Dug up a Hutch

jadocs · Mar 15, 2017

Thought I would share this here. A few weeks ago I was relic hunting and dug up this bottle 6" down.

I don't know anything about bottles and certainly didn't know anything about this particular one. After some research and contacting the folks at Hutchbook.com I found out it was pretty rare.

Warwick Bottling Works, Newport News VA

Here she is fresh out of the ground:

Here she is cleaned up:

Here is what is listed on Hutchbook about it:

Turns out the number of these bottles are less than 10 known.

And here is Hutchbooks response to my email which told me more about it. Now I'm looking for bottles everywhere I go!

Nice find!

The bottle you found actually DOES match the one we have catalogued as VA0074. The natural color of glass is aqua (pale green). In order to turn it different colors, various types of additives are added to the mixture, e.g. adding gold will turn it red (that's why red glass is expensive). The owner(s) of Warwick Bottling Works paid the glass manufacturer extra in order to have their bottles blown with clear glass, likley hoping that doing so would make the contents appear to be more appealing to customers. The additive the manufacturer of VA0074 used to turn the glass mixture clear was manganese. Ultra-violet light (e.g. the sun's rays) will turn clear glass various shades of amethyst, depending on how much manganese was in the glass mixture. The use of manganese as an additive was curtailed due to WWI and an increased demand for manganese to manufacture munitions. Even though your bottle was likely buried in the ground for well over 100 years, it has been exposed to UV rays because they penetrate the earth and react with the manganese in the glass. VA0074 is catalogued as "clear" because that was the original glass color at the time the bottle was manufactured.

Yes, the "R" in the listing means the bottle's rarity rating is "Rare" (position your cursor over the "R" and a pop-up will appear spelling out "Rare"). The rarity definitions we are using for HutchBook.com are spelled out in the "Hutchinson Data Definitions" portion of the "Hutchinson Directory" page.

We have no historical information about this bottling plant in file and aren't aware of any published books providing information about Virginia soda bottlers or their bottles. The public library and/or a historical society in Newport News should be able to help you find information about the years the bottling plant was in operation, its location, the ownership, etc. A related variant of your bottle is VA0073. That bottle included the owner's name - N. D. Pitman. No doubt the "P (in diamond)" embossed on VA0074 was Pitman's trade mark.

Continued success with your detecting!

Ron F.
[email protected]
HutchBook.com

Ricki7 · Mar 15, 2017

That gets a wow, thanks for posting all the research . A lot of the collectors here will be glad you posted it , congrats , ,,,,,HH

NectarDetector · Mar 15, 2017

Great find and info, thanks for sharing and congrats!

jadocs · Mar 15, 2017

Thank you all

GLASSHOPPER1955 · Mar 16, 2017

Nice Hutchie! Generally 1890s to early 1900s. I love digging those.

ScubaDetective · Mar 16, 2017

I really enjoy finding hutches in the water. Those stoppers set of my detectors just fine.

Yours is an awesome rare find and to a collector might bring big dollars. Congrats

jadocs · Mar 16, 2017

Thanks again, yeah that spring stop was exactly what set off my detector.

GLASSHOPPER1955 · Mar 16, 2017

Just wanted to mention- if you plan on selling that hutch - it has most value locally or regionally, because of the local history angle.

jadocs · Mar 16, 2017

GLASSHOPPER1955 said:
Just wanted to mention- if you plan on selling that hutch - it has most value locally or regionally, because of the local history angle.

Great point glasshopper. I'm not even sure how much it's worth. The only thing I could find was one other website that was an antique auction place which sold the same bottle. Unfortunately it did not list the price and it cost $ to join in order to see it.

SilverSal · Mar 17, 2017

Nice find, congrats

Gaspipe · Mar 17, 2017

jadocs said:
Great point glasshopper. I'm not even sure how much it's worth. The only thing I could find was one other website that was an antique auction place which sold the same bottle. Unfortunately it did not list the price and it cost $ to join in order to see it.

Nice find,hutches are always nice finds. As Glasshopper said they are locally collectible especially clear or aqua examples and usually are valued in the $20 range. Those that are amber are less common with cobalt being much rarer and much more valuable . These uncommon colors are more collectable to the bottle collector outside of your local area. Hutches are the type of bottle that you can find by the dozens when you hit a larger late 1800's dump . Once I dug up about 50 of them with varying local vendors embossing on them. Good digging.

jadocs · Mar 17, 2017

Thanks for the info Gaspipe

GLASSHOPPER1955 · Mar 18, 2017

Gaspipe said:
Nice find,hutches are always nice finds. As Glasshopper said they are locally collectible especially clear or aqua examples and usually are valued in the $20 range. Those that are amber are less common with cobalt being much rarer and much more valuable . These uncommon colors are more collectable to the bottle collector outside of your local area. Hutches are the type of bottle that you can find by the dozens when you hit a larger late 1800's dump . Once I dug up about 50 of them with varying local vendors embossing on them. Good digging.

10-4 about 10 years ago I shelled out about $150 at an antique auction for a rare local hutch because it was a rare local that I probably would have never ever dug. None of my digger friends have it either.

BTW, here is a cobalt hutch I have (Lomax, Chicago) that is probably the most common cobalt hutch out there but cool as **** to look at.

jadocs · Mar 18, 2017

Wow that's nice!

Dug up a Hutch

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