3/6/04

    Steve emailed me early in the week. He said Craig landed a whopper of a dig. It was downtown, and was the only intact back yard left in the oldest part of town. We were going to dig by me, but this had to get done in a hurry. The guy bought the property to make it into a parking lot for the neighboring business. The lot we are going to is elevated about six feet above the other property. This meant the building and all fill were going to be removed. The guys had been over during the week and located a couple pits that felt real promising.

Front shot of the property.

Views from the yard of the scenic downtown area.

    We met up at the site and verified the pits and started digging. The first pit was producing some nice 1880s area bottles. A local drug store bottle from "Spencers" was found. No one could recall ever finding one of these. We kept finding the yellowiest amber beer bottle shards. I was hoping we would find one, but no whole ones where there. Craig found a thread less insulator. The very top of it was broke off. I am not sure the color. It is so dark, I think it may be black. A good hole, with many bottles. Let's find a better one!

Yellow beer shards.

    While the guys were digging, I found a likely spot in line with the first pit. Steve found another spot between my spot and the pit we were digging. I thought my spot felt pretty good. So, we started here first. There were a couple shards and some bones. But no glass. There was a thin layer of gravel at the bottom that made it feel like a crunch layer. I felt bad because it was a waste of time. We filled it in, all the time I was getting a little ribbing because there was nothing in there. We started the pit Steve had found. I felt a little better when his pit ended up to be as crappy as mine. We filled this one in and moved to the next. My morale was getting a little low. This was a great old property. It was looking like the good stuff would elude us again.

    The next one would be a pain in the butt. It was under the fence. We would have to dig a shaft and tunnel over a little to get at it. This is always a pain, but what else can you do. Some real promising older shards were coming out. Crude looking necks and whittled glass. After a couple minutes, Steve exclaims, "Yeah Baby! I knew it would be pontilled!" He then proudly displays a teal, open pontilled umbrella ink. Sweet, this could get good! A little later, we found a couple crude Dr J Hostteters Stomach Bitters.

     Craig's buddy Clyde showed up to check what we are doing. Clyde is a metal sign collector. So, being into antiques he naturally appreciated bottle digging. Then, a little later, Don shows up. Steve met Don through digging. Don has a few rental properties and Steve had dug them. A good pic of him is in our "Thank you" section on the main page.

    When Craig was up, he saw a bunch of bottles stacked up. A couple were open pontil, unembossed utilities. He handed up a broken iron pontil base that looked like it came from a large demijohn.  It was an awesome emerald green color. Too bad.  The hole was getting a little skinny on glass when I got my next turn. I worked the dirt away from one corner and was coming along the back wall when I heard the familiar clunk of glass in the sand. I was taking my time clearing the sand away and thought it looked cobalt and might have had a blob top. I was pretty excited and told Steve I had a good one on the run. He poked his head in and watched me get it out. It was broke, and  I was staring at it a little bit when he said, "Dude it was a petal jar!". Crap, it was the top of the green iron pontil base Craig found. Wow, a half gallon, emerald green, iron pontil petal jar, bummer!!! Also, we found a couple very crude Dr Churchill's for consumption, Dr Jayne's expectorant, and some Genuine Fluid extracts.

The first pontil bottle of the season, a teal umbrella ink.

Dave and Dr J Hostetter's Stomach Bitters

Here is a pic of some pontil bottles as Craig found them.

    Dang, a broken petal jar in emerald green!

    Don and Craig went over to get us some burgers. We were getting a little tired. I think it was about 2 pm by now. We located another tunnel project at the end of the property. We knew it would be another project, but if we wait until next week, the pits were going to be gone. We finished up the privy we were working on, filled it in, and started the next. On the way down with the shaft, Steve started pulling out ash on the other side of the pit. Holy crap. We came down right between two pits! The bad news is this one would also be another tunnel project. The tarp that holds the dirt was on top of the other pit. This meant we couldn't go straight down. We all looked at each other and agreed it would be a late night.

Don and Clyde helping to get the next hole going.

    Steve got down  close to the bottom and started tunneling. The first thing he found was another crude Hostetters. Then the inks started coming. He found a couple smooth base aqua umbrellas. Then, he shows off a pint, strap side, aqua whiskey flask. It is embossed. WOW, I am holding my breath, hopefully a local one. Nope, this one is from a Pennsylvania glass maker "Cunningham and Ihmsen". Cool, the first flask of the season, and these guys might be drinkers. Maybe we will find some more.

Steve with the Cunningham strap side.

    Digging was slow and tedious. I saw a square base sticking out of the sand. I picked away for awhile. The guys wanted to know what it was. I told them I was working on a very yellow amber Hostetter. They laughed. Sure enough, five minutes later I was handing it up.  

    It got dark fast. We plugged in a halogen light to see with. This is the first time I have dug this late. On my next turn I had a bottle on the run. I got down and took a close look. "Holy crap Steve, its a flask" I said. He wanted to know if it was colored. I told him it looked awfully green. I let him check it out and started slowly easy the packed earth away from it.

Flask as found in the dirt.

    After a few minutes it fell free from the earth and I wiped it off to see what it was. It was a cornucopia/urn in an awesome citron color. I handed it up without checking the base. Steve saw the open pontil and smiled. Very cool!

Dave with the cornucopia flask

    We did find more bottles and more flask shards. Steve found a top of a Jackson historical flask. It was very yellow, bummer. We filled in the hole and started on the last. It got very deep in a hurry. It was past 8:30, we decided to cover the hole and pack it up. Craig and Clyde were going to an advertising show Sunday. I have some family stuff to do, so I can't go either. It looks like Steve will have the task of finishing it. I got a good feeling Steve will find some more good stuff. I can't wait for him to email.

    Above are some of the better bottles we found. This was a great dig and is makes my top 5 digs of all time. It is tough to list all the bottles we found. Some of the ones that didn't get mentioned would be number one picks on most other days. Some other items that were pretty cool: a pipe that looked like the trunk of a tree and a limb with a squirrel sitting in the crotch eating, a very small "frozen Charlotte" figurine, and a nice onion skin marble.