottles are a kick, particularly hutches.
I too love the creek walk…. Is relaxing right there with mother nature and the Lord .
Keep up the great work of learnin’ them young pups the great art of bottle collecting and good luck!!!
Rik in NOLA

P

 

[CreekWalker]

Thanks. Lots of good memories going on those creek walks. Have a good week.

 

[historic-antiques]

In the last week, I caught a break from work due to the torrential rains in the area. My son and I started bottle digging where we left off back in the early spring. He wasn't with me the day I found my most prized bottle, he was in school and I wanted to complete a hole before the weekend rain filled it. This was the last bottle found and one of the few unbroken. My hometown is Brownsville Tn. Home of some very rare embossed bottles, especially pre-1910 bottles, due to a little known fact. That's another story. I starting relic hunting with my dad in the 1960's. We were on the trail back then for Native American relics and projectile points, Civil War artifacts and the occasional bottle. My dad had a pile of good bottles, stored in a corn crib in our barn, but he cared very little for them. However I loved the hunt, the prize when found, the local history behind them and the beauty of the bottle craft. I found my first bottle with this brand name in 1984, it was in 3 pieces and was a straight side, not a hutch. A couple years later , in a wet privy ,I found two thirds of a Hutch soda, in the cracked slug plate was embossed simply: BERT SMITH, BROWNSVILLE TENN. I still keep in a brown paper sack somwhere in the attic. After that I never found another. I have found hundred's of west Tenn. bottles since, but not a Smith. 20 years later. I made a cash offer for another Bert Smith straight side soda, cracked with a base chip , found in back of the Smith Lumber Company, a long story I told digger mcdirt awhile back , I believe under "Embossed Soda's." Well after digging the shallow privvy, and finding several good local bottles, such as an aqua : WEST TENN BOTTLING & ICE CREAM CO. BROWNSVILLE TENN. Str. side soda, which are rare in amber or aqua , this one had the: Gay-Ola, THE IMPROVED COLA with the embossed ribs, a previously unknown bottle! A unique transition bottle I have never seen, nor any of the other bottle collectors locally shown. I knew this could be a great hole, my probe found several more, such as a nice squat blob top, but unmarked, a rare cathethal soda: CLOVER BRAND, embossed with the local COCA COLA bottler. But all had damage as did the Gay-Ola with it's sheared crown top. I was about to pull the ladder down, with I turned to haul down the rope, my foot scubbed a hard lump on the outer edge of the mud. Not a brick but a good lookin hutch,...yes! I could not read it yet for the grime, but it had a slug plate and lettering! I got it home with the rest of the bottles and placing them in the soaking tank, I went in and had my supper and came back later to check for the brand, I figured another common Memphis hutch, many are found here and I had found two in the hole that day. To my surprise and after a 26 year hunt, I found not a : BERT SMITH. BROWNSVILLE, TENN hutchinson, but an aqua : BURT SMITH & CO. BROWNSVILLE TENN hutch! I can retire now. I can't find an local collector yet, who has heard of it. If you have one send me a photo.

"...I love the hunt, the prize when found, the local history behind them and the beauty of the bottle craft." .....

.... looks like we're chips off the same block!! I feel the same way! I found my first antique bottles in 1970 in a huge municipal garbage dump, underneath the old River View Amusement Park in Chicago that opened in 1904. Congratulations for finding rare and beautiful hutches!!! Sorry for finding and responding to your original post, 14 years later!!!!

It's amazing, my bottles, which were worth $4-$8, 50-years-ago, are now $50-$500 apiece now!! I don't have extremely rare bottles, and I can't retire with just them, but they're beautiful and historic, and should be preserved for future generations to admire and study!! I'll end up donating most of my collection! I wish you life-long luck in your searches for these historic treasures in TN.!!!

P.S. I also love CW antiques!! Included are 59 letters from a soldier who fought in the Missionary Ridge/Lookout Mt. battles!

 

[CreekWalker]

Thank you.