Here is another pickle I had to wait about 26 years to get back. I originally bought it from my 11 year old digging buddy for 10 bucks when I was about the same age or a little younger. Probably about 1972. Claimed he found it in a caved in barn in the woods. Long story short, I got screwed out of it less than 6 months later by a guy who stopped at my house for a tag sale and asked if I had any bottles in the house. He saw this and started stuttering! I knew it was an iron pontil from reading Bottle News magazine but he said it was common and worth about 50 bucks. He waved a 100.00 bill at me and said I could always get another when I was old enough to drive to a bottle show. Years later I now knew I was duped but luckily found out who the current owner was. He had bought it right away from the guy who duped me who called him up crazed with this super pickle he just got from some kid out of a house. Anyway, he promised this one also as I again made a ridiculous standing offer and he felt I really deserved to own it one day because of the story. He eventually needed a roof badly so my money talked and he gave it up in about 1997/1998 or so. Embossed J. Mccollick & Co. New York. Probably always going to be my favorite as getting it back recaptured my youth and probably the best bottle I ever ran into outside of the collector circuit.
Waited 26 years for this pickle!
- Thread starter Johnny M
- Start date
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Yeah buddy. It's funny. When I rode my bike over to Charlie's house when I was around 10 or 11 to see it he was trying like heck to scrub off the iron pontil in the sink! I was only 11 but my Dad got me Bottle News magazine for my new bottle digging hobby and I knew it was an iron pontil. Didn't know it was a pickle though, or how good a bottle it really was. Just rode home and begged my Dad for the 10 bucks Charlie wanted for it. To this day it's probably the best thing I ever got for the price! Johnny M
Yeah. It's amazing some of the ways we run into bottles. Always a satisfying experience when a great bottle is plucked from obscurity and brought into the hobby. So many amazing collections out there with examples here and there in some that were found in incredibly lucky and random situations. I know a guy went to take a leak down the bank on the side of a country road he was driving on an he saw ash wash out where he peed and took a clam rake out of the trunk and dug a Congress and Empire Saratoga and SEVEN HalIs Barrel bitters from that little country dump! I caught the bottle bug at a very young age. I remember getting the old paper cover bottle news and saw an ad for a Gibbs bone liniment for sale to highest offer. I took every penny I ever saved and got it for 180.00. I was probably 13 or 14 or so. My dad drove me to get it. It was dead mint and had a huge backwards number 4 embossed on the base too.Never saw that again on lots of Gibbs I've seen. Giant deep tubular open pontil on it. Wish I still had that one. I already have a Gibbs now but sorta want the one I got as a kid. Just for the memories. Johnny M.
timeandabottle
Well-Known Member
I’d go back to the barn! That’s perty!!
