# Bottle I waited thirty five years to own



## LC (Jul 10, 2018)

I posted the story of this bottle some time back . I am adding it below in case new people had not seen it before . 
     Me and a friend of mine got into digging bottles back in the late 1970s . We were digging in an old ash dump on the bank of the Ohio River at that time . We both had opened up a good size hole . The River had flooded prior to our next visit .  After the river went back down we returned to try our luck in our respective holes . Before returning to my hole to dig I decided to walk the bank a ways to see if something might have washed out . This particular day my friend brought his twelve year old son with him for the first time . As I returned to start digging I saw my friend's son crawl into my hole and instantly hollered out , well here is a bottle right here . It kind of rubbed me the wrong way , especially when I saw the bottle he had in his hand . It was a Cincinnati Sulpho Saline Springs & Bath House bottle , had never seen or heard of it . So I am thinking about whether to try and get the bottle that came out of my hole that I worked very hard to open up or just let it go . I looked at my friend and got a look of SORRY ABOUT YOUR LUCK , so I just let it go . Figured friendship was more important than a bottle , although I was beginning to wonder just what kind of friendship I had with him lol . For somewhere in the neighborhood of forty years I was haunted by the thought of losing out on this bottle . 
     Regretfully my friend passed on about six years ago . I wanted to ask his wife about buying some of his bottles but worried over it being too soon to ask about it . The next thing I knew five years rolled by and I still had not ask her about them . So last fall I asked her about the bottles and she said that she took them out of the house , packed them up and took then to a flea market at a car show and sold them for three for ten dollars . Needless to say I was just devastated and a bit hurt that she had never even thought about offering me a shot at some of them being we had dug so long together and had been friends for a very long time . She then said that there were still some boxes of bottles in the top of the barn . I figured that the ones in the barn  was probably a bunch of Junkers so I just got in the car and left without looking at them . I knew I had lost the final chance to get the bottle that I wanted so long for my own . 
     This spring I got to thinking about the bottles again and went to her house and asked if she was still willing to let me look and buy some of them if I found something I wanted and she allowed me to do so . I climbed up in the barn and there was boxes of all kinds of stuff piled everything from A to Z . It was a struggle to try and get to the boxes to see what was in them . I could see parts of bottles sticking up in some of the boxes but could not see what they were . So I would stretch out the best I could and reach down in a box that I thought had bottles in it . To my surprise I started pulling out blob top sodas , blob beers and medicines . I stretched out and reached down into another box that looked empty , finding that there were bottles laying on their sides . I got hold of one of them , lifted it out of the box to find it was the bottle I had grieved over for all those years and thought that I would never have a chance to ever own it lol . I could not believe it and am still in shock over it . Related the story to her and she got a laugh out of it . Brought back a lot of memories from our digging together and the various things we would dig up . Days long gone buy now , The days of construction in Cincy is now pretty much over as for breaking ground and opening up the old dumps and out houses that still linger there waiting to be discovered .
    Anyway , here are some pics of the bottle that eluded me for so long . I can not find a think about it as to rarity or value . Want to send it off and have someone give it a tumble but afraid to do so for fear of it getting broke lol . Qould be a beauty if it were tumbled .


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## sandchip (Jul 10, 2018)

I've got a couple of bottles that I waited 25 years each to get a hold of, and some folks find that crazy, but brother, I understand completely.  That's what make us true bottle collectors, I guess.  I've seen folks get into it and fall right back out of it a few years later, but when that bug bit me as a kid, I knew that was it until I leave this old world.  That bottle is indeed exceptional in every respect and I can see why even 35 years couldn't erase it from your memory. I have to wonder sometimes at friends.  I've had a couple of close friends, too that let stuff go that I had specifically asked for first shot if they ever parted with it, only for them to let a complete stranger have it instead, and for less than what I had offered.  It does rub a fella the wrong way, but go figure.

  Anyway, a huge wow, what a superb piece of glass.  I can only imagine the knotted gut and tight chest that you had to have when you pulled that thing out of the box!  Probably the last thing you expected.  I'm just tickled that you finally get to put it on your shelf where it should've been all along.  Thanks for sharing your belated good fortune with us, LC.


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## Robby Raccoon (Jul 10, 2018)

Neat story. Now don't let the story get as lost as the bottle!


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## LC (Jul 11, 2018)

When I came home from the service in 1970 , a short time after being home I was asked by a town folk if I would be interested in tearing an old house down in town for the material . I looked at it and came to the conclusion that there just had to be a lot of good lumber to be retrieved if I tore it down . Found out as I tore the house down that it was way older than I thought it was , ending result I stacked and left it all . But when I tore up the floor I found four or five cork top bottles , never had even thought about a cork top botte before . Went out to see a fried a few weeks later that I had not seen since I had returned home . While I was gone he found the original Sardinia dump dating back at least the 1870s . The bank it was covered up in broke loose and a large portion of it slid down the hill . When I saw all the bottles he has dug I was hooked from then on . Now I watch western movies and I see federal law whiskeys in a scene that is supposed to be in the 1800s and I shake all over lol . All the money those people have you would thing they would buy some authentic bottles of the times .
     Some time back I let the soda pop mag use a story concerning a root beer sign I found on a roof that I was tearing off . They would be welcome to use this story as well if they wanted to . I always love sharing anything that pertains to collecting bottle with other collectors of the same  interest . I can no longer dig for bottles anymore , that was my true love of the hobby , but I still get hyped every time I see a great bottle .


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## hemihampton (Jul 11, 2018)

That's a nice looking bottle & Great Story. Congrats. LEON.


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