Not what you thought, right.? How many of you were thinking, "ok... I dont have a pontiled whiskey"? haha.
I thought it would be fun for us collectors to reflect back on the glob top fifths and flasks that are currently in our collections and make two determinations....... First off, what is your fifth or flask that you currently own and have had for the longest time ??(doesnt matter if you bought, traded, or dug it). How long have you had it?
Second, if you dug a fifth or flask and still have it, which dug-bottle have you had the longest? How long, and why do you still have them??
Don't be afraid if it makes you feel as old as some as your bottles, that's not the intention here !The idea is to see why each of us has kept certain bottles longer than others, to reflect back,and also to kind of jog your memory to enjoy the reasons why, or how we acquired our "oldest" bottles.
AP
I still have the first 5th I ever bought. It is a greenish Bird Cutter dug by Allan Wilson in S.F. I purchased from him in 1971 for $50.00, yikes I'm old!
ReplyDeleteI still have a circle cutter bought in Sacto in 1968 during the I-5 old Sacto dig. paid ten bucks for it, just a plain ole brownie nothin fancy, but I still like it, all I seemed to dig were sodas, but I traded those for others, seems like tradin isnt done much anymore.....Andy
ReplyDeleteI still have 3 bottles that I got all at the same time; a Miller's large design flask, and two different varient letter 'A ' of the JF Cutter star/shield fifths. I found them in the same hole in 1976. Unfortunately I didnt keep more of the bottles in that hole, as there were many whiskies in it, but it did encourage me to start purchasing more whiskies so that the few I kept didnt get lonely on the shelf !
ReplyDeleteAP
I probably have a few Circles that we dug around Oakland and SF during the '70s and a Mid Crown Martin that I dug in Belmont, NV, in '74. If all the bottles I dug had been saved my collection would be a bit bigger, and prob'ly a whole lot more valiable, than it is now. I just can't keep 'em all. Plenty bottle proceeds were used to fund college educations, purchase other glass, and to add Western advertising to the mix. No regrets.
ReplyDeleteEmbossed cylinder fifths are rare as hens teeth here in So. Cal., whether they be tool or glop top. However, the best whole bottle I dug was a red whittled gloppy Kelloggs, many years ago, in Pomona. Eee gad's, there's that word again, Pomona! Shiney glass and super whittled in mint condition, it still sits on my bottle shelf. We have also dug broken picture Nabobs, broken Teakettle, and a few circle Cutters, all in Pomona! In fact, about a half dozen whole picture Nabobs were dug in one hole in Pomona, almost 40 years ago. On a friday after work, I stopped by a site where a privy house had just been razed and found shards of broken Nabobs at the back of the lot. I was leaving for the Vegas bottle show as soon as I got home, so I figured I would dig the privy on Monday. You guessed it, the privy was dug that Saturday by a Chino bottle collector and shortly after the rumors were out that whole and broken Nabobs were dug in Pomona! Just my luck!
ReplyDeletethe oldest whiskey i have kept is a green pontiled cornucoupia flask i dug in st.louis with my brother , we flew on a plane back east in1975/76 and were on foot with backpacks and sleghammers and probes and shovels,and carried all our bottles back on the plane.western whiskeys though,a bottled by aphotaling sixth in green amber is the one ill never give up, i dug that with my brother jonn,who has passed away in 1990,sold most of my whiskeys,that i know a lot of the collectors have now,like richards millers and mike mackintoshs millers,but last year i came back after 3 years of not digging and dug a 4ft hole with 100 flasks, only less than ten embossed but 3 were pint fleckensteins/6 half pints/2 bird cutters/ops/3 circle cutters/2oks/1 thistledew/1 picture nabob/broken green bird cutter/green henlys,but had damage and sold on e bay.lets say i think brother is still with me in spirit ,bcause we found our best stuff together ,like a bear grass/and united we stand/cal, 3 shovel fulls down in a hole that took ten years to find in a vacent lot every one said was dug/research is half of it, digging what others wont gives you a better chance.ive dug 50 ft. for shards of wonsers,and only ended up with a plain drug/but ive dug 14 ft, of bricks and found a green old sacham 3 henleys/and 2 handled plain rb cutter style bottles///. my 2 millers were in 12 ft. holes with only a few plain beers, and the other had a jamaka ginger and champagne meade soda .so i dig any thing ,even past the beer cans.cause some people drank to much and didnt dig to the walls compleatly //oh another dead hole in the 1980s 14 ft. deep had at the bottom 2/bears /1 bird /ok/cutters and a amber cottlepost soda, the map showed a salloon ,but only those few laying right on the bottom.how many wells have we all dug and diddnt finish because they were to deep and didnt have any crunch/for the next generatonn of diggers ..ive also found some holes only two ft deep and found //ops/ and fleckenstein fifths/ a oregon chittem bitters ,like the renz style square in a 1880 shallow hole with the only other bottle a 1880 half pint amber portland flask//enough stories need to find the next clubhouse, ifound half of one in 1968 in a 1890s dump ,so any thing possable.bumstead from oregon
ReplyDeleteHey Bumstead, Sounds like a pretty successful digging career. Very nice! I would however, be a bit more cautious of connecting "digging" "bottles", and Oregon. Especially adding names of collectors to the mix, and specific bottles. I can not over emphasize the hostile climate in Oregon, and I believe that other states will follow suit. You are wise to keep your identity nameless and faceless, however the identity of others who now own items that you dug, is just as important to keep confidential. I wish it was not the way that it is, but our rights are under attack on all sides.It sucks.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I did not graduate high school until 1981, and do not have any whiskeys that I have owned since before then. I do have a half pint Fleckenstein Mayer that I traded for in 1983 as it was considered pretty rare at that time. Lots of bottles in boxes that I either dug, or traded for even before that, but not whiskey bottles. I do remember wanting a Teakettle so bad,when I was about 10 or 11, as an old time Oregon collector who passed away in the early 1980s, had a whole run of them, and I was so infatuated with them! I never imagined that I would ever be able to actually own one of those beauties, but of course it is fairly easy today. Would have loved to hit Portland, and Vancouver back then, but I did not have a driver's license, and my Mom had to drop me off at logging camp dumps to dig all day. She would pick me up later in the afternoon, and I would have tons of TOC vessels extracted from the little 3 ft pits that were numerous. Those were the days! To me, a hutch from Portland was a sacred object, and a Bend druggist was surreal.
Times have changed! M.E.
I'm right there with "Plantation".. age- wise! I wish bottle-wise!!
ReplyDeleteMy oldest fifth 'still holding' is a Teakettle that Blackie Owen sold me back in 1971. It got bumped from his collection when he bought a green one from the Jerry O'Doan dig. I own that green one now as well. Sweet!!
My first dug glob was a large circle Millers that came off the Flagstaff dump in Alta,UT. That was Sep. 1976. After 4 years of Blackie abuse, I gave up the dump digging (newer stuff) and became totally committed to the older stuff. (mountain silver camps) That was in 1975. I remember taking an applied top Ayers and a black to show my mentor that I had found some old stuff. I was a proud puppy. He nearly through me out of his house!! Come back when you dig a real bottle!!! It took a year, but when I told him I had dug a Millers... I was in his good graces. Most of the time, anyway. It took 4 more years to dig my first glob fifth. 1980 a V.4 J.F. And that was after we started going to Nevada. The Millers has been around the block a couple of times, but it is back home. I held on to the J.F. from day one.