1875 - 1890s dump site. approximate age of bottles found?

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  • Maurer ran a dairy, it may or may not have been a business that advertised. Perhaps there may have been info in a local newspaper. You might find some answers at a local historical society.

    There are a number of books (indexes) published on dairies and their bottles, not sure if there is one for Connecticut.
  • Amazingly clean for a dug bottle but sometimes they come out like that!
  • Finally got a chance to get back to the old dump site this year. Came back with a gem.
    A Whitall & Tatum cobalt poison! Its in perfect condition. My question with this bottle is What was actually inside it? What was the company that sold it?

    Jeff
  • Wow, nice find. The dump that keeps yielding new discoveries :-)

    I am not aware that W-T was in the product business, but I could be wrong. I assume that they mass produced bottles for product manufacturers and bottlers, as well as pharmacies.

    The answers to your last question lies in tracking down some labeled examples...

    Chris
  • Hey Chris, you are correct in that W-T did not produce the product inside the bottle, just the bottle it self. It was up to the buyer to put product specific labels on the bottle. Did some research on the company and this specific type bottle.
    It is called a KC-1 bottle, for poisons ect. It came in many sizes. I have attached the page from the 1880s W-T catalog, this mould ran until about 1920.
  • Found another object, not sure what it is. Looks like a child's tea cup or doll type thing.... Any ideas?
  • Found a Liebigs Beef Wine & Iron this last trip, and a couple broken beauties : ( The Liebigs reads it was prepared by the Jarmuth co, Providence R.I. What exactly is Beef Wine & Iron?
  • Discovered another bottle, an apollinaris style. It appears to be turn molded and has a small applied blob top, and is about 14'' tall. Some searching turned up that it most likely held mineral water or beer. Pre 1900?
  • Bill Lockhart, quoting Julian Toulouse says that turn mold bottles date primarily from 1880 to 1910.

    To me, if anything, they tend to look a bit older than they actually are.

    I continue to be amazed that your dig site has no end..
  • I agree Chris, turn molded bottles do tend to look older. I'm as amazed as you are with what keeps poppin out of the ground. With that in mind, a week or two ago I dug up a JSP malt bottle with the neck missing.....
    (posted the find) So a couple days ago I actually found the neck and top! The pieces fit perfectly so I decided to spend $2.50 on some glass glue and see what happens...I know it is a fairly common bottle, but I have always wanted one.....
  • Found a nice pocket of bottles n such. Gotta go back and see how deep it is!
  • Found a turn mold beer bottle last trip. It has an applied "mineral finish", or " double collar". I'm curious on the age again, seeing that turn mold bottles were produced roughly between 1870 - 1920. I found this in between where I was finding 1880's stuff and 1900's stuff...... Call it 1895? American made? Imported?
  • Dug a little more this weekend, came up with some nice finds. Finally found a Bromo seltzer, and to my surprise a Dr. Kilmers Swamp Root! I have always wanted this bottle and only ever found broken ones. This one is in perfect condition.
  • It's amazing that sometimes bottles clean up so perfectly even after being buried for so many years.

    Regarding the age of the turn mold bottle, it does seem like your trash pit has a mix spanning perhaps a few decades..
  • Been a while but I was able to get back to the old dump and find some stragglers for this year! I was lucky enough to find another Dr. Kilmers Swamp Root! Looks older than the first one I found, crude embossing and the word Bladder is in an off center arc. The second is a John
    Wyeth & Bro medicine bottle,I found a smaller one on a previous dig. Hoping to get one more dig in before the freeze over.....
  • edited December 2015
    Picked up a couple no namers and a broken old tea cup last dig. Was able to glue the cup back together, first "whole" piece of porcelain to come out of the dump... I do have a question/observation... Why do some bottles come out of the ground packed with dirt, having such small openings, while others are completely clean?
  • Orientation in the ground?

    Possibly some were thrown out with a cork in place which I guess could survive

    Local area movement of water in the ground or roots? Fluctuation of water table?
  • Thanks for the insight Chris... Didn't think of the water movement over a century.. Overtime I guess it could just be deposited, depending on orientation.

    Thanks!
    Jeff
  • Season 3!

    Found a couple more artifacts this past weekend.. A soothing syrup, a Mellins food stopper, a Parke Davis little brown bottle. Also found a blob top from my hometown with the bottom missing.... Disappointing, so I 3D printed a base for it haha.
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  • And I thought you were joking about the 3D base, but no! Amazing.

    Or amazing as the fact that every bottle you find seems to come out shiny clean.

    I did not know that Mellins bottle had a glass stopper - presumably there is some play since there would have been some type of gasket...perhaps cork.
  • Hey Chris, I am also amazed, and thankful the bottles come out so clean. As for the mellins bottle, it did have a cork lining that secured the stopper. I have attached images from the SHA website. heres a link to the food bottles page if anyone is interested in learning more.

    http://www.sha.org/bottle/food.htm
  • Found some interesting bottles and relics this past weekend. Found what looks like a child's toy gun, very heavy and rusty. The first bottle is pretty cool, it says SPERM SEWING MACHINE OIL. I'm assuming this is sperm whale oil. The second is a W&T 3 piece mould utility bottle, pretty interesting. Unfortunately they both have quite a few cracks in them......
    I'm wondering what era the whale oil bottle is from?
  • I am wondering if whale oil was still be used in the early 20th century when that bottle was new? Worth looking into.
  • Been a while since visiting the old dump site... Past trips have yielded nothing unfortunately, and I kinda gave up on the site. But this past weekend I decided why not, and found this Chas H Ketchers Castoria. Fully machine made, but real nice condition. Was half buried right on the surface! Recent rains I believe uncovered it...
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  • Did you mean Chas H Fletchers, one of the most successful "medicineers" of his time?

    Or do we have an embossing variant??
  • I'm thinking I misinterpreted the embossing, looked like a "K" to me...
  • Come to think of it, that is one of the few bottles that has the producer's name in script
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