Im Coming Back for More!

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

Sr. Member
Mar 3, 2010
267
4
Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

My Hawaii bottlin trip is now over and I have to say it was a success :hello2:

I landed on Friday at 11:00 and by noon I was already up in the Koolau Mountains checking out our first potential bottlin spot. We thrashed around in the jungle for a couple hours and finally found a spot that looked good for a test hole. The bottles were a mix of old and new. We found pieces of an old Honolulu Brewing Company, an Enterprize Soda Works and a Consolidated Soda Works (H.I. crown top). Unfortunately, the only good BIMAL we found was one of those little cobalt blue Japanese (medicine?) bottles with the T.M. on the bottom - these are mentioned in "The Book" as NOT being from T.Machida. We also brought home a couple of Honolulu T.H. Cokes.

We then moved on to our primary night digging spot. We decided to go big on our first hole since we had three bottlers - my brother, his friend and me. We dug down about 2 feet and hit the hardest layer I've ever encountered anywhere. It was black and seemed to be a mass of rocks glued together by tar - kind of like asphault, but harder! It covered the entire bottom of our hole and our pick and o'o just bounced right off of it with a shower of sparks! At best we could only chip away at it, so we picked a corner that seemed softer than the rest and spent an hour trying to smash through. We dug a small pocket down about a foot and never found the bottom. In other words, we were screwed! :help:

We had three options: 1) give up and go home, 2) move sideways and hope to find the edge or 3) start a new hole. It was 10:30PM and we finally decided to start a new hole. My brother and his friend filled the first hole while I started the second one. We were in a grim mood, but determined to continue. The second hole went well until we got down to the dump layer around 2:00AM. It looked like normal dump layer for the area, but there were hardly any bottles. We dug until dawn, but only about a dozen bottles came out and none of them were very good. :'(

So ended the first 24 hours of my 48 hour trip. All I had to show for my efforts was a little french perfume bottle - not good! >:(

I've got to go to lunch now, I'll post the rest when I get back - with lots of pictures!!! :icon_sunny:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

Sr. Member
Mar 3, 2010
267
4
Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

Day 2 started with......sleep :P

Got to bed around 7:30AM and slept until 1:00PM. Then it was off to the North Shore to check out a spot that I had been told about by another collector. BTW - big mahalos for the info! :headbang:

We had good directions and satellite photos from Google Maps to back them up. Unfortunately, there have been several new roads put in since the Google photos were taken and we got a bit lost at first. After driving about for a bit we figured it out and found the spot. It looks like a mix of old BIMAL bottles with newer stuff maybe up to the 60's or so. We were only there to look though and didn't break out the tools.

We then checked out another spot my brother heard about on the NS, but it looks like it's completely dug out. Too bad too, it looked like some good stuff based on the broken glass on the surface! :(

A quick drive back over the hill and we were back at our night time spot (not the Tar Pits!). We quickly picked our spot and started digging with enthusiasm. About a foot down I recieved a big surprise. While I was blasting through some hard coral fill with the o'o, I suddenly hit a void and the o'o dropped down into the Earth. :o

I was shocked, we were already a foot down and the o'o is 5 feet long. My brother thought we had just hit the undermine from an old hole, but we both knew that the bottom of the dump layer there was only about 4 feet down. Well, we couldn't afford to lose the use of our o'o so early in the dig, so we dug down to look for it. It hadn't gone far, and we quickly found the blade portion a few inches below the floor of our hole. To my surprize, I couldn't pull it out because it was wedged in by a couple of small pieces of coral. I grabbed the hook probe to pop them lose, but I pinched the top of the o'o with my other hand just in case. Sure enough, when the pebble popped loose the o'o started to drop again. I held on tight and managed to pull it up - thank god! :tongue3:

We avoided that corner of the hole and kept digging down. When we were down about 3 feet we found a weird plastic cap in the same corner of the hole and removed it. Under it was a void that went all the way down to the water table - about 7 feet - and didn't stop there. Our best guess is that someone drilled down at least 10 feet with an auger, capped the hole 3 feet down and then filled the top of the hole with gravel. The plastic cap was designed to pass water, so I guess it was intended to provide water drainage? :dontknow:

