# Double Eagle / E.C. Booz / Scroll Quarts



## Mayhem (Mar 24, 2020)

Here are some top shelf Quarts. A green Pittsburgh Double Eagle. An authentic square roof E.C. Booz cabin whiskey and a light green Scroll flask with iron pontil. The bottom row are some interesting pints. The rare yellow amber un-embossed flask in the center is simply beautiful in her shape, feel and color. With heavy pebbly glass, a perfect lip and open pontil she is one of my favorites. If you like Louisville Glasshouse... still more to come. Mayhem


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## sandchip (Mar 25, 2020)

All killers.  Great color and unusual lip treatment on the scroll.  Goooood stuff.


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## Flasks (Mar 25, 2020)

Mayhem said:


> Here are some top shelf Quarts. A green Pittsburgh Double Eagle. An authentic square roof E.C. Booz cabin whiskey and a light green Scroll flask with iron pontil. The bottom row are some interesting pints. The rare yellow amber un-embossed flask in the center is simply beautiful in her shape, feel and color. With heavy pebbly glass, a perfect lip and open pontil she is one of my favorites. If you like Louisville Glasshouse... still more to come. Mayhem


Great grouping of bottles but I'm wondering how many of those you labored to extract from the ground. Here's a picture of just one of many historical flasks, bitters, inks, mineral waters and sodas and medicinals I've dug.  Never bought a bottle in my life, did a little trading when I had duplicates. After reaching the ripe old age my wife and I are now, we sold the entire collection for one $$$$ and with that, bought  a winter home in Florida. Attached is a picture of me taking a "fresh" one out of a site.


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## yacorie (Mar 25, 2020)

Great bottles.  Thanks for sharing - I’ve really been enjoying your pictures of your collection


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## yacorie (Mar 25, 2020)

Flasks said:


> Great grouping of bottles but I'm wondering how many of those you labored to extract from the ground. Here's a picture of just one of many historical flasks, bitters, inks, mineral waters and sodas and medicinals I've dug.  Never bought a bottle in my life, did a little trading when I had duplicates. After reaching the ripe old age my wife and I are now, we sold the entire collection for one $$$$ and with that, bought  a winter home in Florida. Attached is a picture of me taking a "fresh" one out of a site.



you were lucky to be alive during the peak of the hobby and before all the best spots were dug.  those of us younger folks no longer have the ability to dig some of these areas producing those bottles.

here in CT there are some areas that decades ago were producing historical flasks and super rare bottles for all the people who were digging there.  One spot is riverside park in east hartford but those areas are lost forever to others now.

most of us will never have the opportunity to dig historical flasks and similar bottles so we either buy them or we look at pictures.


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## Flasks (Mar 25, 2020)

yacorie said:


> you were lucky to be alive during the peak of the hobby and before all the best spots were dug.  those of us younger folks no longer have the ability to dig some of these areas producing those bottles.
> 
> here in CT there are some areas that decades ago were producing historical flasks and super rare bottles for all the people who were digging there.  One spot is riverside park in east hartford but those areas are lost forever to others now.
> 
> most of us will never have the opportunity to dig historical flasks and similar bottles so we either buy them or we look at pictures.


I partially agree with you but not living in CT I'd be a poor judge of the possibility of finding valuable and historical bottles, flasks, etc. I will say that hundreds of fine specimens are still waiting to be removed from their resting place. How much research how you done as to the location of past citizens homes through the public available tax rolls and tax maps? None?...strike 3, you're out. If you'd already done this and marked their location, that is where I'd start. Next I'd drive and or walk the area of that long gone home and if the evidence of past occupation is there, that indeed a home or structure was there, then the hunt is on. Try to figure out the "layout" of the home, determine where the privy might have set, always out the back door and downwind. Did the house have a basement or half basement? You have to be relentless in your search and be a cut above the typical novice obvious dump digger. I'm sure, as your mentioned,  many super digging sites have been ravaged with lots of great pieces found but my guess and gut feeling tells me there are this many and more just waiting for the dedicated bottle digger. When a fellow digger shows me a great bottle he has dug...I'm fascinated but if he bought it has much less meaning.


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## Mayhem (Mar 25, 2020)

Flasks said:


> Great grouping of bottles but I'm wondering how many of those you labored to extract from the ground. Here's a picture of just one of many historical flasks, bitters, inks, mineral waters and sodas and medicinals I've dug.  Never bought a bottle in my life, did a little trading when I had duplicates. After reaching the ripe old age my wife and I are now, we sold the entire collection for one $$$$ and with that, bought  a winter home in Florida. Attached is a picture of me taking a "fresh" one out of a site.


Dear Flasks,
1) I live in southern California. Nothing except the local Mission is older than 100 years here. 2) Like another member suggested I am relatively new to the hobby and missed the golden age of digging / trading, and 3) because of California's riches I have the money to buy what I want! So, Flasks, thanks for all the hard work. You dig'em and I'll just sit back and enjoy them poolside.
Mayhem


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## Flasks (Mar 26, 2020)

Mayhem said:


> Dear Flasks,
> 1) I live in southern California. Nothing except the local Mission is older than 100 years here. 2) Like another member suggested I am relatively new to the hobby and missed the golden age of digging / trading, and 3) because of California's riches I have the money to buy what I want! So, Flasks, thanks for all the hard work. You dig'em and I'll just sit back and enjoy them poolside.
> Mayhem


Digging and finding has great rewards, I also could hit the shows and buy but then the interest in the piece drops so I don't bother going. I keep hearing about all the wealth in CA, if this is the case why don't you where-with-all people band together and help with your "street people" problem or are  you leaving that up to Polosi. Want to talk about great pieces...this is one year of my metal detecting on the beach 3 miles South of Ft. Pierce before the highrises and concrete replaced the land. Those are 23K 1714 gold escudos, half were 8's and the others 4s. In size and weight an 8 is equal to our silver dollar and the 4 was the same as our silver quarter. I found several little pieces of jewelry but they are not in that pictures. The silver reales are mostly 8s and had to be cleaned...the gold picked out of the sand was mint.


