Finally got out for extended hunt turned bottle dig

The last 2 months have not afforded me much time to detect. Finally was able to get out yesterday at a permission in Mansfield, MA near my sisters house. I had received permission from an old high school friend who is a builder. He purchased an 8 acre property with a barely standing house built in 1785. Plans were to knock down the house to make room for the road going in for several building lots. Unfortunately, I could not get there 5 weeks prior when I received the offer. When I got there, there house was gone and much of the land was being excavated. After having no good hits in the excavated areas around the original house location, I focused most of my time on the areas that had not been excavated (mostly woods areas with stone walls and a couple animal pens). I Stumbled across a trash dump on the property & spent a good amount of time digging for bottles (pulled out about 80 bottles & jars mostly circa late 1800's early 1900's). I got a cheap brass ring, some lantern parts, usual spoon & miscellaneous other relics. No coins or buttons, but it felt great to be able to finally detect for an extended period of time (about 6 hours).

Anyone know what the 3 items in pic#5 are? They are very dense wood. Pic#6 shows a close up with initials carved in it.

Good bunch of finds and nice job on digging out the dump!

Being able to dig for six hours is priceless. You got yourself a wide variety of keepers. Also I have no idea what pic #5 would be.

Even an insulator. You should think to sell those bottles to an antique dealer. You can save some of the more rare ones for display at home. Lol. You got the stove door. I got the leg. We are half way to restoring an 1800's stove. The piece that looks like it says bill Jr is interesting. The three wood items, idk. Strange that each has a different tapering to opening size. I wonder if it has something to do with straps. Good u got out for a long hunt. I just get some shorter hunts; keep finding potential places (like an old house with a huge yard I noticed yesterday as well as an early 1800 house being renovated); but never find the time to get there to door knock.

Great finds! Are the mystery items some sort of homemade ox knobs?

sad ya couldn't make it there when they tore house down or even before the demolished it. sometimes small windows of opportunities present themselves and unfortunately you couldn't make it.ya did well despite the setbacks

Congrats on getting out Kev. Got some nice finds and plenty o' bottles. Think I see a couple blob tops in there.

Yeah, I'm with Brian, you got some oldie bottles in there. I've never dug up a bottle dump...sounds interesting. How big are those things that Dave says look like knobs? I like that old cup, and there are some high end targets in that 3rd pic.

OxShoeDrew said:

Yeah, I'm with Brian, you got some oldie bottles in there. I've never dug up a bottle dump...sounds interesting. How big are those things that Dave says look like knobs? I like that old cup, and there are some high end targets in that 3rd pic.

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It was quite a blast digging for the bottles. The "knob" type items are roughly 2" tall with a diameter of about 1 1/2" at the small opening and maybe 2" at the wider opening (guesstimates on the size as I am too lazy to go get them & measure them):lol: I was originally thinking they were composed of some sort of dense wood, but now I think they may be made of deer antlers?

Trooper Bri said:

Congrats on getting out Kev. Got some nice finds and plenty o' bottles. Think I see a couple blob tops in there.

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Most of the bottles are slicks (no embossing). Some of the sodas are blob tops, I think. There are about a dozen that have embossing on them. They are all still soaking. I'll try to post up pics of the better ones once I get a chance to clean them. There is a cool one that you would like (with your fishing background)- the embossing is of a man with a large fish slung over his back. I may bring it to the YTC meeting tomorrow.

HEAVYMETALNUT said:

sad ya couldn't make it there when they tore house down or even before the demolished it. sometimes small windows of opportunities present themselves and unfortunately you couldn't make it.ya did well despite the setbacks

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Yeah Dave, I'm kicking myself for not getting up to this site 5 weeks ago. Some family stuff prevented me from making the trip. Damn family :hystericallaugh:

DaddyDigger said:

Great finds! Are the mystery items some sort of homemade ox knobs?

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Good guess. Maybe???

hey Kevin bring in the bottle and atleast one of the wood items to the meeting , maybe one of the guys at the club can id it . congrats on the bottle dump digging , you did well.