Dumpdiggers

Paul Huntley Schools the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors on City Dairy Toronto

2012-01-28T09:05:00.000-08:00

Paul Huntley proudly holds his new book, City Dairy Toronto on 21 Jan 2012 after speaking to a particularly passionate group of Toronto bottle collectors.

If you're not a bottle collector, and you don't have a 'collecting bug' of any kind, then you probably wouldn't appreciate how satisfying it is to sit and listen to somebody show off their obsession. To study something, anything for twenty years and then write a book is a lifetime accomplishment - and to speak with knowledge and authority about something they know so well, is the treasure of wisdom. Paul Huntley spoke soft words but with great authority as he held up century old milks alongside photos of the original dairies that filled them, and the horse drawn wagons that distributed them. On the 21st of January 2012, Mr Huntley put on a lovely presentation of Canadian dairy lore that was soaked up by an enlightened audience of at least twenty four people, members of the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors (FSBC) club in Toronto Ontario Canada.

The monthly FSBC meeting, the first I’ve attended in three months (I missed Terry Matz talking about his torpedo bottles before Xmas), was at their usual meeting place in the Arbor Heights Community Center in Toronto, which is on Avenue Rd at Wilson Blvd just south of the hwy 401 interchange. Follow the FSBC link above for more information on the club meetings (and then come out to one!). You know what to expect, there’s rare knowledge on display here.

Whenever I do get time to visit these folks, I'm usually the first one there. But this time I was late. Unfortunately I'd taken a nap and had slept until six pm. So I threw on my pants and rushed out the door, checking my email in the car I saw the meeting was scheduled to start at six fifteen. As I drove up the DVP, I wondered if I should have just stayed home.. Boy am I glad I didn’t! When I pulled into the parking lot to my surprise I discovered it was full of cars. There must be another event happening inside, I reckoned. But no.. To my shock I saw the meeting room was absolutely packed.

When I walked in the door I noticed it was quiet as and everyone was listening intently to the speaker I’d never seen so many members and many new faces crowded around the tables to hear the shy softly spoken words of Paul Huntley, a historian and Toronto City Dairy archivist. Paul is a published author and I bought his book. He was showcasing some of the highlights from City Dairy Toronto alongside the actual bottles and photographs that have been reproduced inside.

Paul Huntley must have enjoyed speaking to this assembly of passionate people, Canadian bottle collectors, veteran dumpdiggers; they're a small and tightly focused sub culture that's obsessed with all things made of antique glass and salt glazed stoneware. Here's a crowd that eagerly laps up this respected historian's words and chuckles at his inside jokes, because they truly understand his references to people and places and practices long since forgotten by the rest of society.

The book is filled with rare black and white photos showing the rise of City Dairy Toronto.
In 1903 the City Dairy had just 3% of the Toronto market and by 1915 it dominated over 40% of the market. At one point there were eight six wagons serving 25,000 homes. From its early beginnings through to its acquisition by Bordens in 1930, the City Dairy maintained its distinction of serving more homes than any other dairy in the British Empire.

You know, I can’t help wondering about all the cows - this was surely a great age for Canadian farmers as the City of Toronto would have provided a wonderful large market for their milk, grain and vegetables. I could imagine how lucrative it might be to sell fresh milk to the city everyday. But it would also be very laborious. In those days milk production was done completely by hand, and so the family farm really couldn’t manage more than twenty five milking cows at once, milking them twice a day. Paul's book details the Massey Farms and the experimental farm as it outlines the early 1900s milk supply chain for Toronto.

City Dairy Toronto
A Yellow Wagon on Every Street

The Table of Contents
Milk Supply for the Citizens of Toronto
Walter Edward Hart Massey
Dentonia Park Experimental Farm
The Milk Commission
A Modern Production Facility
A Scientific Approach to Milk Production
Maintaining A Clean Milk Supply
The First Milk Delivery
The Milk Supply of Toronto
The Most Advanced Plant in Canada
City Dairy Leadership After Massey
Advertising of Fairy Tales
Participation at Exhibitions
A Towering Accomplishment
Milk Delivery
Milk Delivery from Horse Drawn
Ice Cream Creations
Plant Expansion
Kensington Dairy
S Price and Sons Purchase
Milk Pasteurization
Swiss Kephyr Milk
Island Delivery
Drimilk Powdered Milk
Vetcraft
City Dairy Farms New Lowell
The Dairy Herd
Record of Employees in the Great War
Division of Bordens
Golden Crest Years
Melorol Ice Cream
Milk Fit for A King and Queen
Toronto Milk Foundation
Life as an Educational Institution

WHAT I HEARD AT THE MEETING

Just as I sat down and opened my notebook I heard the words ‘Thistletown dairy’ (I was reduced to writing on top of my sore leg as there was no more room at the table). And beside that word I dashed the location Humber River / Albion and Islington. I dont know why I'm writing this here I have no context for it. Perhaps I thought it might be an adventure destination - to find the Thistletown Dairy. Indeed that does have a ring to it.

