J. Russak Bottle, Inks, more

jgas · Jun 21, 2010

Went to do another privy dig and found a few keepers. Believe me, these are just a few pics of some of the finds. Don and I found this pit to be around 6 feet deep. We located several plain small medicinesa dna couple of blank slug beers.

After this pit we decided to probe another area that was once a trash dump, although there was a home that stood there at least back to 1893. So we probed and probed until the tip of the probe was worn down. So we went to the 3 foot probe and Don located a possible pit. Decided what the heck, we have nothing to lose but sweat ( it was 90 degrees). Don dug down and at around 3 feet he located this J. Russak bottle. I wish I would have taken a picture of it in situ. It was cool, laying face up so that the embossing was looking straight at us. The ground was hard as a rock so we chipped away with a screwdriver probe until it broke loose. It turned out to be in great shape with no cracks. A couple of very minor chips.

The perplexing part of this bottle is that there is very limited information on it on the net. I did locate one that was found on a ship wreck in the North Sea and another that was for sale in Australia, but thats it. I think its a Bitters bottle. The last two words on the bottle, if you can't read them on the picture are Jamaica and Dresden. Just a cool find in an area where I suppose if we dug everywhere we would come up with stuff. Just so happens that he probed this one spot perfectly. All the other bottles came from the first pit. The J. Russak and larger ink well came out of the same hole. All in all it was a worthwhile dig. Any info that anyone can gather for the Russak would be great. I dig with a guy that has 30 years under his belt and he has never seen anything like it. Thanks for looking jgas

civilman1 · Jul 26, 2010

There all excellent dig's but I like the J.Russak bottle the best....Greats save's :icon_thumright:

xanthea · Jul 26, 2010

Hi there.

I am located in Swakopmund, NAMIBIA. (South West Coast of Africa).

The bottle came to light last Saturday whilst digging into an old refuse dump that was begun by German colonialists approx dating to 1900...thats according to other items recovered. (Square case gins and Bols glass and Stone bottles) It was quite a treasure trove as the squares are in almost impeccable condition.

jgas · Jul 27, 2010

Xanthea, that is just plain crazy....This bottle has been discovered in the U.S. , Australia, and now Africa. as you suggest with the German Colonists that is most likely right. I have done some extensive research into this J. Russak bottle. If ya want to know a bit, let me know. It can get long winded...In short though, from what I understand, Alfred Russak was the sole proprietor of the Firm of J. Russak from Kosten Posen Germany, he traveled all over the world to all sorts of exhibitions and won awards for his concoction of Bitters. Maybe you know more about it. It has to be a fairly rare find. Thanks again for the reply. :thumbsup:

jgas

manic miner · Apr 6, 2014

Just came across your post looking for information about my J Russak bottle I found on a shipwreck twenty years ago. I was diving off the North Norfolk coast in the uk. Since finding it I have wanted to know more about what it contained, how old, why it has city names on the side. Mine was corked and almost full when found, on the ascent from the dive I heard aloud pop which was quite alarming until I realized it was the cork popping.