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West Coast
Peddler
®
The Oldest Journal of Antiques and Collectibles in the Pacific
States
ARCHEOLOGIST
by John C. Weil
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VOL. 46 • NO. 2
Februry 2015
$3.50
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WEST CO
AST PEDDLER
COAST
2012
The Archeologist
by John C. Weil
Every 2nd Sunday
8AM-3PM
Feb. 8th
March 8th, April 12th
May 10th, June 14th, etc.
Baron posing for the camera. Photos courtesy
the author.
In mid-April of 1987 I brought
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home an emaciated six-month old puppy.
His paws were the size of winter mittens,
so I knew he would grow considerably. But
I never expected a four-legged tyrannosaur
rex.
He had been at the county animal
shelter for days. His ribs pressed up against
his patchy skin. I felt sorry for him. I did
not know his breed until his papers arrived
two months later. By that time, he had
grown almost to my hips and I’m six-foottwo. The papers said he was a Great Dane
and Labrador mix. He was jet black with a
white chest and adorable, big floppy ears.
I named him Baron.
Within two months of good food
and lots of love, he weighed a muscular
120 pounds. His coat - maybe due to a
steady snack of scrambled eggs, was
glossy and stunningly beautiful.
When I left for the first time for
the market without him, he leaped up to
the third shelf in my kitchen - about seven
feet high - and knocked down a box of
Macadamia Nut candy from Hawaii. He
then ate the entire box. He tore apart two
pillows and generally destroyed the house.
As a result, the next time I left the house, I
put him in my fenced in backyard.
AND THAT’S WHERE THIS
STORY BEGINS.
When I arrived home two hours
later, I couldn’t find Baron. I panicked until I
heard a noise from behind the garage. I
walked across the grass and there he was
looking up at me from a huge hole.
Behind him was a pile of dirt so high
it made a ramp halfway up the fence.
Lying to the side of the hole were
17 antique bottles, broken corn cob pipes,
bits of metal and tin foil, a charred spoon
and fork, several rusted old-style tools, and
dozens of other interesting items, including
a large number of bones.
Of course, I was perplexed. Why
was this stuff buried in my backyard?
But first, I examined the bones. I’m
not a forensic scientist but they looked like
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A collection of bottles from the backyard dig look colorful on the author’s dining table.
Page 14
WEST CO
AST PEDDLER
COAST
February 2015
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This is exhausting work - as you can see as Baron cools off
beside a fan just minutes after the dig.
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From museum quality to the very decorative
chicken bones. With my mind at ease, I
watched as Baron kept right on digging.
Within moments two dirty green globes of
glass glinted in the light. Baron dug them
completely out of the ground. This was
when I learned the true meaning of, ‘buried
treasure.’
Right on the spot, I nicknamed him
the Archeologist, and proceeded to clean
the items as if he had discovered the tomb
of the Pharaohs.
How this pile of junk - and some
other treasures - ended up buried in my
backyard soon became clear after a bit of
research. What I had in my possession
became clear, too. In fact, Baron, who lived
to be 14 years old, is the reason I started
collecting antique bottles since that dig in
1987. Now I have a huge collection. I also
have more than a thousand metal toy
soldiers, shelves of Native American
artifacts and many Revolutionary War dug
items. Baron not only spurred my interest
in antique bottles, but had a paw in turning
me into a collector of many things antique.
WHO BURIED THIS STUFF IN
MY BACKYARD?
Hint: it wasn’t a pirate.
Over the past 130 years, American
waste disposal methods have changed.
Even the waste generated by society has
changed. In the City of San Diego, where I
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1317 Sartori Ave., Torrance, CA 90501
Open Daily 11 to 7pm
and all day Street Faire Sundays.
February 2015
WEST CO
AST PEDDLER
COAST
Page 15
WHAT DO I HAVE?
Insulators were among the treasures found
in the dig.
live, disposal methods have evolved
from incineration to sealed dumps with
triple and even-quadruple liners.
As the cities’ own web site says,
“the challenge for the City of San Diego
has been to protect the health of its
residents and address environmental and
financial challenges.”
According to this same web site,
between the years 1880 and 1908, private
contractors were hired by the city to dispose
of waste by incineration or by dumping it in
the ocean. Many residents preferred
incineration, because trash dumped at sea
often washed ashore.
However, to avoid paying
the fee charged by these contractors,
residents sometimes dumped their waste in
vacant lots, causing a public nuisance.
Since my house was built in the 1930s, my
guess is that the first two or three owners
burned their trash in the backyard to avoid
paying disposal fees. Even the owner
before me admitted that he sometimes
burned wood scraps in the backyard
while roasting hot dogs.
In fact, from 1908 on, residents and
businesses separated their food waste from
other materials so that the food waste could
be used as hog feed. Business organizations
complained of the high collection costs
when the second city contractor, E. W.
