Bottle Digging TIPS/TRICKS FOR FINDING ANTIQUE BOTTLES

[Music] [Music] alright guys we're gonna talk about how to find a bottle dump today I hope the lighting isn't too bad it's going to show you all some of my collection and some of the reason why I dig I'm just going to scan across here you can see the Indians the Eagle on that one right there come across here slowly there's an elk on that one there's a camel on that one another Indian there's an elephant that's a blunt Springs bottle and you can tell that I am an Indian collector so these are all from the same little town here in the Birmingham area and to me they're just one of the coolest looking bottles in the state so that's kind of what I go after the value on these it varies but I'd say from this end to this end that's twenty-five hundred dollars worth of bottles so these crazy 15-foot holes that were digging that are massive and all the work do we put into there substantial value to them one of our larger holes that we dug here recently we kind of added all the bottles up that we dug and it ended up being about a four thousand dollar hole so to dig one of these giant holes it can be productive in the sense of you can make money if you want to sell what you find I sell the stuff that I have duplicates of and I keep the stuff that I like so this is the stuff that I like it's not for sale don't bother asking I'm just kidding actually I do have this one on ebay right now just because I want to get this one has a small crack in it that I want to get one that doesn't have a crack so we'll see but anyways that being said we're going to go ahead and jump right into how to find yourself a location to find these bottles now keep in mind these bottles are gonna be in a pre-1915 dump area nothing newer than that alright well here we go let's talk about it okay guys you've seen my bottles now you see them kind of cleaned up you've heard the value and now I'm sure you're excited to get out there and find something too well guess what using the videos of us digging that's the easy part the hard part is the research that goes on behind it so you've seen the guys in my videos you've seen Clayton you've seen Tristan you've seen Michael you see my wife and my dad what you haven't seen is that all of us have spent countless hours of research and time in two fine the locations 2d it's not something where you can just say ok Google I'm looking for a Birmingham City don't from 1900 guess what you're not gonna find anything you'll never find anything like that you have to actually go and find the hardcopy the the the newspapers you got to find everything that's historic to the area and then you have to literally piece the pieces of the puzzle together to be able to figure out what the city dump is the only time that they'll actually be records is usually now because really and truthfully the back then there weren't regulations that that made them keep up with where the dumps were so I'm going to give you a couple pointers on how to find these areas and how to find good bottles first one is you're gonna want to become a frequent flyer to your local library it's gonna be a big asset you're gonna have to go to your local library you're gonna have to look in the newspaper archives and you're gonna have to pick a time period if you want to find the Hutchinson style bottles like I showed you all that I clicked you're gonna be looking for stuff that's pre 1913 so that kind of gives you a good idea to start if you're wanting older you're gonna have to look older if you want though you're gonna look newer we all around here prefer to stay pretty 1920 so if we do any of our research is usually right at the turn of the century between about 1890 and 1910 and that gives us a good general place to start so you're gonna want to go to your local library you're gonna want to ask to see the newspaper archives once you get into the archives you're going to need to search for keywords a couple of those keywords garbage garbage disposal sanitation sanitation ditch landfill broken glass any terminology that could have been used to describe the local dump at that time you need to search for that key term in those newspapers and a lot of times in the newspaper article it'll what it will be is it won't be a the dump is at this location it'll be miss Susan at 33 401 North Street is complaining about a stench from the local dock because of the southward winds okay so then you piece that pieces the pieces of the puzzle together you know where she lived at you know that there was a southward wind and you know had been close enough for her to smell it so that puts you so close to it that all you have to do is take the time to go out and find it so your newspapers are a big part the next big part is going to be your Sanborn maps I know I've talked to y'all in the past about this and I actually have a video but it's been so long ago now I wanted to kind of revamp it and go back through this stuff so you're saying board maps where can you find them you can find them online you can find them through the Library of Congress sometimes even your local museums will have some which is nice I know that our local museum here the Bessemer hall of history actually has printed out portfolios full of these actual Sanborn maps you're saying more Maps what they're gonna do for you is they're gonna let you know where the locations of the buildings were at the time maybe your modelers they're gonna let you know where houses were that are no longer there they're gonna let you know all kinds of stuff that you wouldn't know without I mean it's really going to make things easier and one of the key things you're going to want to look for on these Sanborn maps is possibly outhouses if you want a privy dig that's a great place to start we've just started venturing into