# I dug my first intact blob (with story on it all and in-situ pics!)



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 2, 2015)

Sadly, it's not local-- but hey: First blob, and it's colored. So here's the story: I went back to this place today and down into that room with the shard-- this time, I had a better light. Walking around with a more powerful beam and comfort in knowing the building, I was crunching along on debris when suddenly, from overhead, footsteps and voices materialize. That's the only time I got scared, albeit the building even there was pretty dark. I freeze and turn my light off-- its click echoing through the columns of dirty paint and bounding off debris-strewn floor and peeling ceiling. I'm thinking on what to do-- an entrance is too near for my comfort, and it could be cops for all I know, so I walk in darkness deeper into the building. I also sink down into what turns out to be 1 foot of mud trapping 3 early-1900s carts.  Here's a tip I learned from experience: When caught on private property, immediately start asking questions before the one catching you asks, and go right up to them. Just ask about the place, for you might learn some stuff and get off free. The whole day was windy, so there were many moanings and groanings and banging-sounds in the building as things smashed around loosely and further fell. And with a breeze coming through, paint chips would rain down at times. The builders really seemed to like anything with the word Rock in it... as ROCK____ as on pretty much every machine. But anyway....  In the obscured (after I located the hard-to-find thing,) dark room with 2 dead animals, I had a much better light to show me its century+-old secrets... and indeed, I found many. In fact, I discovered that the wall is a later addition-- as told by this broken tooled crown in the cement and this cemented-in Baltimore Loop-Seal. So I begin to dig around and unearth many blob shards all over the dirt floor.Eventually, I begin poking around a huge crack in the wall. What pops out? Naught but a crier: Chippewa Spring would-be-blob bottle that was awfully dirty. Base is unembossed.So I keep digging.... And, SUDDENLY..... My first intact blob bottle! And I pulled the flashlight from my mouth and thanked God for an intact find.The photo shows the first light they had in years as I laid them on a slab. Sadly, the crack is too narrow to dig well in even with my mini-shovel. I almost gave up before I pulled this one out for nothing but a few plate-shards was popping out. And when I saw the blob, I was so tempted to yank it, but I didn't, else it might have ended up in pieces-- a lot of brick in there. Only two from that hole, but, oh, so worth my time.  I crawled into a larger hole from whence last time something had been growling at me. It was a tight squeeze, and nothing came out of it, but yeah.I think that there once was a small building there-- absorbed by additions, as shown by a change in architecture. I think that they cemented over a room back there. This-- which I found many of-- tells me pre-1906. And the shard compared here to a circa-1885 Loop-seal from my town (I know it came from this bottle) tells me that it's likely earlier. I know that the area was built on by the former Brewery next door in the 1870s.  I also dug what I think is an early wiring-insulator. Can anyone help me on it? I love the colors on the bottle from being in the ground so long-- look at the colors on the base! Here is some info on the Gargling Oil bottle I dug. It comes from Lockport, N. Y. Here is info on the Chippewa Springs bottle from Chippewa Springs over in Wisconsin (They forgot the comma.) Long time of business.  Not sure what these are...
	

	
	
		
		

		
			








Wondering if the license plate is from a stolen car or not.Riffling through old records in old desks, I discovered that the building was actually pretty much fully abandoned in 1997.  *Help* on getting the stopper out of this Baltimore Loop Seal bottle's mouth? I want it for my other one.  Any ideas? I know it was a special way to open it back in the day...  So here is my first blob. And I struggled to make it home by bike as the wind was and still is just so dang strong. But it's more than worth it.


----------



## RIBottleguy (Aug 2, 2015)

Nice finds!


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 2, 2015)

Thanks.   Currently, due to heavy rains, the building should be flooding right now.


----------



## truedigr (Aug 2, 2015)

Those shards look real promising, esp. the applied whiskey top. You need to probe the heck out of that place, as it may sniff out some hole ones. When the metal goes tink, you know your in business. RC


----------



## hemihampton (Aug 2, 2015)

Nice Find, Nice Color, Congrats. LEON.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 2, 2015)

I had dug around a large metal plate that I had hoped meant a cellar-door. Wasn't one there, sadly. I don't have a probe. I just dig the heck out of a place and backfill. I had a flashlight in my mouth for over an hour at one point. Delicious. I'm more accustomed to water-based finding. This is newer to me. I think that they purposely broke everything and then took pieces to put in the walls. When you see blobs in cement.... ----------------------------------------------- Thanks, Leon.


----------



## splante (Aug 3, 2015)

Well written,and some nice finds, I am not one for trespassing in buildings,(sometimes on land)but it sounds like I am missing out may have to rethink my policy.be careful


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

Thanks. I noticed several errors that I missed in my review of my typing, though... Only law I break is trespassing (and they might nab me for taking bottles out of walls [].) Land and buildings to me are the same thing.Someone might own the building, but it hasn't been occupied since '97. '77 for one end, it appears.I was born in '96. LOL Just don't get caught.


----------



## 2find4me (Aug 3, 2015)

That Chippewa Springs is a killer, too bad its broken. I would definitely go back in there and look around some more! Did you see the people that were talking or only hear them?


