I feel like yakking. Here's my full plan this Feb. if all goes according to plan.
Schuylkill county Pennsylvania is in the heart of the Anthracite coal region. Pretty much every town you see is a mining town, and they are very close together. Every town pretty much had their own brewery, and some had some sodas.
So here is what I plan on doing, weather permitting. Damn blizzards.
1. There is a known dump located above the town of (wouldn't you like to know, lol), and many great things have come out... in someone elses hands. I've personally dug some meds, sterling silver and odds and ends from there. There have been some gems known to come out of there, such as 1860's F. Krapp blob pony sodas, Schmidt blob beers and several local medicines and brewery bottles. Of course, there are other things to find, such as oyster shells by the dump truck load. I've never seen so many friggin' oysters in one spot before. Of course, the sterling silver is nice too, but there have also been some nice pipes to come out too.
2. There is also a coal camp close by the town, and when I passed through last, I noticed broken 1890s meds, and a broken 1800s soda.
3. The Lil' Manahoy Creek is walkable if there hasn't been super heavy rains. The Manahoy creek is poisonous, tinting everything orange, including it's bottles. The lil' Manahoy is safe however, and I'm sure there is something there.
4. An old train station used to be in the town of ******, and glass is everywhere where it used to be. I found a broken P.J. Cleary Bros. hutch from Shenandoah PA there, along with broken corktop meds. There's gotta be a whole hutch somewhere.
5. Down below a certain place... a police station.... there is an old dumping grounds for all sorts of garbage, including pre 1950 bottles. I have found a few broken ultra rare beers before while I was there, but like I said, I was passing through the last time. Don't judge. The beers in question come from the Fountain Springs Brewing company, a local I would love to get my hands on. Super rare, and from the teeny-tiny town of Fountain Springs, this brewery operated secretly during prohibition, using a tunnel system to smuggle beer to the local country club. I'm itching to find one.
6. If all else fails, I'll give up and pay my uncle Frank a visit, and see if he's willing to sell. He has pretty much every bottle found in the county. He found many hundreds of pontiled local sodas during the '70s, and sold them for $20 a piece. It makes me cringe now, thinking that some go for over $400 now...
kidding buddy. You know how our hearts bleed when you are away.
