Dug the old town dump today with scotk9

[cti4sw]

Went to a local creek that scotk9 had pegged as a town dump area. We picked a spot on the bank with a lot of debris and started digging, but no MDs today. In the end, we came out with this haul:

53 intact bottles
​

Of the bottles, these were the most interesting:

Rosenberger's Dairies pint milk jar


The Dill Co. of Norristown, PA unknown vial


Dr. White's Lon-Ge Hai-La cough syrup from Lehighton, PA
​

We did recover a gallon jug that Scotk9 took home. I don't have a pic of that one, hopefully he does.

Then, the rest of it:

20 flatware shards


a flat serving dish c.1911 with the mark "Moriyama"


a split twin-handled vintage china soup bowl whose glue is drying​

a mostly-intact ebony china goblet


an antique bronze door plate


a vintage ceramic baby doll's head
​

We also found my first horseshoe, which is languishing in some ACV, Japanese porcelain feet to some sort of figurine, a thimble advertising Whitman Electricians of Lansdale, PA, a vintage Listerine bottle from Lambert Pharmaceuticals, 3 mason jar lids, a tin pepper can, and a few other items I can't think of off the top of my head. Can't wait to expand the hole and find more cool stuff

EDIT: The milk bottle, Dill Co. bottle, cough syrup bottle, thimble, Moriyama pottery dish, and vintage china soup bowl will be added to the Hatfield Museum & History Society collection.

 

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[mamabear]

Wow! those are great finds! If there are soda bottles, do they have dates on the bottom?

 

[cti4sw]

Wow! those are great finds! If there are soda bottles, do they have dates on the bottom?

I have no idea how to read the bottoms. On anything glass, period.

 

[winslow]

Lot's of cool stuff there. I love old dumps! Congrats on the finds and the fun.

 

[ohiowhiteguy]

the baby doll head creeps me out..nice finds
owg.

 

[cti4sw]

the baby doll head creeps me out..nice finds
owg.

Lol my wife said the same thing

 

[vpnavy]

Great finds cti4sw!

 

[hamiddetecting]

Very nice

Congratulations

 

[surf]

Dr Whites Lon GE Hai La Lung Healer Sign | eBay

Hello cti4sw,

Nice finds, sir. Looks like you are just getting down to the TOC level, at that dump. Will you be returning and broadening your search / digging?

Kudos for donating to the local Historical Museum.

The Professor Dill's, I believe, is the oldest. Looks like it might be a sample, or a Worm Syrup. He made a number of products in Norristown:

"PROF DILL'S BALM OF LIFE THE DILL MEDICINE CO. NORRISTOWN, PA.
DILL'S WORM SYRUP
DILL'S COUGH SYRUP DILL MEDICINE CO. NORRISTOWN, PA."

Antique Medicines Bottle Nexus Section - D -

 

[Gemini Alpha]

Awesome Bottles! And that Goblet would be really cool if it were undamaged! Still, very cool finds. Love digging for bottles! Doorplate rocks as well. bye GA

 

[tokameel]

Thanks for sharing this cool stuff!

 

[TooManyHobbies]

I like the milk bottle.

 

[webatch]

Cool finds I like the old bottles. I have been searching for an old town dump just over the hill from where I live. My grandfather took me down there when I was a kid. Said they stopped using it when he was a youngster. As a kid I dug many nice bottles out of there and sold them at a local hobby store. I'm guessing anything in there would have to be 100 plus years old by now. But the woods have grown up so and it all looks so much different than I remember... hey its only been 40 years since I dug in there how can things change that much?

Posts like yours keep me inspired to keep searching... I know its there.

Oh and your not married are you? Can't imagine the wife letting you take over the kitchen like that...

 

[cti4sw]

Hello cti4sw,

Nice finds, sir. Looks like you are just getting down to the TOC level, at that dump. Will you be returning and broadening your search / digging?

Kudos for donating to the local Historical Museum.

The Professor Dill's, I believe, is the oldest. Looks like it might be a sample, or a Worm Syrup. He made a number of products in Norristown:

"PROF DILL'S BALM OF LIFE THE DILL MEDICINE CO. NORRISTOWN, PA.
DILL'S WORM SYRUP
DILL'S COUGH SYRUP DILL MEDICINE CO. NORRISTOWN, PA."

