# How did you start collecting and what was your 1st bottle?



## TheDiggerBoy91 (Dec 31, 2004)

Hey people- 

 What's your first ever bottle and when did you start collecting? I started in 1999, when I was 8. Do any of you still HAVE your first bottle?

 Here's mine. It's a 3 1/2 in. tall square BIM aqua. 

 I got it from my uncle. He's the one who got me into bottle collecting (Because he gave me my first bottle!!!). He used to dig them up during construction jobs. He has HUNDREDS of them (Even though he's given a lot to me).

 Here's my bottle story:

 So 5 years ago I was sleeping over at his house one night and he said "I wanna show you something kool." and we went down to the basement. He then opened a closet, and in it were a few bottles (The others were out in his garage.) He handed one to me. He said "You can have that", and I was hooked!!!! 

  I collected more and more, searching antique shops and flea markets, looking for any bottles under $3 (because that's usually how much money I have). I bought bottle books. I went on bottle sites. I gained more and more information. When I got tired of going broke buying them, I started looking for them. I scanned the woods. I snuck around abandoned farms. I hunted around the old railroad tracks. I jumped into creeks. When I was 11, I finally found my first found bottle, a aqua bottle from the 40's or 50's with "H.S.P" on the base. 

 So now that I could go out by myself, I searched everywhere. Bottles was all that was on my mind (besides girls). Eventually my grades began to fall. Fall dramatically. But I didn't care. I WANTED BOTTLES!!!!

  Almost 2 years ago, during spring vacation, I found my first dump, located in the middle of the woods near my cousins' house. (Unfortunately, it's in Rochester). I got some ok stuff from there, including a Fletchers Castoria a embossed blob soda, and Standard Brewing Co. Beer. Also a few other bottles ,which I sold (I don't sell bottles anymore, because, simply, I like keeping them!!)

 That following summer, I found another dump, from the 50's-60's. Not too much there, but some OK stuff, like a Pepto-Bismol, a Lavoris (as a joke, I filled it with water with red food coloring and placed it in the medicine cabinet), and some Listerines.

 A MAJOR boost happened 2 summers ago when my bus driver, Gary (Who also collects bottles) told me about a HUGE dump on Hopkins Rd. That made a mega boost to my collection. Within 6 months, my collection went from about 30 bottles to 300 bottles. My grades got worse. I accidentally told my crush I went to dumps to get bottles (NOT a good move) . I began to collect more and more.

 Another big boost happened in October, when I finally registered on this site (I had tried about a year earlier, but failed). Now people could help me ID bottles!!!! My grades got WAAYY worse. It got so bad, that I could (and can) no longer go on the computer Monday-Thursday. 

 When my crush offered to come over and babysit my sister, I had to do what I call "The Mass Exodus of the Bottles of 2004" in which I got rid of ALL my cracked and chipped and REALLY REALLY dirty bottles (Nothing rare), which probably halved my collection.

 The last boost happened yeasterday, when I finally learned how to upload pictures. KOOL!

  So, explain YOUR bottle story. To quote the song "Who Are You" by The Who, "I REALLY WANNA KNOW!!!!"

 P.S- Does anybody know anything about this thing?


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## TheDiggerBoy91 (Jan 1, 2005)

Here's mine after 5 years. Some of these bottles I no longer have, since this was taken before the "Mass Exodus."


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## TheDiggerBoy91 (Jan 1, 2005)

2 more-


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## drjhostetters (Jan 1, 2005)

OK kid, you asked for it ..I gonna tell ya!