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

Would have been my first blob. LOL. Bears avoid people at all costs. ???????????????•??•?????????? I heard their feet crunching overhead on debris, and I heard their voices. The entrance was too near, and I wasn't gonna stay hidden in the room I was in (appeared to be a telecommunications room) if they were gonna come in and likely locate me. Not the best part of town, and I don't like talking to Cops on what I'm doing. xDSo I clicked off the light and walked swiftly into the depths of the building, took a stairway into the heart and searched  for the bottle-room.  I made the right move as I later heard them on a staircase into the same room (which was quite large) I was in at the time. So I took a harder-to-ascend (stuffed up with bricks and two barrels) stairwell and went above them. I went quietly but likely wouldn't have my sound identified from all the noise from the wind.  I was beginning to think that I might have to confront them. They might not have seen the other stairwell, or they left. Maybe it was too dark for them. Whatever it was, a while later I was digging undisturbed barring unidentified noises of loose metal banging and branches beating old panes of glass in a neighboring room.


----------



## 2find4me (Aug 3, 2015)

Make sure to bring a gun next time, haha. Might not be the best idea.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

I've dug guns, but I don't own even those now (They'd have never worked anymore anyway, lol.)I had with me a shovel and my knife. (*Warning:* If you don't like blood, don't click that link. That was accidental but made an interesting pic.)


----------



## Nevadabottles (Aug 3, 2015)

Sounds like the place is haunted.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

Nah, John. Everything has an explanation even when we don't know what it is-- an explanation other than ghosts. But maybe I'l bring my Holy Water and a blessed Crucifix, hmm? LOLz. [8D]


----------



## sunrunner (Aug 3, 2015)

hay, Spirit I don't mean to sound picky .but what you are referring to as blob is actually called a oil or ring or tapered collar.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

Jim, the "Oil finish" I believe they called it in an Illinois Glass Co. catalog from close to TOC whereas my Bitters-bottle book I believe would call this type of mouth a 'tapered  finish.' In general, the blob is any type of blob-- including this style. [8|]That's what I've read, at least, all over the web and in print. But thanks for clarification. [] Edit: Baltimore Loop Seal, Hutch-finish, oil-finish, ringed-collars, etc. are all blobs-- just different styles of blobs.


----------



## Plumbata (Aug 3, 2015)

Great finds! From the looks and sounds of it, it seems that those walls were either poured in trenches dug through an ash and bottle dump layer (hence the bottle bits stuck in the concrete) and/or the foundation area was backfilled with ash and bottles shortly after being constructed. Either way it seems like you're digging around in a dump zone so I would not be the least bit surprised if more goodies are lurking in the general area. Head-mounted flashlights/miner's lights are pretty cheap and extremely useful in such conditions, so you might want to spend 5-10 bucks on one instead of holding a light in your teeth the whole time!


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

Thanks for the info on why it might be like what it is like. Should I dig out as much of inside the wall as possible after poking around the floor?  I almost took a pic that showed what looked like bricked-up arch-shaped windows facing into the next room-- it's why I think that they built around an existing building. Your ideas make much sense too, though.  I almost got a miner's-type head-mounted light before but passed up on it as I didn't see a use for it at the time. Whoops. LOL. As long as I don't swallow the light, I'll be okay for now. Hah hah.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

This, if this is my insulator's company, tells me that my insulator should have been made between November of 1906 and July of 1907:"He also changed the operation to eliminate drying before firing in a kiln in order to reduce manpower and time of handling (surely this idea was a failure). The plant was restarted in November 1906 and wet process porcelain pin-type production was successfully started some time after that. In July 1907, Ohio Brass acquired exclusive control over all of the company's insulator production and had *all* their production marked with the OB logo." My insulator was made by Akron High-Potential Porcelain Co, and they were around from 1906 to 1910 in Barberton, Ohio.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 3, 2015)

Found out. Top one is a tool for square bolts. Second one is a finial.  I still want the stopper out without breaking anything. Help?That brings up another point: I'm finding so many broken blobs but no porcelain stoppers and have found only one rusted-out crown-cap. Why?


----------



## Nevadabottles (Aug 3, 2015)

I was messing around spirit bear.


----------



## sunrunner (Aug 4, 2015)

dig on the out side along the foundation.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 4, 2015)

John, Bears are always serious. [] -------------Jim, I'll poke around, but this part is 3/4ths-absorbed by the building. []
Not even sure what that face means, but it fits.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 4, 2015)

This is interesting in that the insulator company is both Akron High Potential of Barberton, Ohio; and it is Akron Hi-Potential of Barberton, Ohio. I've seen the difference references but not in one document. They are always High Potential or Hi-Potential, not High-Potential and Hi Potential, except in this pic from here.  Not sure why.


----------



## RED Matthews (Aug 7, 2015)

Bad news - something just eraced my writ ing.   I will start over latee on. RED M.


----------



## RED Matthews (Aug 7, 2015)

Bad news - something just eraced my writ ing.   I will start over latee on. RED M.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 7, 2015)

Oooh, I hate it when that happens!


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 7, 2015)

BTW, SunRunner: I went along the foundation outside but cannot dig it: Immediately it touches Cole's bakery's driveway of gravel and is full of fallen bricks. On the inside foundation, though, I dug the 1860s penny seen here.


----------



## thebaronjp (Oct 16, 2015)

Awesome blob!


----------

