How Many Bottle Hunt?

[Graw]

I Just started picking up old bottles while Metal detecting. Is there a site that one can look up what their worth ? -- thanks Graw

 

[TimC]

Hi Tim, thanks for bringing up one of my favorite topics. I love bottle hunting just as much as detecting. The whole thing started years ago when I found a bottle from my wife's grandfathers dairy company, which he founded in the 1930s. Now, I have many bottles from their dairy, as well as an old milkbox, and I collect antique beer, soda milk, ink and medicine bottles from Rhode Island and Eastern Conn. I have found quite a few dumps while out detecting in the woods over the years, and as a matter of fact, my buddy and I are going to check one out in CT on Saturday. We also have an early 1800s property that we have permission to dig the outhouse pits on. We're going to hit that in another couple of weeks. The owner has two known outhouse locations on the property, so we're hoping for some really good stuff.

Here's a pic of some of the bottles in my collection. These are some old milk bottles, and some colored label sodas:

No problem Kidd, I believe that bottles are just as much relics and a part of history as the other stuff we find in the ground with our detectors. You have quite the collection there with some very interesting and old soda bottles. Remember according to many bottle hunters and Cash and Treasures Tv show. one of the best places to find the really old stuff is under out houses, you know outdoor toilets for those city slickers.

 

[Jaichim24]

I inadvertantly "bottle collected" after digging up some old paint cans. My house was built in the 1850's, so the yard is filled with trash. There were 4 paint cans in total, and the person who buried them had crushed the bottles up so they could fit as many in the cans as possible. The ones in the photo were the only ones I kept. The rest were too broken. Enjoy.

p.s. Below is a link to a cool website that gives additional info on dating bottles. One of the bottles in the picture has WT&Co letters on it. The website says it dates from 1857-1901.

Also, the smallest one that looks like an ink jar, that "dirt" isn't dirt, is an orange/red label, that says "New York" on it. (I'm located in Connecticut) Unfortunately I wiped a bunch of it off before I realized it was a label.

A lot of the other bottles had words like "apothacary" on them and stuff. Think I had an old school drug addict living at my house. I have a stone foundation that someone shored up with mortar at some point. As filler, they used more of these type of bottles, they are protruding from the mortar.

http://www.myinsulators.com/glass-factories/bottlemarks3.html

 

[Westernlegend1]

Nice ink well, have you checked to see if it has value? Some of them do.

 

[Wannabegolddigger]

I used to Bottle hunt when I lived in New England. I retrieved most of my bottles from scuba diving lakes.

 

[aridice53]

Hi Graw,
Here's a bottle forum with a great bunch of folks on it. They're always a lot of help on dating and valuing old bottles. http://www.antique-bottles.net/index.htm
And here's the bottle I found while detecting.
Char