     About 30 years ago (I was 27) a friend told me about an old abandoned homestead he found near my house, so we went exploring..and underneath a tree, just laying there in plain sight was a "Three-in-one" Free Sample, cork top minature bottle. It is 2 1/4" tall, 8 sided, light pale green, embossed on six sides...and it's mine all mine...a friend once offered me $3.00 (three...not $300) for it..but I figured if it was worth 3 it was worth 5, if it was worth 5 it was worth 10..so I decided to keep it..and that started what my wife calls my "dirty old bottle collection that I never do anything with" and I have been lugging them around for the last thirty years, (I have about 7 or 8 boxes full stored in the garage plus my newest additions on top of our cupboards in the kitchen.)   Another friend a few years later showed me an old dump at the bottom of a hill in my hometown of Oregon City, Oregon..(which is still there after all these years..meaning they haven't built any buildings on top of it.)...my first dig and I found my first Dr. J. Hostetters Stomach Bitters, brown with the name embossed on it, plus 11 more in a "case" made of wood only the wood was rotted away and just the bottles were there to show the shape of the case..there were several brown and clear ones...I gave all but the embossed one and one plain and one clear away to my friends...so there you have it my young friend..I am addicted to old bottles because they are a part of our heritage that will never be repeated except in molded cheap imitations and plastic crap (excuse me!)   You keep digging and helping to perserve our past!

 The Doc...[X(]


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## idigjars (Jan 1, 2005)

Good question!  Here's my story..........  I always have been a "packrat" collector since I was about 10 years old.  I figured if one is good, twenty are better.  I collected coins, stamps, baseball cards when I was a kid.  You could still find good coins, silver was still in circulation when I started collecting coins.  A few years later I was looking at a coin magazine classifieds section.  It listed a book for sale and the book was called "Harvest Fruit Jar Guide".  It said that fruit jars sold up to $1000.  I was 16 at the time, 35 years ago to give you some idea of timeframe.  I thought, geez, my grandma has old jars, maybe she has the $1000 jar??  So, I sent for the book, I think it cost $3.95 plus shipping.  I got the book and it had hundreds of different names in the book.  I bugged my mom to take me to grandmas who lived 30 miles away.  The next weekend my dad and mom took me to grandma's.  I almost fell down the cellar steps I was so excited to see what she had.  She had lots of blue Ball Perfect Mason's, clear Kerr jars, and here was something different......  Pine P Mason.  Cool!!  This had to be worth alot.  I thumbed through the pages and I think it said maybe a couple of bucks.  Well, not a fortune but hey, it was worth something and Grandma let me have it so that started it.  I talked my dad into liking bottles and he and I started going to the dump on Saturdays and going watching people dump their trash.  Got lots of bottles and one day found a cool aqua Winslow jar lid, no jar, just the lid.  I worked at a Grocery store for $1.60 an hour and worked ~ 30 hours a week.  I would save my money and go to antique shops looking for jars.  I was buying Mason (cross) 1858 quarts in amber for $35 back then.  I have stopped and started collecting bottles and jars a number of times over the years, but it always stays with you.  Started digging privies about 10 years ago.  It's addicting.  The coolest thing is pulling bottles out of privies that have been in there for a hundred plus years.  Good luck in your collecting, I think it's great you are so focused for a young person diggerboy.  Good for you.   []


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## TheDiggerBoy91 (Jan 1, 2005)

Wow...all very intresting. I didn't realize so many people start collecting at young age. I think I should name my story "Bottles and it's Effects on Young Children and their Schoolwork" LOL[] Paul, you're quite into jars, aren't you? I have a few myself, but not too many. The ones at my dump are mostly clear Atlas E-Z seals (I once dug one with the peaches still in it!![:'(]) But once in a while I get some nice ones. I only have a couple, though[&o].


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## bigkitty53 (Jan 2, 2005)

Hi Diggerboy,
 Here's a link to an earlier thread with a similar vein you and the more recent members might find interesting;

 https://www.antique-bottles.net/forum/What_is_your_first_bottle_or_bottle_you%27ve_had_longest%3F/m_6900/tm.htm 

 Quite a few of us got hooked young![]

 KAT


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## IRISH (Jan 3, 2005)

Well my serious collecting and digging started about ten years ago (when I was 15), I've been studying and obsessing over the things ever since.  I also collect pre WW1 metalware, 1850's to 1890's sporting belt buckles, cartridges, gemstones and minerals, anything to do with my family history, Australian metal taylor's buttons (1850's to about 1910) and heaps of other stuff [] , bottles are my main thing though.
 I think I've posted this photo before but here is some of my collection (sandblasted beers and other odds and sods.


