# old buckets lead to small older dump



## RCO (Apr 21, 2020)

the other day I found some old buckets dumped near the edge of a large swamp which is located across the street from an older lakefront property which has been there for a long time , not exactly a hotel but sort of a summer house type place . 

I've never dug in this area but always kind of wondered if maybe there might be bottles in the general area . 

the site is located along the roadway , small maybe 20 foot strip of trees and dry land , then wet swampy area which goes on for a long way . if they dumped stuff in the swamp area no way I'm finding anything unless there is a drought 

I counted maybe 10 buckets , all metal of various sizes and such , appear to have been left there at some point , whatever they were getting rid of back then , they didn't want the buckets back


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## RCO (Apr 21, 2020)

at first I didn't think there was any bottles dumped near the buckets but when I went back and looked around a second time I started to noticed some broken glass and dug up the area a bit and found some older looked broken pieces , some of which appear to be very old


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## RCO (Apr 21, 2020)

due to the public nature of the site and such I decided it be easier to sort thru everything at home so I threw everything I found in my bag and sorted it in the garage 

it was also very hard to dig there for some reason , ground tough and some small evergreen trees had grown around the dumping 


pretty much everything was broken with exception of a couple really small bottles and the ketchups . 

lots of ketchups , some jars , various broken bottles which could of been for liquor or pop , also some broken china , pottery type items

also some metal items such as nails , a file , door hinge


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## RCO (Apr 21, 2020)

I was able to ID one of the broken shards to a local bottler which isn't really a surprise as they were pretty much the only bottler in this area 

this tiny piece is part of a 30 oz JD Brown Spring Water bottle , which was a popular product here as lakes were polluted from logging and tannery operations in the early 1900's 

I don't have one but have found it swimming before , not sure how late they used it but maybe until the 30's or 40's 


you can clearly read " SPRI and a J " which matches up to the JD Brown bottle where it says " spring water , JD Brown , and  Gravenhurst Ontario "


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## Timelypicken (Apr 21, 2020)

Nice bottles


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## RCO (Apr 21, 2020)

Timelypicken said:


> Nice bottles



I didn't find anything too exciting yet , as bottle collecting has been popular for a long time and site located close to a road , kind of wondering if its been dug up before or at least picked thru . 

its also possible more stuff was dumped in the swamp itself where it be way too wet to ever recover but i'll need to explore the site more to figure it out


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## yacorie (Apr 22, 2020)

I wouldn’t give up on that site and would take a look.  Here in CT - that surface looks a lot like a typical farm dump we would find here.  Those galvanized buckets on the surface are always worth investigating


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Apr 22, 2020)

I totally agree with Yacori. I  know that where there's smoke...there is usually fire!  Can you even get a probe in the ground? In the edge of the swamp? Just to feel around for any glass. Can you get a kayak? I might think a kayak, a probe and a post hole digger or cultivator you might be able to bring something up.


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## PlaneDiggerCam (Apr 22, 2020)

yacorie said:


> I wouldn’t give up on that site and would take a look.  Here in CT - that surface looks a lot like a typical farm dump we would find here.  Those galvanized buckets on the surface are always worth investigating


Yeah, these buckets are what I always look for when I search for new bottle dumps. Found many great bottles in dumps that look like yours.


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## RCO (Apr 22, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> I totally agree with Yacori. I  know that where there's smoke...there is usually fire!  Can you even get a probe in the ground? In the edge of the swamp? Just to feel around for any glass. Can you get a kayak? I might think a kayak, a probe and a post hole digger or cultivator you might be able to bring something up.



you can poke around the edge of the swamp,  i'll try and take some more pictures when I go back so people get a better idea what is there . 

you couldn't get a kayak in , its watery but many trees and such , no way to move around safely


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## RCO (Apr 22, 2020)

yacorie said:


> I wouldn’t give up on that site and would take a look.  Here in CT - that surface looks a lot like a typical farm dump we would find here.  Those galvanized buckets on the surface are always worth investigating



i'll definitely go back , part of the problem has been the weather here in april has been unreliable , when I was there on Monday was nice and all the snow gone but last 2 days have been more like winter and ground snow covered again 

it looks like some dumping has occurred in the area , perhaps not the main dump but some stuff was left there years ago