Thanks for the info, surf. I was actually hoping you'd be making an appearance. What is "TOC"? Yes, at some point I do expect to broaden the search, although Scotk9 says he's bored with glass for now What age would you put on the Dill sample? Are any of these bottles collectible to the point we could make a profit on eBay? I only ask because I live in a small apartment and don't have space to store them, and Scotk9 doesn't want all of them. We also found several vintage condiment bottles, some old Alka-Seltzer vials, a large Nujol mineral oil bottle, and shoe polish bottles.

Oh and your not married are you? Can't imagine the wife letting you take over the kitchen like that...

She works second shift and was not home when I did all that. By the time she got home they were all cleaned & securely packaged in the crate they arrived in. But you're right, anyway, that if she were home there would have been NO way I'd have been able to do that lol

 

[surf]

Hello cti4sw,

TOC is Turn of the Century. The Dr. White's Lon-Ge Hai-La is made on an Automatic Bottling Machine and is 1910 plus change.

The Dill could be late 1880 -1900. Better pictures showing the base and lip finish. taken in natural light might help...

The bottle "market," unless very top end, is in the dumper currently. I'd keep embossed 19th Century glass all day long, if you can store it. Makes great gifts & thank you's too.

Old Dill's Cough Syrup Sample Medicine Bottle Paper Label Embossed | eBay

 

[Scotdixon]

Very cool

 

[scotk9]

Ouch! feeling guilty about that "bored" comment to you today... I was more frustrated by all the roots that I had to contend with. I did find more bottles today, in a second area about 5 feet from where we were. I am happy to see the small round Dill's bottle (Surf). I think we set one aside thinking it was more likely a perfume bottle.
Here is a pic of the 1gallon bottle that cti4sw refers to in the original post.

 

[surf]

Hey Scot,

Welcome to TNet, and thanks for bringing the big vinegar jug. You guys did well. Is there anything embossed on the base? I see something down on the heel.

Being the glass guy that I am, I'd wanna keep digging, and see if you get some more 19th Century glass...

Continued good luck guys.

That's not a Speas, by chance, is it?

 

[cti4sw]

Hello cti4sw,

TOC is Turn of the Century. The Dr. White's Lon-Ge Hai-La is made on an Automatic Bottling Machine and is 1910 plus change.

The Dill could be late 1880 -1900. Better pictures showing the base and lip finish. taken in natural light might help...

The bottle "market," unless very top end, is in the dumper currently. I'd keep embossed 19th Century glass all day long, if you can store it. Makes great gifts & thank you's too.

You know, after it was out of the ground, Scotk9 did think it might be a vinegar bottle. I do plan on going back next week on Monday; I won't be able to do much T/W/T, but whatever I miss I can pick up on the weekend. When I took the individual bottle pics I was trying to get info on the companies so I just snapped some shots with the cell phone. Now that I have that for the key finds, I'll get the camera out and take some better pics outside for you, and I'll get pics of the base embossing and heads.

Ouch! feeling guilty about that "bored" comment to you today... I was more frustrated by all the roots that I had to contend with. I did find more bottles today, in a second area about 5 feet from where we were. I am happy to see the small round Dill's bottle (Surf). I think we set one aside thinking it was more likely a perfume bottle.
Here is a pic of the 1gallon bottle that cti4sw refers to in the original post.

Don't feel bad. I'm not used to digging glass, this was my first effort, and there's no way you could have known that without me telling you, which I hadn't. There are days I get bored with the fields, so digging through 80-year-old garbage for guaranteed finds is a nice reprieve. I will say that my at next foray into the dump there I will not be gathering many bottles unless they really catch my eye, so we'll have to find some more of those PO boxes (or maybe Wawa or milk crates?) to store the many intact junk bottles we find. I like the idea of using them for gifts/thanks/etc, so whenever I need something like that I'll nip by the supply behind the bumper shed and grab what I need instead of keeping them all at home.

EDIT: On another note, my younger brother recently took up lampmaking on the side. He basically goes and buys either a cheap lamp to take apart or a lamp kit, which he installs into liquor bottles (one hole to drill at the base for the cord), adds some creative engineering designs, and then sells. If anyone has any old but common bottles they'd like made into a lamp, I can PM you his email and you can get in touch with him for quotes. Just let me know. I might consider doing that with some of the larger, common jugs I find, and turning the wide-mouth jars into vases - I think model paint on the condiment glass embossing would look pretty cool as a vase or other decorative piece. Thoughts?

 

[scotk9]

Not much to go by. Surf, You are better at this than I am. I hope this picture shows enough to determine some background on the vinager bottle.