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## IRISH (Jan 3, 2005)

My main obsession, Codd's [] .  They are displayed in the walls of the old celler under our house (fit's about a thousand bottles).






 TheDiggerBoy91,  Don't worry about what girls think about your collecting,  I came to the conclusion a few years ago that if a girl can't cope with my bottles or horses she is not the girl for me []  (most like the horses but not so keen on the bottles [] ).


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## suburan65 (Jan 3, 2005)

My first Bottle was a common 6 1/2 Pepsi. I found it about 22 years ago in a corner in the basement of a house we had just bought.  I was 22 then, now I'm 43 and have 1000 or so bottles between my son & I. He's 23 and started collecting Dew bottles when I found one with his name on it. Now he is into poisons and I have more then just Pepsi.
 Karen


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## CanadianBoy (Jan 3, 2005)

My first bottle find was in 1957,I was 15.The bottle was a blue ink,it was in a privy,on a shelf.We had just come to Canada from England,the privy was at a cottage we had just bought in Muskoka.
 I no longer have the bottle as it went with the cottage when we sold it.
 But over the years I seemed to find bottles, never keeping any,then in 1972 I had an auction room and was always looking for things to sell.
 I happened to be taking a short cut to a fishing spot,and I came across a log cabin that had fallen in on its self,looking around I saw a couple of bits of furniture then I saw a groundhog come out of a hole in the foundation.That gave me the idea of looking in the cellar,it took awhile to make the hole big enough to crawl in.When I got in it was a good sized space and there was light coming in through the old floor.Right in front of my face were three bottles (I found 16 )that turned out to be FREE-BLOWN.
 Well I'll tell you the old heart did a flipflop,once I was able to kneel in the cellar(I'm 6'3") I was able to explore and saw the steps that had come down from above,thinking 
 maybe I could make a better way in & out i tried to move them out of the way but they fell apart.And there right behind the steps were 6 crocks on shelves,all were in exellent 
 condition and all were full & sealed.
 3 had pickles & 3 had strawberry peserves,anyway I ended up auctioning  everything at off,if I remember the bottles brought about $10.00 eachand the crocks $20-30.
 After that I started looking for bottles even more & 10 years later sold my collection of 1500 bottles for about $4,000.
 I was hooked then & now I'm hooked again!!.


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## TheDiggerBoy91 (Jan 5, 2005)

Wow, very interesting. Irish, that's quite a collection you got. Can you believe I don't have a single codd yet?? No, I would NEVER let anybody, I repeat, ANYBODY,  get in the way of my sacred hobby of bottle collecting. I just want to make bottle collecting look more, um,"appeitising" to her. She actually thinks it's cool I collect bottles. I had actually been planning for quite a while to get rid of my broken stuff, long before that. Karen, was that Pepsi an embossed one or ACL? Dave, now that is KOOL. I wonder when that cabin was last occupied? Julie, I think everybody's first bottle is common. Mine was (see above). I've never dug a privy before either, I'm just a dumpdigger. I just haven't got the guts to ask somebody if I could tear up their lawn looking for bottles. Just gotta find that right abandoned 1870's farmhouse......[]


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## ronvae (Jan 5, 2005)

