Just a few months ago we were joking about Cerro Gordo on this blog. Thinking of digging and camping out up there looking for one of these beauties... the comments and joking ring kind of hollow now with the death of Mike Patterson. Mike passed away on Sep. 24th, 2009. He was buried in Chloride, Arizona.
The dream that Mike and Jody had to restore Cerro will have to wait for now. Where the old townsite goes from here is unknown, as far as digging, the town is currently completely "off limits"!
I believe there are more of these rare Miller's fifths up in that canyon. They are probably now locked away for good. This particular fifth was found by Mike while doing work behind one of the buildings being restored. It is the one I referred to in blog comments back in June. I am not sure when he found it, sometime within the past 6 years I guess. Cerro was loaded with Miller's fifths. The two times that I dug there in the late 1990's, we found a pile of broken examples. No flasks! All we found were fifths. Always hoped to dig one up there, kiss that goodbye! These bottles were not distributed into very many areas. With Cerro 'off line', the chance of another fresh one finding it's way to market has been reduced significantly.
As far as this example, it appears fairly typical to me. It appears to be mint, fairly good strike, no whittle. I looked at it in Auburn and could not find anything real negative to report. Wish it had been cleaned up just a bit, it is hard to lay down this kind of cash for a bottle that has a bunch of junk and rust around the top. ABA has guaranteed that it is perfect! Jeff also indicates that it is darker than other examples that he has handled. I believe he had tried to sell the lightest example known a few years ago, so this one would appear to be darker than that one. Actually, it is lighter than the two examples that have graced my collection over the years. These fifths don't have a tremendous color range, amber, lighter amber, yellow amber. That's about it!! Not known in green. I haven't seen an extremely whittled one either. Just kind of your nice, amber, very rare fifth that happens to have a couple of "older" flask shaped brothers that, together, make a great trio. Also, if you are collecting E.Martin bottles, here is your chance. I guess it is related to the Cutter bottle line up, ? Seriously, this is a good example of a popular 'top 25' fifth. Other comments?
Mike's passing is indeed unfortunate. Is the Cerro townsite still for sale? I believe that both Cerro Gordo and Swansea were "available" as of last year.
ReplyDeleteOldCutters,
ReplyDeleteYou lookin to buy a ghost town? Wanna go in half-sies haha ! Reopen the mine... that is, the bottle mine, and start 'Mining for Millers'....