can you date a brick...

[Hosensack]

Let me rephrase, can you take a brick and pinpoint a close time period of when it would have been used.( Although dating one would be pretty cheap wouldn't eat much.)

 

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[fiatboy]

I don't know how, but I know for sure that it is possible. Good luck.

 

[wesfrye53]

Wouldn't give you much any disagreements either; although there's probably some folks out there that would swear they've dated a brick..

Seriously, I have 2 handmade bricks that I was able to date simply because I knew the background of the structures they were part of. One was approx. 1821 and the other 1889. I've also seen some bricks that have the maker's name embedded, but they are few and far between. Sorry,but that's about all I can offer.

 

[Hosensack]

Wouldn't give you much any disagreements either; although there's probably some folks out there that would swear they've dated a brick..

Seriously, I have 2 handmade bricks that I was able to date simply because I knew the background of the structures they were part of. One was approx. 1821 and the other 1889. I've also seen some bricks that have the maker's name embedded, but they are few and far between. Sorry,but that's about all I can offer.

unfortunately I need it for the opposite reason, to date the structure in which they were found.

I believe Daryl had suggested finding a nail or something, but all I've got so far is a couple bricks(the rest of them are red powder in the mud) was hoping maybe could use them.

 

[thompy]

i don't know how you go about it, but watched [history channel] something on this a while back, there are collectors, i picked one up that is slightly larger than a standard brick with a gloss on it. haven't looked looked the name up yet.

 

[Kilika]

I've never dated a brick, but I have dated a few blockheads

Good luck & keep us posted

 

[tenbears]

I'll be spending the next two or three months laying bricks i consider that a relationship!

 

[Functional]

Let me rephrase, can you take a brick and pinpoint a close time period of when it would have been used.( Although dating one would be pretty cheap wouldn't eat much.)

Here I thought you were going to leave that question wide open.

The only method I've heard of for actually establishing the date of a brick, piece of pottery, etc., is to use carbon dating. (No, thats not a website, relating to dating terrestrial matter.)

As with any dating, having a picture of that which is to be dated, would help. Other factors, such as specific gravity, size, weight, color, etc, are also useful. (I'm too tired to mention the related pun's that go with those terms.)

F.

 

[twister]

Found 1 brick, married it, divorced it.

Found another brick, married it, divorced it.

Needless to say I am back in the masonry business

 

[Monty]

If many of the remaining bricks have dissolved into powder it obviously is not a kiln fired brick so that should have some bearing on the date although I know not much about bricks. Monty

 

[MTdutchpop]

In our town there are kilns in the gulches for bricks plus an art center that made bricks. Then there was a compromise between bricks and concrete. All the east/west sidewalks were brick, North south were concrete.
Maybe you can date the brick by finding similar era construction in homes and figure your site was then built at a similar time. Even the area of the town tells a lot about the date of construction. Entire neighborhoods go up at the same time. With our town, many were mansions and competition was high. The newspaper recorded the construction of many of them.