Hey, you asked:
 I got addicted to scuba diving, but I live in Minnesota, so to dive every week from April through November, I had to put up with cold water and almost no visibility.  Since there is nothing to look at, and I needed something to do to keep my mind off the cold, I fell in with a bottle-diving club.  Basically, we feel around & grap stuff that feels old, and inspect it when we get to shore, so it includes alot more than bottles.  After a while, your hands get trained:  "ooh, feels man-made", "feels like glass", "hmm, not broken", "I feel embossing! I'm bringing this up!".  Gives me hope that life will still be exciting if I go blind.  My first bottle (2002) was a green wine, with no embossing or maker's marks, no mold seams, and a slightly crooked applied lip.  I think it is about 1890s, but I'm not sure.  I brought it up, the guys told me it was old, I started wondering if somebody proposed in a canoe over wine, or if somebody whacked someone else over the head with it & rowed out to drop the murder weapon in the lake...and I was hooked.  I've got about 20 bottles and an inkwell now, five of them are pre-1900 I think.  I've never bought or dug a bottle, but I can't tell you the thrill when my hand closes around an old one.  I'm the first person to touch it since it was thrown overboard.  Talk about a thrill!


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## ronvae (Jan 5, 2005)

PS:  I'm a picky woman, & I think bottle collecting is cool.  Hold out for a girl who appreciates your hobby!


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## S.C. Warner (Jan 6, 2005)

Wow, this is first I read this thread. I just kept reading, scrolling and looking at the great collections of everyone and thinking Wow, wow and wow!
  Super collections and great posts. 
 (My first was an aqua KickaPoo Sagwa, with the full Head Dress, it was sitting right next to a denby ink about a foot down in a little dunk. My parents started collecting when I was about 12 or 13 and took me with them. When I held up the Sagwa and asked: "Is a bottle with the picture of an Indian on it worth anything. My old man's mouth dropped open. (they were digging the dump's rich section and I had wandered off to the side.) The Denby's, to me, have always been a favorite though."
  Ronvae: I totally agree with your post, there is just so much left to the imagination with bottle collecting. And what isn't imagination is real history. I mentioned in another post, in School it should be worth extra credit. Or maybe a taught Class in itself. (for obvious reasons)
 Diggerboy: great topic!
 best,
 sc


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## O.T. digger (Jan 6, 2005)

The first bottle I rmember finding was a a bottle that said Dr. Jacksons Herb and Root Cordial that was the best bottle I have ever found it was worth about 40 bucks I sold it for 30 I found it on the creek, that how I started was walking the creeks picking up old bottle, then I did a little digging and walking around in old dums now I have a collection of about 50 decent 5 to 30 dollar bottles and about 500 old dollar bottles that are mostly medicine, whiskey, pop, clorox and so on, but my girlfriends dad and my dads friend have huge collections of high dollar bottles, inluding may Oklahoma Territory bottles.


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## TheDiggerBoy91 (Jan 7, 2005)

Nice....Very Nice. Pat, diving for bottles must be SO awesome!!! I never have, the closest I get to diving for bottles is wading in the creek near my house. Now what would be REALLY awesome is finding a girl who collects bottles too. That would be the koolest!!! Den, I wish they would teach bottles in school. Bottleology!!! That would probably be the only class that I would actually get a 100% average in!!! Justin, that musta been a good start, first bottle a rare bottle!!!! Too bad mine wasn't. At least it was BIM.....[]


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## Aerated (Apr 8, 2005)

What an Interesting thread!!.
 I guess I was lucky in having my late Grandfather start collecting bottles in the late 60's.
 He in turn introduced my father to collecting in the 70's.Coming from a Historically rich part of New Zealand we were spoiled for choice with long forgotten goldmining towns to explore.
 My parents have pictures of me as a toddler armed with a plastic shovel digging away on one of our many "family picnics".It just so happens that these "picnic" spots would coincide with an early goldfield settlement!.Ive grown up with bottles all my life and I have never stopped collecting them, to the point of "missing" school!.I guess I would have had to dug 10,000+ bottles over the years (mainly ring seal beers!, Australians will know what im talking about HA!)
 but that has never stopped me from digging.
 The first bottle I can remember finding was a 6oz F Blackmore Codd bottle(Melbourne made)
 when I was 6.
 These days I collect Marble bottles, Ive got 140 different ones, mainly from the South Island of New Zealand.
 Over the years Ive dug a lot of bottles that Americans would be familiar with ie: Hotstetters,Townsends,St Drakes Plantation bitters,Dr Soules and HEAPS of Medical bottles(Chamberlains,Kickapoo,St Jacobs & Frdk Stearns Detroit MICH).
 Ive tried to collect stamps,millitaria & coins but I found this to be to boring, nothing can reproduce the thrill of a dig, where you can personaly hold in your hand a REAL peice of history, something that has a direct link to the past.
 Quite often my friends have thought that I was a "nutter", but take them on a dig and start pulling out bottles, see how quickly there perceptions change on this "bottle hunting" hobby.