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## yacorie (Mar 26, 2020)

Flasks said:


> I partially agree with you but not living in CT I'd be a poor judge of the possibility of finding valuable and historical bottles, flasks, etc. I will say that hundreds of fine specimens are still waiting to be removed from their resting place. How much research how you done as to the location of past citizens homes through the public available tax rolls and tax maps? None?...strike 3, you're out. If you'd already done this and marked their location, that is where I'd start. Next I'd drive and or walk the area of that long gone home and if the evidence of past occupation is there, that indeed a home or structure was there, then the hunt is on. Try to figure out the "layout" of the home, determine where the privy might have set, always out the back door and downwind. Did the house have a basement or half basement? You have to be relentless in your search and be a cut above the typical novice obvious dump digger. I'm sure, as your mentioned,  many super digging sites have been ravaged with lots of great pieces found but my guess and gut feeling tells me there are this many and more just waiting for the dedicated bottle digger. When a fellow digger shows me a great bottle he has dug...I'm fascinated but if he bought it has much less meaning.



mall of the above.  In addition, we have tools now that were around before (lidar) so we can easily pinpoint the locations of cellar Holes in thr middle of nowhere.

we use old maps, online resources and books from thr various towns that give information that you’re talking about.

sure - there are bottles out there.  probing for privies issomething we try to do and get permissions.

it’s a much harder thing to do to find the old bottles like people did decades ago.  Yes, people still find them and yes they will continue to be found.....but they were much easier to find years ago.  Most of the old time diggers you this waywill tell you the same


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 26, 2020)

Buying a bottle is just that a purchase. A self dug bottle is like finding buried treasure.


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## yacorie (Mar 26, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> Buying a bottle is just that a purchase. A self dug bottle is like finding buried treasure.



it sure is. my point is only that if we only collected what we found - most of us would be very limited.

it was much easier to find the good stuff in the 50s-80s which is why so many of the great finds from digging we’re back then


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 26, 2020)

For me it was the 80s totally.


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## Roaddie (Apr 1, 2020)

I agree, ROBBYBOBBY64. There is nothing like digging your own, cleaning them up, and enjoying them. Or, getting into an old house and searching (obviously, with permission) the basement for all of bottles and cans that the previous owner stashed down there.  That can be a gold mine and there is a rush in finding something really old or rare.


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## willong (Apr 1, 2020)

Guys, I detect some rancor and elitism surfacing from both sides of this dig vs. buy issue.

Personally, the treasure hunt aspect of digging is what always appealed to me most about antique bottles. It was particularly true because it gave me another excuse to spend time in the western woods and mountains where I searched for old logging camps, homesteads and mines without having to knock on doors and seek permissions. All the while I recognized that, generally speaking, more "valuable" bottles were consistently coming out of eastern municipal dumps and privies and continue to do so today. (The exception was, of course, the heyday of notorious "Gold Rush" era digs such as--despite a comment made here about the youth of CA sites--the early California gold camps; Virginia City, NV; construction camps of the Transcontinental Railroad and the like.

However, I also appreciate other items such as fine firearms and antique microscopes that one simply cannot acquire by digging anywhere. 

I appreciate those who likewise enjoy items that interest me; if they acquire part, or even all, of their collection via purchase it does not diminish their passion. Some, like several members of this forum, are a wealth of freely-offered knowledge. None of that knowledge could be directly purchased. However much money one might have spent on books and other references, it took a considerably greater investment of time to develop the expertise that some of the members here share so generously. The good-hearted encouragement they offer newly interested glass fanciers is also exemplary.

I come here mostly for the same reason that I watch remote hunting adventures and backpacking videos on YouTube: the vicarious enjoyment of pursuits that I cannot enjoy personally anywhere near as often or as fruitfully as I would prefer. Acquiring extra knowledge is a perk; and I thank those who share it.


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## westKYdigger (Apr 2, 2020)

the joy is in the hunt.


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## hemihampton (Apr 8, 2020)

I can say this Clasped Hands Flask I dug recently has much more value to me then some of the ones I bought.  I do both, Dig them & Buy the ones I can't seem to dig. What sucks is when you buy one you can't seem to dig & right after buying you then dig one. 



LEON.


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## GLASSHOPPER55 (Apr 9, 2020)

yacorie said:


> it’s a much harder thing to do to find the old bottles like people did decades ago.  Yes, people still find them and yes they will continue to be found.....but they were much easier to find years ago.  Most of the old time diggers you this waywill tell you the same



Me for one. I started in 1969 and I have a much harder time finding old dumps nowdays. Yes we have more resources but a lot of areas are now off limits due to urban sprawl and the big bottle craze of the early 70s uncovered a lot of old glass.  And, people nowdays are much more loathe to let a stranger dig on their property (liability, etc). Many old-timers I knew are gone now and their collections sold.


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