plugcutter84
Full Member
- #1
Thread Owner
Hi everyone. It's been a while since I last posted but I wanted to share some recent finds. I was up at my 92 year old grandmas house in upstate ny for thanksgiving and had a great time. Saw family, ate good food, drank good beer, etc... But the main thing I was dying to do was hit a late 1800's dump I found a few years ago.
This area is loaded with history, and while we had always found broken glass in the creek I had never narrowed down the source. Until two years ago when I hiked the creek about a mile back from grandmas house, and scaled a steep, wet, slate filled ravine. While going up I started finding broken glass, and by scratching the sides I started pulling out whole bottles. Nothing phenomenal but they were by far the oldest complete bottles I had found so it really got my blood boiling! Fast forward to a couple weeks ago.
I've hit this dump twice before and I know it's gotta be pretty big. I believe it was probably a town dump because there is a road at the top of the hill and it would've been an easy place to unload a wagon full of trash. The hillside is on land owned by my dads high school buddy and we have permission to be there, but he also allows hunters on his land... And the NY firearms season had just begun. I talked to him on Friday though and he told me nobody would be in that area so my girlfriend and I braved the hike in.
Thoughts of blobs and pontil scars filled my mind. I couldn't wait to see if the site looked the same as last year since they had a significant flood in the spring. We dug a good number of bottles including some black glass ales, a squat whiskey, some meds, and a strap side flask. I also kept two ketchups, which I don't nomally keep but one has a pat. Date 1898. And I put ketchup on everything so it makes sense that I should have one or two in my collection. The black glass bottles were a first for me, and by the end of my trip I had a 6 pack! One has a sand pontil, one is etched which has me curious, one is three piece mold, and two are embossed CH Evans ale.
I also found my first (mostly) complete stoneware crock, a nice turn mold squat whiskey, a pretty green wine, and a platts chloride.
Next I got the nice aqua apothecary, a strap side flask, a couple sauces, one is marked Heinz but it looks like a Lea and perrins..., some meds, a couple are local, and the bromos. The one on the far right is the darkest bromo I've ever seen!
Next are some of the screw tops I kept, mainly because they've gotta be old. I'm guessing they're inks? And the one on the far right looks like cut crystal. Maybe a perfume?
Next I got a pretty Amber strap side style, not sure if it's actually a flask. Also an amber casters ink, my first cone ink ever!
Lastly are two nice pipe bowls and a couple group shots of everything.
By the end of the first afternoon there my girlfriend was tired and cold so we headed back to the house. But I couldn't stop thinking about what else might be there, so I bought a $6 headlamp and headed back up the following night, after dark and all the hunters were out of the woods. Ultimately I was there for about 5 hours total between the two days. I'm pretty happy with the haul and I can only imagine what else might be lying under that dirt! Can't wait for the next trip to grandmas!
This area is loaded with history, and while we had always found broken glass in the creek I had never narrowed down the source. Until two years ago when I hiked the creek about a mile back from grandmas house, and scaled a steep, wet, slate filled ravine. While going up I started finding broken glass, and by scratching the sides I started pulling out whole bottles. Nothing phenomenal but they were by far the oldest complete bottles I had found so it really got my blood boiling! Fast forward to a couple weeks ago.
I've hit this dump twice before and I know it's gotta be pretty big. I believe it was probably a town dump because there is a road at the top of the hill and it would've been an easy place to unload a wagon full of trash. The hillside is on land owned by my dads high school buddy and we have permission to be there, but he also allows hunters on his land... And the NY firearms season had just begun. I talked to him on Friday though and he told me nobody would be in that area so my girlfriend and I braved the hike in.
Thoughts of blobs and pontil scars filled my mind. I couldn't wait to see if the site looked the same as last year since they had a significant flood in the spring. We dug a good number of bottles including some black glass ales, a squat whiskey, some meds, and a strap side flask. I also kept two ketchups, which I don't nomally keep but one has a pat. Date 1898. And I put ketchup on everything so it makes sense that I should have one or two in my collection. The black glass bottles were a first for me, and by the end of my trip I had a 6 pack! One has a sand pontil, one is etched which has me curious, one is three piece mold, and two are embossed CH Evans ale.
I also found my first (mostly) complete stoneware crock, a nice turn mold squat whiskey, a pretty green wine, and a platts chloride.
Next I got the nice aqua apothecary, a strap side flask, a couple sauces, one is marked Heinz but it looks like a Lea and perrins..., some meds, a couple are local, and the bromos. The one on the far right is the darkest bromo I've ever seen!
Next are some of the screw tops I kept, mainly because they've gotta be old. I'm guessing they're inks? And the one on the far right looks like cut crystal. Maybe a perfume?
Next I got a pretty Amber strap side style, not sure if it's actually a flask. Also an amber casters ink, my first cone ink ever!
Lastly are two nice pipe bowls and a couple group shots of everything.
By the end of the first afternoon there my girlfriend was tired and cold so we headed back to the house. But I couldn't stop thinking about what else might be there, so I bought a $6 headlamp and headed back up the following night, after dark and all the hunters were out of the woods. Ultimately I was there for about 5 hours total between the two days. I'm pretty happy with the haul and I can only imagine what else might be lying under that dirt! Can't wait for the next trip to grandmas!