that we'll have some videos coming on that shortly these Sanborn maps will show you exactly where the preview were and all you had to do is take it probe with you and probe the ground and you'll find them usually pretty quick it's amazing I don't know why we never did it before so anyways that's that's a good place to start as privies but aside from that the same Warmack will show you the creeks and the reason that can be important is at least down here in the South they reroute it a lot of the creeks so they are rerouted however you want to say it if the creeks went through the middle of town and it was causing problems they've just taken digging a ditch and they've moved the creek around the town so why is the creek important because they put City don'ts next to the creeks back then like I said there was no regulations to keep them from doing this a lot of times some towns like the Brookside what the bottle had the elk on it that town actually dump their trash into the creek so there don't was was the creek so that's why you see a lot of people walk in creeks but a lot of times the dump was right next to a creek about a mile out of the city center and close to a graveyard so that's a few things you can check off okay if I'm am i within a mile is there creek or a swampy area is there graveyard if there is all in that little area you need to get you a bottle probe and go out there and go to town and look because you're probably in a pretty good place to look for one that's a few of the markers that you really want to look at and like I said the reason they put it next to the creek was it was unusable land it was swampy why not put it up there you don't want to put a dump on a piece of land that's very usable you want to put it on places that nobody can use the reason they put it next to a graveyard was because the graveyard the people that were there carried disease and the don't carry disease so they put the diseased things together in the same area and like I said around a mile outside of town to keep it away from the town so that's just a few things for y'all to think about oh the other thing is the reason it's within a mile is because back then they were pulling garbage wagons with donkeys and mules they weren't using a truck or a car or whatever to haul their garbage off they didn't have time to haul it ten miles out of town they could only haul it as far as that mule or horse would go to noon today on multiple trips back and forth so it wasn't as far out of town as what you may think so that's a few of the things that I wanted to bring you all attention the other thing is is like I said the networking aspect of it of using people like like I do with my friends that we have that go out and do we all use each other as sounding boards hey what do you think about this the railroad ran here the creek was there there was a coke oven over here so we know it wasn't there and at the end of the day we all come together and we all put our thoughts together and guess what it paints a clearer picture than what it would have had if it was just one person so that's this I cannot stress enough how important it is to network the other thing is if you want to find the knowledge a lot of times your bottle diggers are not going to share their locations because of a couple of reasons one reason is you they're gonna risk telling you and you're gonna dig out all their good stuff it's kind of like having an awesome fishing hole you're catching the biggest fish you've ever caught in your life and everybody wants to know where it is are you going to tell them more than likely not it's sad but you got to keep your places to yourself because you risk people messing up your area leaving uncovered holes leaving dangerous places even being rude to the local cops or to the local law enforcement all of that stuff can reflect badly on you even though you were there so that's a few things to think about there the other thing is is that if you go to the local glass and bottle shows and you meet these bottled ears in person and you meet these old-timers have been doing it for thirty and forty years a lot of them are getting to the age where they can't dig anymore and if they see your face at these shows and they see that you're very interested and you want to know everything about it well they're way more out to actually share their information with you then if you just hey where are you digging at or hey where are you digging at or hey you never seen me before how did you find that spot over there or where is your spot that's not how it works you have to build a reputation in the community before the information can be shared with you that's the same thing with us we keep our spots between us five or six people and it goes no further and that's no offense to any of the viewers or anything like that there's only so much room for you to dig and if we don't know you personally it makes things a lot harder so not trying to hurt feelings there but that's just a few things to look out for so I hope this video is helpful y'all and I hope it will help you find a local dump of your own and I hope you find some great bottles like we have 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Channel: Adventure Archaeology

Views: 51,559

Keywords: bottle digging, digging for bottles, old bottles, antique bottles, how to clean bottles, how to clean old bottles, privy digging, bottle digger, bottle digging probe, urban archaeology, archaeology, archaeologist, exploring alabama, alabama history, saving history, privy digger, metal detecting, treasure hunter, how to, how to find bottles, how to find antique bottles, how to find a bottle dump, bottle dump, old town dump, digging for old bottles, digging bottles

Id: DEkF2MT5JlI

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Fri May 25 2018