1850s "Black Beauty" Wins the race by a country mile

tinpan · Dec 12, 2009

1850's "Black Beauty" Wins the race by a country mile

Hi all, Been digging most of the week at a demo site.Numerous old buildings and a few built in the 1960's use stand on this site.I found what remained of an early cellar and mostly just got junk and broken bottle and shards. Nearly gave up on the site for several reasons. No-one in the world could md this site as far to much junk. After 4 evenings of looking and hand digging i got this English black beer bottle with a horse on it. Saving grace Very thankful

The area in the early days was were the Irish gold diggers camped and later the Chiness traders had their shops.Around 1880 became part of the local brewery Cohn brothers.When some of the latter buildings were demo-ed between to walls a old hand painted sign was found .This was painted in the early 1960's and coveredd up until this week. Kind of cool but not that old.Well here a KIller bottle and few site pics.

tinpan

mickk · Dec 22, 2009

Re: 1850's "Black Beauty" Wins the race by a country mile

hes done it again! Thats a rare find, well worth holding onto. Take that one with you on a trip to the UK and triple your money. Kinda looks like some backfill on that site.

Our history here is very modern compared to the rest of the world. Finding something from the goldrush 1850s is the best you can hope for. The tasmaniacs find 1810s and 20s. As it is an island, they tended to keep stuff for longer. Everything man made was scarce down there until the 1950s.

Our State Victoria is riddled with old mines and diggings. There is a treasure trove of artifacts just under the ground. Problem is most seekers are forced to do so in a clandestine manner. To out with the Govt, land owners and claim jumpers. If one person could just thoroughly go over an acre, they could retire on the cash from items found. You need that much land as once again supplies were scarce. Nothing was thrown away unless it was broken, everything was reused. It took months for sailing ships to arrive with stores and days to transport them over goat tracks to the diggings where they were sold for huge profits. Finding any unbroken item is a rare find.

There are countless shafts with complete tables set, kit all over the place in pristine condition. Unfortunately they also contain bodies and are a long way underground.

Anyway, thats about the best bottle to find, every collector wants one. I guess the glass was stronger, holding the more expensive whisky or mebe they were too blind to smash em and they just rolled over the heap?