We looked down into this hole and saw......bottles! Lots and lots of bottles stacked one on top of the other. I had never seen so many bottles exposed in such a small area. The auger hole was only about 8 to 10 inches in diameter and I counted at least 5 intact bottles exposed in the sides and several more that had been broken by the auger. If the bottles were that thick under our entire hole I estimated that we were going to pull between 300 and 400 bottles! :hello2:

The dump layer turned out to be good, but not quite THAT good. We ended up pulling 115 intact BIMAL bottles that night, about 35 of which were keepers. We left 80 pefectly good BIMAL bottles in the bush next to the hole for other folks to take home if they want. These mostly consisted of blank beer, sake, champagn and wine bottles. There was also a soy pot, some small aqua condiment bottles and some slightly damaged embossed bottles. Here's a somewhat blurry picture of them next to their bush.
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

Here are a few pictures of the keepers:
 

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808beginnerdigger

Full Member
Mar 8, 2010
172
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Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

sodetraveler said:
Here are a few pictures of the keepers:

Wow Nice find, locating a virgin area ... must have been hard work pulling those out. Are you coming to the meeting tonight? Would like to hear more. Thanks... :icon_thumleft:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

So, this was the last night of my visit and I had to be at the airport by 11:00AM to catch my flight back to San Jose. It was now 4:00AM and neither my brother or I had yet found any BIMAL Hawaiian bottles. Don't get me wrong, I love all BIMAL bottles (even if I can't afford to keep them all anymore), but if we don't get any Hawaiian BIMALs during a dig it is invariably considered to be a failure! We were planning to fill the hole around 5:00AM, so I was down to the last hour. :P

At 4:05 our luck changed, I exposed the 3/4 round base of a sode. It was most likely a Hollister, but was it even whole? Indeed it was - #212 in The Book. It was less than 5 minutes into my turn and I got out to let my brother take over. 10 minutes later he started working on what he thought was a Cod Marble, but instead turned out to be a Hawaiian inside screw - #139!!! :o

I hopped back in and quickly exposed what I at first thought was another sode, but instead turned out to be a Hollister medicine - #887 (the 5.5" tall one). At this point it was getting light and the birds were all chirping. It was time to fill the hole. My brother and I looked at each other - and looked at how much of the hole had yet to be dug - and decided to stay and dig into the morning hours. :laughing7:

We found many more bottles - and I almost got a Hollister marble - but alas no more intact Hawaiian BIMALs came out. We filled the hole around 8:30 after 12 hours of digging and went home to clean bottles - and to pack for my flight.

Here's a picture of our prize Hawaiian bottles and another of my brother down in the hole. Sorry about the poor quality of most of the photos. My cell phone moves a bit when I press the button to take the picture. I obviously need more practice!

I'll post pictures of the clean bottles.....soon. :icon_thumleft:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

Sorry I won't be able to make the meeting tonight. I'm currently 2500 miles away in San Jose California. Hopefully I'll be back again in August for another marathon dig. :tongue3:

BTW - had visits by the popo both nights, but didn't get kicked out. Some times we just get lucky that way! :laughing7:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

I got my 2 Hawaiian BIMALs cleaned up. The other 2 belong to my brother, so I have to wait for him to provide pictures. It's probably going to take me a few more days to clean up the rest of the bottles :tongue3:

Unfortunately, the Hollister sode is damaged :'(

I did have a great time digging it out though :icon_sunny:

The Hollister med is in good shape. I've found TMs and KAs before, but I didn't even know they were Hawaiian. This is my first Hawaiian med with actaul Hawaiian words embossed on it ;D
 

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808kaz

Full Member
Nov 22, 2009
208
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OAHU, HAWAII
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

S/T, Still a nice Hollister and congratulations on that first medicine, amazing how fragile those meds are and finding one with no damage can be a challenge ...aloha 808kaz :thumbsup:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

808kaz said:
S/T, Still a nice Hollister and congratulations on that first medicine, amazing how fragile those meds are and finding one with no damage can be a challenge ...aloha 808kaz :thumbsup:

