Old Bottles from Goldfields

G'day Alan

Keep those bottles in a safe place as one day you may be able to top up your Super with them when you retire :-)

No, I don't collect anything but see lotsa junk lying around in the bush

Cheers

Hiya Alan. We have a fairly good collection that i have picked up from around the city and out bush.
Looking at your photo's it appears that i have nearly all the ones that you have and a few more besides....lol
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All good fun tho, its amazing what you find and where you find it.
Discovering the history behind the bottles is what's facinating. :)
There are a few more floating around the house.
doggytease

G'day Alan.
Such history coupled with mystery.
We are always on the lookoout for where old timers may have been, they travelled slower and used all their power of observation. (gold/gem miners that is).
This last winter, about 100km. sw of Eromanga the missus spotted a glint of something a couple of hundred yards off the track.
On going over for a look see there was around 50/60 old beer bottles (crown seal, old style longneck).
But what was interesting is that about 50% were GREEN!
I have never seen a green beer bottle, one I have in front of me has moulded around the base "this bottle made in scotland" with 2 and v inside.
Could have been from a trappers/fencers camp, certainly a long way from the closest opal fields.
A bloke has to ponder how they kept them cold in those days?
furph

Hi Alan. Yes you do find a lot of old stuff out there. If I find a hole bottle I will
bring it home. Give them to my son as he picks some up through diving
around Freo. I have got some Knifes.Forks Spoon's. Couple of old Dingo traps
Cow bell, old chain for horses harness, Horse shoes. Boot shoes. Often got
home and said, should fetched that home. Yes lots of old stuff out there.
Brian

Alan,

Seems that bottle collecting is an interesting hobby.

Doggy certainly has a few. I have just spoken to my son who
collects bottles and at the moment he has between 2500 - 3000....

Some are quite rare and the history is intriguing too.

Have you traced the history of yours??


Cheers
Michael

just an aside

you hear many people say how littering out bush just gets worse
- i always correct them. As is shown by your collection the biggest litterers out bush were the old timers. They never took a thing with them.

except now they such as woodcutters camps people go along way to see them

G'day equinox, it is my understanding, the oldest bottles are the hand blown ones which do not have a vertical seam or any identifying markings such as the green one eighth from the left in the back row of your display. I have two of these collected from out Kalgoorlie way and if I could prove Paddy Hannan or C.Y. O'Connor drank from them they would be truly a collectors investment. The last time I saw one for sale at a country market they were marked at $10.00 each and no one was queing up for them. I will probably pass them onto my grandkids in the hope they will eventually become seriously collectable. My mother held onto a couple of carnival glass fruit bowls fom the 1940s which have been passed on and are now seriously collectable. With regard to how the drinks were cooled, they were probably wrapped in wet hessian, kept in a Coolgardie Safe, lowered in a cage into cold water in the bottom of a well or kept in a makeshift cellar. It's not that long ago people on the move kept their water cool in canvas water bags mounted on brackets on their vehcle roo bars. A small amount of water would continually seep to the outside and evaporate causing an eventual cooling of all the water in the bag. Happy days. Pauper.