Bottle Fever
James Campiglia discusses the rewarding business
of professional bottle digging.
Hello
Accurate Locators, Reggie Shoeman and I have dug bottles
for many years. When he lived in Las Vegas we were both
members of the local bottle club. The club used to go on
digs, they still do I think, and Reggie went on many of
them taking me along when my parents were busy. This was
back when I was about 10 years old. I consider myself a
bottle expert as I spent more time reading bottle books
and magazines than doing my homework- and still got good
grades. I have continued my passion for bottles and
enjoy constantly learning more. Right now I just want to
be down in an old outhouse digging!
Here are 2
additional photos of bottles we have found. I actually
bought 2 at a shop in CA from a digger. I think the
green soda was dug years ago, it's an old blob soda from
San Francisco circa 1859 to 61. The larger brown bottle
is a DR. J. Hostetter's Stomach Bitters an early varying
shade of amber issue with a plain base (usually a glass
company's initials were on the base) circa 1870. The
Hostetter's Stomach Bitters is one of my favorite areas
of bottle collecting as this is the first bottle given
to me by my grandma.
The big salt glazed jug
Reggie found deep in the big hole behind where an early
hotel once stood in Iowa. I was not there for the dig
but my partnership in owning our Accurate Locators USA
Runabout won me this bottle when the bottles were
divvied up that day. The amber indented panel bottle
shown close up here is Primley's Wahoo & Iron Tonic
from Elkhart, Ind. Circa 1870's with an applied, and
crooked, lip. I am not well versed on mid west bottles
but research shows this to be rather scarce and so far
the best bottle we have found with perhaps a market
value of $500 to $1,000. It has great amber color
shading with a little olive green in it. This amazingly
came out of the ground almost as good as the day it was
tossed away over 130 years ago! This was no easy bottle
to remove. Removal took about a half an hour as it was
wedged in with old broken restaurant ware plates and
dishes, etc. I can not explain the excitement when you
see just the base of a bottle like this and eventually
the whole thing is resting in your hands undamaged!
We still have more to dig out of this same huge
pit, but that's for another day. We found several old
plain medicines and extract bottles and another smaller
jug we are giving to the local property owner who
allowed us permission to dig here. While digging a man
came by and told us of a real old stage coach stop we
were unaware of. The fun of the digging is you never
know what's in the next hole or shovel full!
Thanks,
James
Campiglia
author of "The Official US Casino Chip
Price Guide"
|