 Thanks for reading my post.

 Aerated


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## digdug (Apr 8, 2005)

My Grandfather got me started collecting bottles when I was 8 years old. That was 34 years ago AND I still collect them. My first bottle, that my grandfather found and gave to me was an amber wine bottle. It has flakes of light tan clay or pottery in it. Lower part was made in a mold, upper neck hand made with a crude looking lip. Still have that bottle too!  Now-I mostly collect Soda bottles.  Trying to finish a room to display them in.  And there are women out there who like bottle collecting.  My wife and I on our past 4 wedding anniversaries have went digging for bottles!  She seems to find all the best stuff though!


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## bigkitty53 (Apr 9, 2005)

NICE display,AERATED! I really like the torpedo bottle stand on the right side,middle shelf!Did you dig that too?

 KAT


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## Tandy (Apr 9, 2005)

Hi All, it would seem that I did not reply to the earlier topic, so I had better do so for this one.

 One Saturday afternoon, wanting something to do, I drove to a country town some 100 kilometres from Adelaide, called Murray Bridge. While I was wandering through the scrubland outside the town, I came across this jar, which had very nicely embossed "Bacchus Marsh Malted Milk", so I picked it up and drove home. I can remember trying to find out about it, and I eventually did so.

 From then on, circa 1967, I began to collect bottles.

 However, I was foolish enough to sell the jar some time later.

 Recently, I found another one, and I still have this one.

 You can see a picture of it at 

 http://www.proforumhost.com/viewtopic.php?t=808&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45&mforum=grimdigger1


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## Tony14 (Apr 10, 2005)

i started 2 years ago when i was twelve. I was out visiting a friends house when we saw a deer on the edge of the woods in his backyard, so of course we had to chase it. we were running through the woulds when we spotted a giant barbed wire ball, that thing was so cool we had to check it out. i walked over there and nearly stepped on a bottle, i look at my feet and there was an old medicine bottle. right next to it my friend found a small fingernail polish bottle. we both were hooked ever since. as soon as i get my camera working i will post a pic. im not sure what it is or how old it is. after i found that bottle i didnt start looking again until about half a year later when i stumbled onto a dump wile fishing. i now have a little over 100 bottles and growing.


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## madman (Apr 11, 2005)

hey diggerboy nice idea! in ithe 4th grade my family moved to a house that had a woods and field behind it, well in the woods was a nice early 1900s dump the bottles were sticking out of the ground, so i took some home, my dad said they were cool, see if you can find more, yea i found more thousands more !!! my first bottle was a souders extract bottle. im 36 now and have dug alot of dumps heres what i dug in the past 2 years   oh yea and the souders   mike


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## madman (Apr 11, 2005)

heres the extract


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## madman (Apr 11, 2005)

some recent dump stuff all 1900plus but fun to find    mike


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## Bottleman (May 22, 2005)

