Dig them bottle dumps! (vacation home, school, disposing)

[ADSLubec]

I collect the old bottles I find while scuba diving off Eastport. I've found bottles worth as much as $400. If you find an old bottle dump dig it carefully you never know what treasure you may find.

Alan

PS - If you find a great spot it is best not to tell others its exact location.

[jojo62]

Hi,New Here. Anyway. I love looking for old bottle dumps. Even though the ones i found arent going to get me rich. .I have found some "Pierre Cartier Medicine"bottles.They look like Father Johns. Has anyone ever found this.I have checked the internet ,nothing.

[fxtrader]

I found a few old bottle dumps hunting at my grandfathers over the years. I have a good little collection that most likely where used by my ancestors as the land has been in the family for 6 generations.

[patriotchick]

I love digging bottle dumps, and when I find one, I tell no one!!!! My best find was a dark red "bitters" bottle laying right along side a dark blue one. They have "bitters" in raised letters on the side. I have also found a carnival glass footed candy dish, and fiesta ware plates and cups and one small bowl. My grandmother told me that fiesta ware used to be given away in bags of flour as a promotion and since it was so abundant, it didnt have much real value...well it does now! I sold my finds on ebay for a nice sum....not bad for an afternoon of poking around in an old dump. I found a hall pottery tea pot with a cracked in half lid stuffed inside (amongst the mud and leaves), washed it up, listed it with the cracked lid and sold it for $55.00 on Ebay.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

I was bush hogging and saw a piece of green glass on the ground I figured I would throw it up behind the stone wall where I would never cut a tire on it. I went to pick it up and the glass would not move. I got a stick and dug around it and carefully lifted the bottle. It was neck down so it never filled with water and froze. I rubbed the dirt off and the quart bottle was embossed with "Moxie Nerve Tonic". I'm a big time Moxie fan. That's one old bottle I won't give away.

Want to find some? Check your local historical society. They often have old county maps showing schools and homesteads. Go to an old homestead site and look for a cellar hole. It will likely be inside a square of very old and dying maple trees. The maples were planted for shade in the summer, foliage in the fall and to let the sun in during the winter. Go down hill from the cellar hole and you'll likely find the old dump. People in the old days didn't haul their trash someplace else to dump it.

[pc-not]

In the 50's, one of my chores after getting home from school was to take out the trash. We lived in a rural area of coarse recycling was not in most peoples vocabulary yet. I'd separate bottles and cans into the metal cans and burn the rest. Every Saturday my dad and I would load up his WWII Army Jeep and drive up to our neighbor's cow pasture, open the gate and drive to a big drop off over a ledge. All the cans and bottles would go overboard and crash onto the rocks.

I guess other neighbors used it too as there were many cubic yards of cans and bottles and I can vividly recall the smell of whiskey. If there was alot of snow and we could not go for some time, dad would haul his trailer which took longer to unload. I'd work as fast as I could because I was afraid of the bull that was often in that field.

[pc-not]

In the mid seventies I was a contract logger in southern N.H. We were doing a selective cut on some old farmland. I sat down with my helper on an old stone wall to have some coffee and as I was kicking a few rocks around to get a place to sit and an old bottle fell out. It was one of those Lydia Pinkham's green ones. We started rooting around an found whiskey bottles also. You ever see that show, " If Walls Could Talk" ?

[tcrackly]

I used to work with a guy that dug bottle dumps as a sideline. I guess he made a tidy little sum on antique stuff. He educated himself about the more valuable items and he would actually research a property first to identify an old farmstead or residence then contact the current owner and offer a % of his finds. He said the big thing now is to excavate old outhouses. Lots of patent medicines., jewelry, and odd items ended up "down there". He uses a custom made probe to determine good digging sites.
He has a WMV file of a NH dig on his site:
http://www.cowboyblacksmith.com/privy%20Movie.WMV

[CoastalMaine]

I know in the last year or so the newest 'in' thing in many decorating magazines has been the bottles with maganese in them. Maganese cleansed the iron from the bottles during production and when these bottles are put in the sun, the chemical reaction has them turning different levels of purple. Very pretty!

[ADSLubec]

Originally Posted by CoastalMaine

I know in the last year or so the newest 'in' thing in many decorating magazines has been the bottles with maganese in them. Maganese cleansed the iron from the bottles during production and when these bottles are put in the sun, the chemical reaction has them turning different levels of purple. Very pretty!

Indeed they do. I know a few bottle diggers that actuallt irradiate the maganese bottles to get a brilliant purple. Frowned upon by serious bottle collectors though.

Alan