funkman
Bronze Member
Dr. Wistar's Balsam of Wild Cherry
Sorry I haven;t been on lately. Haven;t been having much luck detecting at my site so I thought I might try sifting a possible dump there. The dump was covered with rocks and I only found it by swinging the detector coil over the rocks and got some good signals. The signals did turn out to be interesting items but also many glass and pottery shards and pieces of shoe leather were found as well. These were within an inch or two of the surface after I got rid of the rocks.
Anyway I was back there last Friday and was sifting and managed to find two bottles. I am still only a few inches below the surface and have not really excavated as it is time consuming and I am out of shape! What I managed was to scrape the layers of dirt with a three proged garden rake to loosen the dirt and then shovel it into the sifter. The one bottle seems to be an olive jar or something like that. Tall and narrow with no markings at all. The other one is 3 and 1/2 inches tall and has 12 flat sides all the way around it. It has "Dr. Wistar's Balsam of Wild Cherry Seth W. Fowle & Sons Boston" on it. I have seen reference to this type of bottle with those words but it is always an 8 sided and taller bottle. Anyone have any reference to the 12 sided smaller version? The mold seam goes almost all the way up the bottle but does not reach the rim so I am guessing this is around 1890 or so. The other bottle has the same seam that goes almost all the way up as well. I did not take pics yet but can post if you would like.
The other find was almost a complete clay pipe bowl with what looks like the wings of an eagle on it. The front of the bowl is missing so I cannot tell what the wings were attached to but I did manage to find a pic of another dig that produced the same bowl I think. It is the complete pipe on the bottom of the attached pic.
If anyone has any info on the bottle or a better pic of the pipe I would appreciate it.
Thanks and again sorry for not being on in a while.
Funkman
Sorry I haven;t been on lately. Haven;t been having much luck detecting at my site so I thought I might try sifting a possible dump there. The dump was covered with rocks and I only found it by swinging the detector coil over the rocks and got some good signals. The signals did turn out to be interesting items but also many glass and pottery shards and pieces of shoe leather were found as well. These were within an inch or two of the surface after I got rid of the rocks.
Anyway I was back there last Friday and was sifting and managed to find two bottles. I am still only a few inches below the surface and have not really excavated as it is time consuming and I am out of shape! What I managed was to scrape the layers of dirt with a three proged garden rake to loosen the dirt and then shovel it into the sifter. The one bottle seems to be an olive jar or something like that. Tall and narrow with no markings at all. The other one is 3 and 1/2 inches tall and has 12 flat sides all the way around it. It has "Dr. Wistar's Balsam of Wild Cherry Seth W. Fowle & Sons Boston" on it. I have seen reference to this type of bottle with those words but it is always an 8 sided and taller bottle. Anyone have any reference to the 12 sided smaller version? The mold seam goes almost all the way up the bottle but does not reach the rim so I am guessing this is around 1890 or so. The other bottle has the same seam that goes almost all the way up as well. I did not take pics yet but can post if you would like.
The other find was almost a complete clay pipe bowl with what looks like the wings of an eagle on it. The front of the bowl is missing so I cannot tell what the wings were attached to but I did manage to find a pic of another dig that produced the same bowl I think. It is the complete pipe on the bottom of the attached pic.
If anyone has any info on the bottle or a better pic of the pipe I would appreciate it.
Thanks and again sorry for not being on in a while.
Funkman