I realize this is a pretty old post but I figured I would tell my story. I found my first bottle when I was 10 years which was a cobalt blue Triloids poison bottle. We were moving the old smoke house which was used for smoking raw meat in. I was digging around under the foundation for marbles and what ever old I could find when I pulled out the poison. A few weeks later I went to a local antique store with my mom and saw the exact same bottle with a price tag of $20.00 on it. I was just amazed that it was worth that much at the time! Yes, I still have that bottle too! After that I began walking around the farm fields looking for dumps and talking to my dadâ€™s friends to see if they knew of any dumps. I was lucky enough to have one right across the street to go to. At that time I just walked around and picked bottles off the surface for my collection and had no idea that all the good ones were buried. By that time I was 12 and I had a friend in middle school that collected depression glass who I eventually got hooked into bottle collecting so I had a digging partner from the start that understood exactly the bottle collecting addiction. We both pretty much learned the hobby as we went together until at a flea market when we met another â€œexperiencedâ€ digger who was in his 30â€™s and had been doing it his hole life. He showed us the ropes and got us digging 1870s privies when we were only 15. By the time I was 16 I got the nerve to knock on peoples doors and try to get there permission to dig there outhouses. I am 19 right now and this is the first time I have ever told my age on this site because I have been worried that older collectors will think that I am inexperienced and just getting started in this hobby. That is not the case at all though, I have dug at uncountless dumps and dug tons of privies including about four 1850s pontiled holes. At the moment I collect pontiled squat sodas from Philadelphia, PA and local milks. Also any other nice looking bottles I find. I hope you all liked my story and I will keep you posted on all of my recent digs that turn up to be really good.

 ~~Tom (Bottleman12)


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## bottlebank (May 22, 2005)

I found mine in a woods my first bottle was the dirtiest bottle

 i will get pics tonight


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## justarookie (May 22, 2005)

im 22 i just started collecting bottles about 2 months ago. i got hooked when my dad became very intrested in ginger beer bottles so instead of just buying them i thought i would try ot find mine. The funny thing is about the girl thing is the only person i ever go digging with is my girlfriend. The first bottle we ever found was a skirted coke bottle i dont kow i think it dates somewhere from the 60's . I did alot of looking around for dumps and spotted at an old farm. so finally i got the guts an asked the owner if i could dig there and i dont think she could have cared less. SO i have been digging that dump for he last three days. Friday nigth didnt have much time but brought up a couple marbles and found my first sign of a ginger beer bottle. the bottle was cracked in 2. come to find out that the bottle was a category 4 bottle that is worth $500 and i was excited but yet very depressed at the saem time. The next day my girlfeind and myself spent the whole day there and i would dig and she would get in and pull some bottles out and then we found it the first ever ginger beer bottle we were both real excited it was a sussex ginger beer.  Then a couple minutes later she pulled out a big stone jar all intact in  perfect condition. Went back today with high hopes but didnt come up with anything to exciting . But anyways this is my story and bottles are all i think about and im so grateful that i ahve a girl friend that is not only cool with it but loves coming with me


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## WhiteLighting (May 25, 2005)

Me ive been collecting almost 20 or so years "gonna be hittin 30 in a year..lol",but my mother got me into collecting and also we had a camp that had a dump and like many others as a kid we would throw rocks or thorw the bottles to break um..lol,.....

  i still have the first bottle i found when i was around 5 or 6 which was a french gloss bottle,but since then i have collected alot and sold/traded off tons of bottles,also insulators from the old trolly lines and tele lines......but mainly i like the old quack bottles,and sold off my blob tops and milks....but got afew keepers still..
  its a strange attraction to glass when really looking and holding the past in your hand...
  its a good hobby,even better if ya find somthing worth 500+ bucks...lol
  posted is local bottles and a Saratoga that i traded off last year to a local MDer,just thought id show what i got rid of...lol


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## WhiteLighting (May 25, 2005)

well i thought i show this also,but sold it 2 years ago 3 days after i found it about 4 or 5 inchs down right next to "strange to find next to each other" a hoods sarasp bottle...
  The bottle is 1 of at least 5 known to exist and its a heavy weight in terms of value about 500 to 750 dollars,but it did go to a person who took the other local bottles off me and i know thier in good hands.....
  but thought id share this very rare 1850's NY bottle with ya's.......

  the strange thing is i was metal detecting and just kicked some pineneedles and dirt over where i was walking and BAMO!.........


