So I Went Down to the River...

scoundrel

six feet under(water)
Joined
Jun 6, 2010
Messages
1,366
Location
here and there
I have never been a serious bottle collector. I went out to Galveston after hurricane Ike where I found hundreds of old beer and soda bottles from an old bar that was on the beach in the 1940s. It was good fun, but I never kept any of the bottles long-term. When I was treasure diving about five years ago, I would find old soda bottles that were frosted like Seaglass because they had been tumbling in the surf for decades. I have about a dozen of those. They are some of my favorite pieces. I have always wanted to scuba dive the Key West harbor and look for old bottles, I have just never gotten around to it. And that is the extent of my bottle collecting.

This all started in early March. I saw a video on a popular Treasure Coast blog. It was of a blob top bottle lying in the water on the bank of the river. I was pretty sure I could find the spot from clues in the video. The search for that bottle was the spark that ignited five weeks of bottle hunting insanity. For two days, I tried in vain to find that spot. I knew the stretch of river, but I was still missing something. So I figured I would just go down to the River and start looking for bottles. The first day I think I found six bottles. Old soda bottles and liquor, but nothing special. I knew very little about the history of bottles or the bottle making process at the time. The second day I went out, I found a blue apothecary lying in the water just like the blob top in the video. I couldn’t believe it. And it was only my second hunt. I was super stoked. Looking back now I laugh because I had no idea what was in front of me. I had two nieces come stay with me for a week. I took them hunting one night, And one of them found a really cool old embossed milk bottle. Now I’m super jacked. On the day I took them home, I had to drive from Fort Pierce to Jekyll Island and back. I’ve got back around 7 PM, grabbed my gear and raced to the river to catch the low tide. A couple of hours later, I found the 1 gallon jug with two rings on it and the round bottom bottle. And that was only my fourth hunt. I started hunting more often. I started rescheduling work. Every hunt was as good as the last or better. There was one stretch where I hunted 10 low tides in a row, Each hunt being about five hours. I am barely sleeping, living on Wendy’s cheeseburgers, honey buns and coffee, and smoking LOTS of medical. Walking up to 4 miles per hunt sometimes carrying a backpack full of bottles and two 5 gallon buckets full of bottles. I was constantly in this exhausted, sleep deprived, dream like state of mind. And it was beautiful. After five weeks, I had pulled over 700 bottles from the river. Mouth blown beer and whiskey bottles from the 1800s. Old bottles with corks still in them. Dozens of apothecary bottles. A round bottom bottle, a torpedo bottle, and a ballast bottle. Two ink wells.One from the mid 1800s that is Coke bottle green and another clear one. A straight sided Coca-Cola bottle that was mouth blown and has the Coca-Cola logo on the bottom. A green glass bottle stopper. Many mason jars. Dozens of Coke bottles and every other soda bottle you could imagine. 30 or so aqua blue beer bottles.
Four or five aqua colored embossed beer bottles. Five intact insulators.One embossed blob top soda bottle. And on and on and on. I’m still hunting but not as frequently as I was. Don’t see how I can stop. Last night, I found my third round bottom bottle and my oldest beer bottle. The glass is almost black in the bottle is made from five pieces. One of my favorite finds.

I’m going to post this thread without photos because I just saw the limit for the file size on this website. It is ridiculously small. So, I don’t wanna have to retype everything above, yet I have to find a way to reduce my photos. Which are many. So stay tuned for a good picture show. Guaranteed to impress. 😀
 

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Nice variety of finds and a huge date range, from what looks like the late 1880's all the way thru 1940's screw tops! Good hunting and hope you find more!
 
Another great hunt this morning. I picked up my third inkwell today. And I think my seventh insulator. My fourth round bottom bottle. They’re all different too. The bottle beside the round bottom bottle laying in the sand Is an imitation grape soda called Nu Grape. .Made in Melbourne Florida. It dates to the 1920s-30s. I love the old amber beer bottle. And the older beer bottles are my favorite. The glass is so dark and thick.
 

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Very cool stuff! Whiskey bottles with embossed words can be very valuable.
Medical ones too and inks.
I love blob top sodas.
Bitters bottles can be valuable too!
 
Well scoundrel! You went and got yourself ADDICTED. :shock:

Like Shiny said above, a nice wide range in age of those vessels. Some really nice ones too. The Cokes are always great to find. And, Hutches--what's not to love? That Royal Palm Cola is pretty neat, as is the Nu-Grape and the Dr. Harters Bitters. Too many to mention. Well, keep up the hunt- we love seeing the finds! :thumbsup:
 
you got yourself some really nice ones there....like I hope you understand some of those are very hard to find bottles. Keep up the great work!
 
Thanks everybody. Gotta lay off for a while. I had to come up to Saint Augustine for some work. Hopefully I get to metal detect while I’m up here though.
 
One day I will single out some bottles and highlight them. I have already researched quite a few, and there are interesting stories that go along with some of them. I have also been researching the history of the bottle making process, and all the different types of finishes. Fascinating stuff. Addicted indeed.
 

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Another 2 successful hunts.
 

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Not a lot of cobalt blue shows up on your digs I see .
I'm not a digger but I sure can appreciate what you have there, a lot of nice ones.
 
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