You may have noticed 2 dirty Hollister meds in one of my pictures. The shorter (and cleaner) one I dug up Sunday morning. The taller one on the right (#877, 6 inch tall) was found by my brother back in February right next to the Ahuimanu. It has so many cracks in it that he is afraid to clean it. I told him to just chance em. Sure it will probably fall apart - but I've got super glue! :laughing7:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
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Historic Saratoga CA
Finally Got Them Bottles Cleaned

It took awhile, but I finally got all the dirt (etc.) cleaned off. Lots of variety here - and all BIMAL :wink:

I especially like the cobalt cone ink. Never found one of those before! :icon_thumright:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Saved the Best for Last

Last - but far from least - my brother's Hawaiian Inside Screw :notworthy:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

Not one single post in August ???
That's just sad!!!
Isn't anyone out there digging :dontknow:
Anyway, I'm (finally) coming back to do some more bottlin tomorrow :hello2:
Good, Bad or Ugly, I'll post the story Monday :laughing7:
 

808beginnerdigger

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Mar 8, 2010
172
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Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

sodetraveler said:
Not one single post in August ???
That's just sad!!!
Isn't anyone out there digging :dontknow:
Anyway, I'm (finally) coming back to do some more bottlin tomorrow :hello2:
Good, Bad or Ugly, I'll post the story Monday :laughing7:

:dontknow: Aint finding anything this past month, went out a few times with 808kaz... Let me know if you need help! :laughing7:
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
4
Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

808beginnerdigger said:
:dontknow: Aint finding anything this past month, went out a few times with 808kaz... Let me know if you need help! :laughing7:

Sorry I missed your post - I basically logged off after I posted and haven't been back until just now!
 

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sodetraveler

sodetraveler

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Mar 3, 2010
267
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Historic Saratoga CA
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

OK, my latest bottlin adventure is now over and there's nothing left to do but wash the bottles and talk story :laughing7:

First off, I'd like to send out a BIG MAHALO to 808KAZ - he hooked us up with some killer grinds and showed my brother and I allot of Aloha during my (very) short visit :headbang:

The trip went as planned with an immediate airport pickup at noon Friday and a run out to the North Shore to check out a new spot....
I couldn't beleive hot hot it was and after digging for a few minutes I was so overheated that I had to stop :P

I thought it was just because I was too fat and old, but my brother and his friend both stopped digging too and they're 12 years younger than me and in great shape - and presumably used to the heat since they're also both Kama'aina. In other words, it was REALLY HOT!!! :angry4:

We kept at it though after setting up some sun blocks for shade and didn't find much: one BOSTON MASS Coke from 1948 and a Golden Gernsey painted milk - with the paint falling off. This wasn't what I flew out for, I wanted BIMALs!!! >:(

Although we knew that there were BIMALs somewhere at this spot (because we could see the glass), we decided that with my limited visit time it would be best to go back to one of our more reliable spots - so we did!

We started the dig down at about 7:30 and got down to the dump layer a few hours later - hard digging! :tongue3:

The first bottle out of the hole was a Tahiti Marble! :hello2:

Of course, things weren't going to stay that easy and it was many more hours - and about 50 bottles - later that the next sode came out. A Hollister Marble!!! :headbang:

All in all we pulled about 65 bottles out of that first hole before the sun came up and we had to fill it in and drive over to Sandy Beach for a bit of body surfing clean up :drunken_smilie:

Here are some pictures from the night and early morning. Sorry that some are so dark! I'll post up the Saturday night dig later - and hopefully some pictures of clean bottles after that!
 

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808kaz

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Nov 22, 2009
208
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OAHU, HAWAII
Re: I'm Coming Back for More!

Aloha Sodetraveler, you and your brother are welcome anytime, I always try to hook-up my digging friends when ever they come by to grind...was cool checking you and your brother out while you telling your brother to dig and talk at the same time :whip2: :nono: LOL...nice finds too ...love those marble stoppers so cool and unique bottles...lets see some pictures after they are cleaned up and let everyone drool on the bottles :tongue3: ...aloha 808kaz
 

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