Anderson, raised collection fees. The City
then placed a cap on hauling prices, and in
1917 Anderson declined to renew his
contract. With that void, burning trash
became a weekly chore. So as far back as
1908 someone was likely burning trash on
my lot - before a house was even built.
Clearly, a lot of private burning was
going on. City of San Diego backyards - at
least those in existence before 1950 - are
likely loaded with goodies. From the 1930s
to the 1960s, residents and institutions still
burned and disposed of their own trash or
used burn dumps. By the 1950s, incineration
fell out of favor. Peer pressure likely stopped
backyard burning in its tracks by the end of
the decade.
As a result of trash burning - and
my clever dog, Baron - I am the recipient of
a small collection of bottles. I like to call it a
starter set.
The most stunning bottle from the
dig, not because of its value - but because
of its age compared to the age of my home is an 1860s medicine bottle. After that
discovery, I cleaned up an 1890s beer bottle.
I can only guess that both bottles
were thrown into the pit by a passerby.
Maybe a peddler, or a settler on the way to
Old Town, San Diego’s original settlement
about 15 miles south. I say this because not
one single home is my neighborhood was
built before 1900. Of course, it’s fun to guess
these kinds of things. That’s more fun than
the actual value, which for each bottle is
somewhere between ten and twenty dollars.
The two big glass ‘globes’ really
surprised me. After a good brushing and
washing, they turned out to be telephone
pole insulators. One is light green, the other
is green-blue. The light green one was
manufactured by Whitall Tatum Co. It is a
No. 1, made in the good old U.S.A
The green-blue insulator is a
Hemingray - 42.
Insulators used to be valued at
about $15 to $25 a piece depending upon
condition. But that was before the internet
made them so common. Now I’d be lucky to
get $10 each for them. Although Baron did
not make me a rich man, I’m already up about
sixty bucks without even visiting an antique
store. The only work I had to do was to refill
the hole.
The rest of the bottles are an array
of common pre-1930s BromoSeltzer bottles
by the Emerson Drug Company of Baltimore,
Maryland. Although I suspect one dark blue
Bromo bottle is from the 1880s to 1890s.
There is also an early 1950s green Vicks
VapoRub jar, and four tiny two-inch pre1930s bottles that likely held medicine. The
stems are clearly hand-blown. Two bottles
have turned a nice amethyst purple. One of
them is 7 1/4" tall, with a hand tooled crown
top. This is a really nice round cylinder
shaped bottle by E.R. Durckee & Co. It is
embossed, ‘Challenge Sauce’ just below the
stem. This bottle has some light stains and
the number 324 on the base.
After some research it appears this
bottle was made in the 1880s and would retail
for about $12 to $15. How an older bottle
like this showed up in a burn pit in my
backyard, I have no idea. Again, could it
have been a peddler, or a settler passing
by? Or just maybe it was a found item by
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Various medicine
bottles in different
shapes, sizes and colors.
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Page 16
WEST CO
AST PEDDLER
COAST
February 2015
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Well, is seens as if Baron is thinking, “my work is done and it’s time for me to relax.”
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someone burning trash on this lot. It could
have been re-used for years, then disposed of.
Again, I’m not getting rich from
Baron’s dig. But the fun of collecting bottles
is partly because most basic old bottles are
not expensive. They are affordable. They
also make a colorful display. This is not to
say that bottles can’t run into triple-digits
dollars or more. They do. I have seen
Revolutionary War era bottles way out of
my price range. Besides, if Baron didn’t dig
it up for me, what fun would it be?
Baron also dug up a six-inch clear
green bottle that is full of bubbles, and a
green mid-1950s bottle with machine-made
lines up the stem on both sides. This bottle
also has bubbles throughout. They look
great in the sun. The rest of the dig consisted
of broken corn cob pipes, soda bottle caps,
shreds of unidentified newspapers and four
turn of the century nails. Only the nails are
on display.
If you live in San Diego, or another
city where backyard trash burning is fairly
common, this lucky dig might be of interest
to you. But before you grab your shovel,
think twice. Your yard might not hold a single
bottle. And truthfully, I’m not suggesting
a metal detector it might be fun to scan
your yard because you never know
what’s buried back there.
I will always remember my dog
Baron, The Archeologist, who started me
on my life-long hunt for antique bottles.
Every time I glance at this starter set of
bottles I think of him. I keep this little
grouping separate from my store bought
bottles, even though they would look better
matched with others. I can’t imagine there
are too many people out there who can say
they began collecting antiques because of
a dog.
HAPPY HUNTING!
EDITOR’S NOTE: I want to take this time
to thank John for such a heart warming
story about how one can become a
collector. This is slightly different from some
of the articles we feature but many of us
have pets that are part of our family and
join us in our quest for that collectible we
so desire. Baron was a great pet and family
member we hope you will enjoy Baron’s
and John’s adventures in collecting,.
you dig up your garden. But if you own
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