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## RCO (Apr 22, 2020)

PlaneDiggerCam said:


> Yeah, these buckets are what I always look for when I search for new bottle dumps. Found many great bottles in dumps that look like yours.



the site is worthy of further exploration but its impossible to predict what might be there if anything , most of the items so far have been broken , I'd love to find an interesting local item like a druggist bottle but older dumps here don't often yield much when compared to more build up areas near major cities 

this was a rural area with few people back then but saw a seasonal increase during the summer when city folk came up to the lakes


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Apr 22, 2020)

I find the stuff on top gets broken i would guess by kids you know working on their aim. Expensive target. I remember breaking ebery bottle me and my brothers found in the woods. It is crazy when i think about it now. It was the thick old bottles that were a challange to hit hard enough to bust. I don't remember ever digging for more. I would say there has to be more just below the surface.


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## RCO (Apr 22, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> I find the stuff on top gets broken i would guess by kids you know working on their aim. Expensive target. I remember breaking ebery bottle me and my brothers found in the woods. It is crazy when i think about it now. It was the thick old bottles that were a challange to hit hard enough to bust. I don't remember ever digging for more. I would say there has to be more just below the surface.



I'm sure there is other items in the general area , for sure more broken stuff . I did find 1 small unbroken bottle when digging deeper in the area of 2nd picture . but it was of no value and had no writing on it

need to wait a day or 2 for weather to improve , been too cold and ground is hard from winter like weather but is going to improve in the coming week 

i'll post an update and more pictures when I return to this site


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## PlaneDiggerCam (Apr 22, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> I find the stuff on top gets broken i would guess by kids you know working on their aim. Expensive target. I remember breaking ebery bottle me and my brothers found in the woods. It is crazy when i think about it now. It was the thick old bottles that were a challange to hit hard enough to bust. I don't remember ever digging for more. I would say there has to be more just below the surface.



Yeah, definitely kids broke some. When my dad's was younger he remembers his friend breaking bottles at a dump (1850s-1920s era) he showed me and found. He said he remembers his friend breaking a plantation bitters after he saw the the many pieces we uncovered there XD. Back then kids didn't know that they were breaking valuable bottles, it was just junk to them.


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## PlaneDiggerCam (Apr 22, 2020)

RCO said:


> the site is worthy of further exploration but its impossible to predict what might be there if anything , most of the items so far have been broken , I'd love to find an interesting local item like a druggist bottle but older dumps here don't often yield much when compared to more build up areas near major cities
> 
> this was a rural area with few people back then but saw a seasonal increase during the summer when city folk came up to the lakes


I mostly dig in rural areas and have luck, but I guess it depends on what that area was like and how close the cities were. I had a dump where 98% of everything was broken due to rocks and kids back in the 1970s. I still dug because there were shards of plantation bitters, pontils, Warners, etc. I finally pulled out an open pontil bottle that had somehow survived. I say that if there is older stuff then you are usually digging, even if it seems all broken, its worth investigating further! Who knows if there is an old pocket of stuff somewhere that wasn't pummeled.


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## RCO (Apr 24, 2020)

made a quick visit to the site , didn't really find much , you can see from the pictures how rugged this location is , its near a road but is heavily wooded and a very large swamp area .


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## RCO (Apr 24, 2020)

didn't really find any bottles , searched around and didn't find any new areas , was a couple buckets and metal things I hadn't noticed before . 

I'm not sure what this metal piece was but was so heavy or so stuck in the ground it wouldn't even move


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## RCO (Apr 26, 2020)

you can't really see them in my picture from the other day but I mentioned I found a couple small unbroken bottles , there in the far left of the picture of all the broken junk I found but barely visible , I cleaned them yesterday 

just a small clear jar and a small flavouring extract type bottle , none have any markings , the small corked bottle was about 4 or 5 inches down when I found it that day , sort of excited at time until I saw it had no markings


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