Old Oak Cliff Dump In Dallas

[Echosyn]

Hello good folks. I'm new here and to old bottles. Posting to announce that I have found the original Oak Cliff dump in southwest Dallas, Texas. It is overgrown with brush and a forest. The dump layers range from 2 to 6 feet deep and cover about 8 acres. The site is red-lined from development. In 20 minutes I can fill a 5 gallon bucket with intact general consumer products glass containers and house wares that range in date from the 1890s to about 1954. I've cleaned a few choice ones for home decor and wonder if there is value worth pursuing in that dig. Suggestions are welcome.

 

[hemihampton]

Don't know about Bottles but I know some older Beer cans found in Texas like Southern Select, Travis, Rosalie, ect, ect can be worth $1,000 in good but rusty condition. If you seen any old beer cans in that dump let me know? THANKS, LEON.


P.S. Can you post a pic of what you found?

 

[deenodean]

Welcome to the site. Pictures posted will tell the story. Bottles from the 1890's are desirable. You might even find what we call ' late throws' where people from the late 1800's threw away a dust collector made decades earlier.

 

[nhpharm]

For sure...good Texas dumps are hard to find and if it goes back to the 1890's you can find some good stuff for sure.

 

[jays emporium]

Please post some pictures of some of the older bottles and we can tell you if they are any good. I have been digging in Texas for 45 years.
Jay

 

[Echosyn]

There are no beer cans or light ferrous (tin) containers, just things that don't corrode and the embedding dirt looks to be 60% rust from tin things that were. Have to get the iPhoto settings in line then I will upload the 3 photos I have in the 'puter. A creek slices through the dig so I check the banks after each heavy rain and do low labor digging out of the exposed glass, copper and brass items. From May through October the area is densely forested and owned by poison ivy. Texas summer is hell so I dig away from the creek in December through April. I stumbled upon the site in 1987 while doing botanical and ecological study. The old glass spurred me to dig and check out a half dozen public library old bottle books. Then over the years i occasionally dug, cleaned and sold a few at yard sales. No one else has been digging the bottles. My best find was a 20" tall embossed Puerto Rican rum bottle commemorating a WWII event.

 

[Echosyn]

If this uploads successfully it is one creek bank pocket where I filled the bucket in less than 10 minutes. Pay special attention to the tool I use. It is a WWI entrenching tool that is perfect for bottle digging.

 

[Echosyn]

It's slow work in gnarly roots. Three poison bottles came out of this area.

 

[Echosyn]

These are exemplary of the usual fare. A surprisingly large number have the Bakelite caps or stoppers intact. The blue Philips Milk of Magnesia are in four sizes and the sets sell quickly. When I was knee-high to a grasshopper in the late 50s every boy had marbles and many of those marbles are in this dump.

 

[hemihampton]

Have you found any older blob top beer bottles? LEON.