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## whiskeyman (May 26, 2005)

I started as a newbie back in 1972. At the time, I & my brothers were into cave exploring and I was in a wooded area seeking the entrance of a rumored cave.

 Along the way, I walked across an old dump...mostly cans & bottles scattered on top of the ground. I noted many were hobbleskirt Cokes and there were also some attractive amber  whiskey flasks  embossed allover with a man in a tri-cornered hat & sailing ships...(Paul Jones Whiskey, I later learned).

 I found the cave and it proved to be small...not worth further examination....so, I went back by the dump and carried home a couple of the Cokes and whiskeys...

 Been collecting ever since....

 I no longer have that particular bottle, but have some Prohibition era whiskeys that are the same/similar.


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## camron_poe (Oct 15, 2007)

This is a good ideah, 
 Well I am new to bottle collecting and ive only dug 6 privy's so far in the past 3 months i learned about privy digging from my friend anthony he has been digging for a couple years now and has the biggest bloomington ill collection i think there is but i actually dug my first 3 privys not finding a single bottle in the fourth privy the only thing to come out whole was a blue screwtop vicks vaborub so i was almost ready to just give up becuase i thought privys were like that 1 bottle if y our lucky kinda thing. then the lucky fifth privy came and we pulled out 50+ bottles and the last one 7 bottles right now for me everything embosed is a keeper because i am trying to decide what to collect be it poisens sodas flasks jars whatever i cant decide so what i need to find is one great bottle to make me want to find more like it right?


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## morbious_fod (Oct 15, 2007)

Like someone else mentioned earlier, I inherited my pack rat gene from my mother. Unlike my mother, who squirrels away every â€œimportantâ€ paper she gets her hands on, my pack rat mentality was focused into collecting. This focus was aided by a fifth grade teacher who got me into collecting stamps. Later my father would send me some coin collecting supplies, and I started coin collecting on a small scale. 

 When I joined the military most of my old collections were forgotten or lost by the time I got back. I then started to dabble into record collecting until about 1998, when after seeing a friendâ€™s collection and discovering Yahoo auctions, I stepped it up a notch. I had also picked up my longest running continuing collection better known as my Star Wars action figure collection in 1995.

 Most of my collections start out with what I call a â€œHey thatâ€™s neatâ€ item, that is how my bottle collecting got started. One weekend in 2001 my record collecting friend and myself went on a record run to Bluefield, WV. In one of the antique shops I ran across a very dirty Dr. Pepper good for life bottle for three bucks. It cleaned up beautifully with only one very light scratch. I had been wanting a 10, 2, 4 Dr. Pepper bottle after The Cramps implanted the idea in my head through a song of theirs. 

 Later I found out about the swimsuit girl 7-up bottle and decided to track down one of those. Then the madness began, while browsing Abingdon Flea Market, I came across two bottles that I had never seen before. They were an Amber Krinkly ACL, and a small Mae West amber, I proceeded to get fleeced by the guy for sixteen dollars, but I was in love. I take the fleecing in stride as I made one of my best purchases off of the same guy, I got a Mountain Dew Charlie and Jim in good shape off of him for fifteen bucks. Good collecting Karma if I have ever known it. The rest is history, I wound up moving from brand collecting to locals and thatâ€™s where you find me today.

 Below are the first four bottles of my collection. The 10-2-4 bottle manufactured by Ball from Lexington, KY, the 7-up, and the two orange crush ambers that jumpstarted the whole shebang. My wallet curses the day I bought that good for life. LOL! You will notice that these bottles are the basis for my choice of brands that I still collect as brands including the Mountain Dew.


