Collecting antique bottles

[Katamuki]

Hello Katamuki Im sure there are early bottles or pottery items to be found in your area. With a little research on the older island harbours you should be able to find a site that produces some earlier items. A few years ago I seen some turn of the century era Codd Stopper sodas from Japan that were really nice along with some early embossed crown top sodas.

Is metal detecting on the beach popular there in Okinawa?

Okinawa has very very few beaches! Almost all of the surf areas are hard rock which is very very sharp. The beaches that do exist where people swim are mostly man made or enhanced.

There are several areas where I have seen bottles among boat/ship debris, is there a quick way to tell if a bottle is old and not just new trash?

 

[Southern Maine Diver]

Hello Mudpuppy and Modo diver...

I too am a bottle diving enthusiast (my wife says it my obsession!) I dive commercially, mostly inland shallow work, but I dive for bottles on my days off and I am always looking for new spots to check out.

I'm from Southern Maine and a couple of friends of mine and I like to travel throughout the Northeast on our quest for glass. We have been talking about taking a roadtrip down to NY, NJ and PA and we may just try to do something this Jan or early April depending on the weather.

I haven't been on the forum for a while, but I've been "lurking" in the shadows. Nice to find others who enjoy the hobby. Check out this bottle site, "antique-bottles.net" and you'll find thousands of bottle diggers, collectors, experts and a very few bottle divers. There aren't many who enjoy diving in black water, running your hands through the deep mud!

Dive safe, you guys. Chat with you soon.
Wayne

 

[Detroit Mudpuppy]

Hi Wayne Nice to see you here at Scubaboard, I recognized you from the antique bottle forum which I have been a member for a few years. Great place for meeting fellow collectors and learning from all the experts there. New finds and great digging stories are posted daily, so there is always something interesting going on there.

 

[cappyjon431]

I just discovered that the shallows ringing my island are filled with antique bottles. I was never interested in old bottles, but I have recently started collecting. The internet makes it pretty easy to identify a lot of them. So far I have found old ceramic ginger beer bottles (3) from around 1900, old patent medicine bottles (most date from the 1880s to the 1920s), an antique perfume bottle from 1885, a ton of old wine/beer bottles from the 1920s, a blue glass Milk of magnesia bottle from 1955, and a bunch of others. This has been a blast collecting them. This newfound hobby is becoming addictive.

 

[Tjack]

Diving for old glass bottles is a hoot, keeps things interesting down there. I won't remove bottles from wreck sites but they are everywhere. Just back from diving an old wharf up in Georgian Bay Ontario and found a cobalt blue Noxzema jar as well as old glass milk jugs and some turn of the century scotch bottles.

 

[Goldendive]

Hi.
I've found a few bottles while on a dive, usually on a shore dive, and old popular beach where people would have congregated on the sand over 100 years ago. Bottles they simply threw into the water, occasionally wash up after a good storm.

 

[Nopicnics]

Along with Art Channel, one of the founding Froggies, he and I have pulled a couple of thousand bottles out of Salem harbour. Eventually I only kept them if they were blue, inscribed, very old or stoneware. Art is a collector so he kept many many more. All the rest went into the dumpster at Palmer Cove Yacht Club.

 

[Randy43068]

Nice finds. I would like to find some nice bottles. Dang, I guess I better get in the water again.

 

[dive nh]

Hi mudpuppy and modo,

I am also a bottle/stoneware collector from the New England area, I do NOT dive or collect from wrecks, I only pick up 100+ year old trash out of rivers. My best find this year was a Skilton and Foote Bunker Hill Pickles bottle in the shape of the Cape May NJ Lighthouse in a honey amber color, wicked cool find.

Be safe and lets hook up next summer and dive the Mohawk River,

Matt, aka...Lucky

 

[dive nh]

Hey mudpuppy, here is some of my stuff.