jgas
Silver Member
- Apr 23, 2008
- 3,805
- 2,497
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- DFX, Pro 6000XL, SunRay Probe, Centech Pinpointer
One in a thousand pits! Maybe one in a million pits! We still can't believe it!
Well folks we were at it again doing some privy digging back at the site where we found the double eagle flask( my Avatar). This privy is in sight of that pit we did. A different home altogether though. We had already dug two pits as we started out bright and early at 9:00 am. That's early for us since we dig all day long it seams
So not much action in the first two pits. Just some common stuff, blank medicines and some perfumery type bottles. Nothing to faint about, that comes later
So Don figured he had probed this pit a few days earlier and it just kept calling him back. We know that we are dogging every possible pit, trash or privy in this location though. So we decided to give it a go. It felt really crunchy like gravel or cinders in the pit. Sure enough the first 3 feet or so was filled with cinders, maybe from an early furnace or stove. So we figured anything in the pit would be obliterated!
So we kept probing as we went down. Poke here, poke there, poke everywhere just to reassure us that we should keep digging. I was within a minute or two of just giving in and calling it on this one when I thought to myself, let's just finish it since we are all the way down here. So we kept at it and finally the cinders stopped and we saw a bit more regular ash and some dirt mixed in.
I was concentrating on a corner area that felt really soft and relatively cinder free. It was then when I saw the bottom of a bottle that at first glance appeared to be intact. And I thought for sure it was Hood's Sarsaparilla. Pretty common bottle but at least it's something. It had the indented panel that looked like it at first. It was time to get the hand rake and be a bit more careful. So I slowly scraped away a huge conglomerate of rust and debris that was right on top of it. That's when I saw the whole thing move. Do and I said the same thing, and that was " It moved to easy, it's broke." So I kept at it and saw that the base had several sides, more than a sarsaparilla bottle. And it was huge!!
Then I thought to myself it's a Apothecary bottle from a store. Still jazzed up about that even, I pulled on the base and it broke loose from it's Earthly confines!
"Holy *#@*, it's a Cathedral Pickle and it's a gallon size."
Unbelievable as I pulled it out I quickly scanned the entire bottle for probe holes, cracks, chips or whatever would give us a huge letdown. Nothing, nothing at all but a crisp beautiful huge cathedral. Wow...I don't know about you all, but I am sure I am right by saying these don't pop up out of privies very often. Maybe One in Thousand pits, Maybe a Million Pits! Who knows....I have never even seen a piece of one let alone the entire bottle intact! Needless to say Don and I were giggling like school kids for several minutes. It's those times as a pit digger, as I am sure other pit diggers would agree, that when you find something that makes you shake uncontrollably for minutes on end then you found something great. Historical and just flat out cool! It will go down as one of our best finds for sure. It sure was nice to dig this behemoth and get it out whole.
As Mel Fisher would say, Today's the Day! It sure was for us
Hope you enjoy the pictures as Don was snapping them as fast as he could. Thanks for looking and remember to always be safe out the while treasure hunting! 
jgas
Well folks we were at it again doing some privy digging back at the site where we found the double eagle flask( my Avatar). This privy is in sight of that pit we did. A different home altogether though. We had already dug two pits as we started out bright and early at 9:00 am. That's early for us since we dig all day long it seams
So not much action in the first two pits. Just some common stuff, blank medicines and some perfumery type bottles. Nothing to faint about, that comes laterSo Don figured he had probed this pit a few days earlier and it just kept calling him back. We know that we are dogging every possible pit, trash or privy in this location though. So we decided to give it a go. It felt really crunchy like gravel or cinders in the pit. Sure enough the first 3 feet or so was filled with cinders, maybe from an early furnace or stove. So we figured anything in the pit would be obliterated!
So we kept probing as we went down. Poke here, poke there, poke everywhere just to reassure us that we should keep digging. I was within a minute or two of just giving in and calling it on this one when I thought to myself, let's just finish it since we are all the way down here. So we kept at it and finally the cinders stopped and we saw a bit more regular ash and some dirt mixed in. I was concentrating on a corner area that felt really soft and relatively cinder free. It was then when I saw the bottom of a bottle that at first glance appeared to be intact. And I thought for sure it was Hood's Sarsaparilla. Pretty common bottle but at least it's something. It had the indented panel that looked like it at first. It was time to get the hand rake and be a bit more careful. So I slowly scraped away a huge conglomerate of rust and debris that was right on top of it. That's when I saw the whole thing move. Do and I said the same thing, and that was " It moved to easy, it's broke." So I kept at it and saw that the base had several sides, more than a sarsaparilla bottle. And it was huge!!
Then I thought to myself it's a Apothecary bottle from a store. Still jazzed up about that even, I pulled on the base and it broke loose from it's Earthly confines! "Holy *#@*, it's a Cathedral Pickle and it's a gallon size."
Unbelievable as I pulled it out I quickly scanned the entire bottle for probe holes, cracks, chips or whatever would give us a huge letdown. Nothing, nothing at all but a crisp beautiful huge cathedral. Wow...I don't know about you all, but I am sure I am right by saying these don't pop up out of privies very often. Maybe One in Thousand pits, Maybe a Million Pits! Who knows....I have never even seen a piece of one let alone the entire bottle intact! Needless to say Don and I were giggling like school kids for several minutes. It's those times as a pit digger, as I am sure other pit diggers would agree, that when you find something that makes you shake uncontrollably for minutes on end then you found something great. Historical and just flat out cool! It will go down as one of our best finds for sure. It sure was nice to dig this behemoth and get it out whole. As Mel Fisher would say, Today's the Day! It sure was for us
Hope you enjoy the pictures as Don was snapping them as fast as he could. Thanks for looking and remember to always be safe out the while treasure hunting! jgas
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