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## sunrunner (Oct 16, 2007)

I started,whene i was about 16,my mom and dad, were being showen, an old abanded manchen by a realestate lady,up in hoosic  falls ny,idesided to do a littel exploring,and climed to the widows walk,wich is a tower like thing at tthe top of the house,well,as i climed the ladder i notist a crowl space bewen  the ceilling and roof,in there was hundeds of medaicn bottels,sill in there boxs,not knowing any thing at the time,i picked up three boxs, thay turned out to be,a scotts emulsen, with the man on the bottum,and a labul,which read skmthin about the act of congress, a amber strap flask ,and warner,tippycanue, thinking back,just makes me sick,to think,what ells was up there.thate was forty years ago.


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## CALDIGR2 (Oct 16, 2007)

The year was 1959 and my very first bottle was a 6" Shiloh's Consumption Cure. I thought it was the coolest bottle ever.[]


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## myersdiggers1998 (Oct 17, 2007)

It might have been 1968 when I was 8 , My friends and I were digging in a small dump ,when I pulled a nice crystal chandelier, some pcs. missing. My mom sold it to a dealer . We bought lots of candy. Been hooked ever since


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## cc6pack (Oct 18, 2007)

I got into collecting bottles from my Civil War relic hunting in the early 70's. While searching for sites to dig relics, we would run across farm dumps, gullies, or old house sites. Finally came to the conclusion that bottles held some fascination for me also. [/align] [/align]My first bottle that I can remember keeping was a SS Atlanta Coke, from there the local meds now have my attention. [/align]


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## JGUIS (Oct 18, 2007)

I started collecting when I found my first local bottle.  My first bottle was a Columbus amber SS I found in an old farm dump in the woods while squirrel hunting.


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## adshepard (Oct 18, 2007)

Collecting bottles was an extension of my scuba diving.  I knew that one of the sites I dive frequently was an old steamship pier and that old clay pipes could be found.  I was lucky enough to happen upon a beautiful pontiled  "Dr. Manly Hardy's Jaundice Bitters - Bangor, ME" and I was hooked.  I limit my collecting to the local Maine waters as I like the connection to the steamships and the local history.  As for the clay pipes, I've got dozens of them now.

 Alan


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## bigghouse (Oct 18, 2007)

i'm 11 so i cant really say that i hav ben digging  35 years but my first bottle was a green spot orangade one and i still have it somewhere in my room. i still dont no much about the bottle that got me hooked (property ofrochester brew co ) my friend just found a blob top bottle that says edward heffernan (heffernan in my last name[]) so now i no this is not an ubsesion that will eventually leave.

 annnnnnnnnnnnnnna[>:]


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## Oldtimer (Oct 26, 2007)

Long ago girlfriend got me started. Maybe 15 years ago..We'd ride bikes around and sniff out old dumps...sometimes we'd get drunk as lords and dig..lol..
 Can't remember what the first one was, but it wasn't anything special, as nearly every dump within 300 miles has been dug already it seems like..I started serious collecting with ACL Sodas (Which I still have) but when the kittens broke my favorite Mt.Dew (Bottled by Maw an Paw!) I switched to older stuff...I found a Burnett's Cocaine (SP?) and thought I'd found a million dollars..lol..I found a few perfect arrow-heads as well but they are gone now...and now I dig when I can, buy when I can, and covet the rest!!

 Right now I have 60-70 "Good" bottles, the most valuable being in the 2-3 hundered dollar range. I now prefer the smaller colored bottles like Inks and Smelling salts etc., but of course when I find "good ones!" I buy them if I can buy at a good price.. These days if it isn't a great color it has to have a label and / or embossing...Pontils are about out of reach, never dig them in dumps, and can't afford to buy the good ones...and who wants the plain jane $10 pontils...? I do but I ain't paying for common anymore...


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## Calbottlegirl (Jan 18, 2009)

What a great question  and  an old thread!
 My first bottle was an aqua de florida that I found in the yard of my then-boyfriend,now-husband!It is an "error" Murray and Lanman and I still have it.
 That was 1974.
 Once you get the bug,it's got you![8D]
 Jan


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