Virgin Milk Bottle Dump! (video)

[RIBottleguy]

Sometimes I feel like I have a lucky streak in my genes. Such was the case when I was out doing my internship for the local land trust. I was trying to access a property which had not been visited before. Well, I walked across a farm field and found an abandoned wagon road behind it. The property was surrounded in swamp so I tried to get around it. As I walked down the wagon trail I suddenly spotted shards of glass. I got closer and found the entire area was littered with glass and whole bottles!
I know the oldest house in the area was from around 1900, and another the 1920s, so I didn't expect to find an old dump. Still, I was excited as the milk bottle tops indicated that I could find some local milks. The dump was completely untouched with ACL sodas and a BIM wine bottle right on the surface. In a few minutes I pulled out a Samuel A. Whaley pyroglazed quart! It was mostly ghosted but I was still happy with it. It was from Wakefield, RI. I then found a piece of an embossed one, which got my blood pumping. A fellow milk bottle collector had one for sale for $300! After another five minutes I spotted a milk bottle base sticking out of the ground. I freed it up and there it is, an embossed S.E. Whaley milk! Aside from one other local milk, this is probably the hardest one to acquire. I quickly ran back to my car to drive it closer and break out the digging gear.
It was a nice dump to dig. There weren't too many roots, and it was shallow, from 1/2 to 1 1/2 feet deep. At first I didn't find much, but when I hit a modest mound (maybe a half foot taller than the rest), bottles started pouring out. They were mostly screw cap food and household bottles. I then started to find milks. Another Whaley! Then some slick milks. Then another Whaley! I found about 25 milk bottles, and 8 of them were embossed Whaleys. There were four different versions. I was hoping to find an embossed pint but had no such luck.

I created my first movie from the videos I took. I realize I didn't speak too clearly (probably from being tired and excited), but it's largely audible. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex2L5wsCqUs&feature=youtube_gdata

 

[madman]

nice finds! id dig er out!

 

[JOETHECROW]

Real nice!

 

[Plumbata]

Holy crap! []

That looks like the easiest dig ever! Congrats Taylor you scored huge!

I don't have sound on this computer so pardon me if this was explained already, but it looks like someone cleaned out their basement or barn in the late 1950s and threw out a jumble of stuff spanning all sorts of ages. I saw you pull that lightning jar near the surface next to the more modern material and was like "WTF?!" []

So about those Whaley milks, are (were) they particularly rare bottles? Are you going to be selling some off on ebay or elsewhere? If so, I'd like to see what you manage to get for one! If they go for over 200 a piece it looks like you dug up the cost of a used car in one afternoon!

 

[Alaska]

nice!

 

[Alaska]

is that valentines meat juice hand blown, and would you be willing to trade/sell it?

Tom

 

[waskey]

Great dump to dig. I had a large milk bottle dump I was digging last year. It produced over 500 milk bottles and alot of what were rare local milk bottles, now not worth much and common. Be careful with selling those Whaley milks. We had a milk from our area that would sell for $50 all day until word got out that my digging partner and I dug over 30 of them and now they don't even get $10. I would sell one every few months or something like that.

 

[RIBottleguy]

Stephen,
I'm planning to sell them to local collectors, probably not via ebay. I called a fellow collector while taking a break from digging and he was interested in one. There are at least 10 more in that dump, if not more, so I might just dig it up slowly lol. I might want to wait at least until November since I think I'm going to hit a bees nest somewhere. There were a few flying by me while I was digging.
As far as your cleaning out theory, it might be true for the fruit jars. But, there's well over a thousand bottles in this dump, so unless their basement was of a remarkable size there was probably continual dumping. The whole town could have had a basement cleaning party though. [8|]

Alaska,
The Valentine's Meat Juice is machine made, but if you want it I'll sell it cheap. Let me know.

 

[rockbot]

ORIGINAL: RIBottleguy

Such was the case when I was out doing my internship for the local land trust.  I was trying to access a property which had not been visited before. 

So, what happened to your internship and property access?[][][]

Just Kidding RIB, cool story and super nice digging!

 

[RIBottleguy]

Well, it turns out I was a little off on the value []. They are worth about $50 each. There's another rare local I confused it with. Still a fine value by me though!