Where's the goods man!

jellise1

I recently moved out to 150 year old farmstead in SD. I am a treasure hunter by nature and hobby, and went exploring with my Metal detector out in the shelter belt of the property. In the back corner, to my surprise I found a 20' x 30' heaping mound of cans old bottles and a few toys from the 30's. Most the bottles appear to be from the 50's and 60's. I have actually sold a few of these on Ebay, and thats great and everything but I know there has to be older ones on the property somewhere. so I guess my ? is does anyone have any good Ideas or methods that they use to find these elusive bottle? what are the chances that these older bottles are under the huge mound of newer old bottles?! thank you for any responses and Ideas!

BobB

You will probably get lots of useful advice from bottle diggers lurking nearby but here's a couple suggestions I have learned from fellow members of the Little Rhody Bottle Club: try to determine the location of the original house and out-buildings (and water supply)...usually about 100 feet behind the house there would have been a privy (which often holds bottles, etc. being discarded...or lost out of back pockets). Usually dumps will be away from the family water supply. Dumps (like privies) would not usually be more than a couple hundred feet from the primary buildings and not usually using up plantable land, so look for swampy or stoney depressions or outcroppings. In flat SD without rock outcropping or swales, you may have to continue looking along tree lines and the edges of fields -- but the rule of 100/200 feet from the primary building(s) still pertains. You might have to study local land maps to determine where the earliest buildings might have been; many parts of the country had commercial atlas's produced during 1870's-1890's that include all known habitable buildings (Beer's, and Richards & Hartley are two such atlas series seen here in the East). [I'll be interested to see what other suggestions show up here.] Happy hunting.

jellise1

That'll definitely give me a good start. It really didn't make sense for them to be where the newer pile is located that would be a heck of a walk to toss out bottles. those were definitely put there by something that was motorized and dumped. we actually live in the original house, its been updated and added ont over the years(they actually took a house from about a mile away and added it to this one). I know where the outhouse was but it was taken out when they put the septic tank in so whatever was there probably isnt anymore. There is alot of stone outcroppings back in the other corner of the property (about a hundred or so feet from the back door) old trees around them (unplantable). your info has been very helpful thank you so much. would they have thrown anything metal out with their bottles?something my metal detector might pick up. I am aggrevated I can't search this area for a few months ground is frozen. but I can scout with metal detector if you think it would be worth it.

BobB

They would have tossed into the dump pile anything that no longer had value to them that could not be gotten rid of by burning (in fireplace or kitchen stove) or composted (organic leftovers from the kitchen). So some scrap metal is undoubtedly in the dump. And that metal is most likely ferric (iron) like cans & broken irreparable tools. Whereas anything of copper, tin, pewter etc. would have had potential value to the 19th century homesteading farmer. This later case suggests that running your metal detector around & over the footprints of former barns & out-buildings might produce as much diggable treasure as dump piles (because 19th century barns were the repository for all the farmer's castoff but maybe usable scraps). Though the ground is frozen right now, I don't know any reason why scanning with a metal detector in Winter won't be as productive in locating prospective digs as in Summer; Winter might actually provide you the advantage of your being able to get through brush that will not be as easily accessible in Summer. But don't rush the poking & probing with a shovel until after it warms up enough & dries out enough that you can comfortably sit on your identified spot and carefully push back the top couple inches of duff/turf to a distance of an arm's length all around using hand tools like a small trowel and a short pointed wooden stake. After you have some idea of whether you have located a whole vein of dump pickings or only a single old nail, then you can decide whether to turn over whole shovel-fulls, or try "sounding" by working a 3' iron pin into the ground until you "feel" something hard, or continue to sit there, working over the surface with just the trowel & "dibble". Go slowly & carefully or you will surely break something you would rather not have. -BobB

jellise1

believe it or not it was in the 60's here today. So using the advice you gave me, I picked out the most likely spot to hunt. Raked out a 5' x 5' area. with no digging this is what I came up with. its just fragments but I can tell the amber stuff is blown and old. can't wait until I can put some time in on this spot. thanks for your help!

jellise1

found these today at my spot I think they are from around early 1900's not as old as I would like but a good start. lots of blown glass necks and tops that have been broken over the years hope to eventually find a few intact!