finally the story about my baggage claim tags

[slykatt13]

sorry to leave everyone hanging about my tags.no time for computer play.ok so my buddy owns property in new york not far from my home.his woodline is full of 1930s junk..about 1000 ft. from his house is a foundation of a home that had burned in the late 30s. his house was built in 1939 to replace the one that had burned..so much junk there its hard to detect.i had been there about 10 times to no avail.as i wandered along the woodline with signals becoming very few i was about to turn around when i noticed a railroad tie laying under the leaves. i started poking around and was finding bottles from the 20s 30s era.some of the glass and other evidence of being in a fire..a few of my tags also show evidence of a fire. i found 171 tags in the same 4x4 area .1inch to 8 inches deep. also 2 handles in the hole.the first trip there i had only grabbed about 40 or so..went home and sent my dad an email pic of them..he called me back in about 2 hours and said i will be there first thing in the morning and left me clueless as to what i had. he was knocking at my door 6 am all set to dig.we returned to the site and hit it from every angle.as we were digging he was telling me what they were.if you know about the history of saratoga springs n.y..you will realize how collectable these are.there were no doubles..all different. i do believe i found a dump for debris from that house fire..the owner was most likely a collector of railroad memorabilia. my tags were for the railroads in and out of saratoga springs ny. 1800s to early 1900s they have been being sold off on ebay.already over 5 digits. find of a lifetime for me. i love this hobbie. and i usually dont sell my finds. but in this case..the pic does not show all of them.sorry

 

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[ivan salis]

you hit it big time -- in the old days the "collecters" of those tags were often working folks who worked on the rail road themselves --much the same way as "linemen" working on the telegraph lines often kept a "collection" of insulators (as they replaced them they kept some of the old ones)--a sort of work "by product" collection .