Some dairy dates I didn't know
1889 Capseat Indents in the mouth of a milk bottle were introduced into the Toronto market. This innovation in milk bottle production allowed cardboard caps to sit properly and better seal the glass lip of the bottle.

1915 Pasteurization became mandatory in Toronto – The city passed a municipal bylaw mandating that all dairies sell only pasteurized milk – as a result many Toronto dairies close their doors
1937 The Province of Ontario made all dairies sell pasteurized milk.

By 1929, two large dairies had taken over Toronto and most of the surrounding towns. These were Silverwoods, which was operating in the east end of the city, and Bordens which had locked up the west and was expanding south around the lake.

More things I learned from Paul Huntley,

Silkscreen milk bottles are often called ACL meaning Applied Colour Labels and the really early ones date form 1937 and 1938 . Applied colour labels were gaining popularity .re and some very collectible early ACL milk bottles are decorated with scenes from the Royal Visit to Toronto in 1939. Are there any such bottles made by City Dairy - I suspect there must be otherwise why would he bring it up? But I didnt see any.

ACL City Dairy milk bottles changed in appearance again in 1939 with the dawn of World War II. Some Applied Colour Labels (ACL) carried scenes of ships, tanks, planes and little boys watching them.? no pics

Soon after that, the Milk Foundation was created to help sell milk. This must have been similar to the milk marketing board we have today - they used a collective fund to help advertise milk's health benefits. Look below at an early advertisement for pasteurized ice cream that's 'pure' and wont spread tuberculosis.

I learned that square milk bottles were introduced after the war alongside the rise of refrigerator technology. the small square shapes were better for shipping handling and they fit inside cramped refrigerator iceboxes better. I made a note of the fact that Paul believes the grey horse was especially sought after by milkmen for early morning milk delivery routes - the grey horse shows up in the dim morning light better, and is therefore safer. Tin tops were not usually found on milk bottles outside the United States. Little tidbits

Were amber bottles used exclusively for Buttermilk? Sean Murphy asked, and Paul Huntley answered yes to that question. The most quintessential examples of these amber ‘buttermilk’ bottles dates from between 1900 – 1910 .

Paul's next appearance is at the East York Historical Society on Feb 15th. Here he will be speaking on City Dairy and Dentonia Dairy as many folks in the society have shown interest in that topic. Paul told me that he always hopes he will meet some people that can relate there own personal stories and memories of the dairy. Wednesday February 15 2012 at 2:00 PM

image added courtesy of Early Canadian Bottle Works (ECBW), Paul Huntley Collection

Dont miss Paul Huntley speaking at

East York Historical Society

Show and Tell Discussion

The History of the City Dairy of Toronto
Speaker Paul Huntley will discuss the history of the City Dairy from its creation including the Massey Farm known as Dentonia. He will also bring some dairy memorabilia and copies of his new publication on the City Dairy. Bring any questions, photos, maps, memorabilia or information you would like to share and take part in the discussion.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 2 pm
At S. Walter Stewart Library
170 Memorial Park Avenue at Durant
Sponsored by the East York Historical Society and
The Toronto Public Library, S. Walter Stewart Branch
Free admission

Four Seasons Bottle Collectors Meeting

The second half of the meeting was business as usual. There's lots of planning and preparation being made for the annual FSBC Show and Sale in April - this time there is a new location . And there was talk of having a party on Saturday night for the dealers to swap stories and trade bottles and

for the

Carl Parsons had some wonderful 'cures' or early wacky patent medicine bottles in front of him on the table. I snapped some shots of them as he was making change for my raffle tickets - the monthly FSBC random draw is an exciting event and a staple in the experience of vsiting the club meetings. Carl always talks up the quality of the bottle being raffled (its a secret) but I find they are never as good as the ones he has on display in front of his notebook at the table. Look below at the amber 'East India Cure' and the queer yellow glass Extract of Smart Weed.

Sean Murphy: Show and Tell

The best part of the bottle club meetings is hearing each member talk intelligently and usually very passionately about a piece of pottery or a glass bottle they have recently discovered, or treasured for some time. There is a theme for each meeting's show and tell and its fun to see the variations on that theme as presented by each collector operating inside their own particular niche.

Before Sean spoke there were three other collectors who presented their materials but being shy they would no doubt prefer not be chronicled here. Sean is however no stranger to my blog salutations.
And that's a good thing because Sean Murphy is a constant fountain of great material and encouragement to the rest of the members. His show and tell displays are consistently remarkable.

On the 21 Jan meeting Sean showcased a wide variety of glass paperweights set around a smattering of other rare and impressive objects including beautiful redware pottery and a lovely jug stenciled ...

Here's a Whitby jug

I will ask Sean to provide more information here

Rare Early American Pottery an Embarrassment to Israel Seymour, and Henry Churchill of Gloversville

2011-12-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

A significant piece of American history found and acquired on eBay.

A veteran dumpdigger and all around wheeler dealer friend of ours wrote us a funny and informative holiday message telling us about early American pottery, and the treasures that sometimes appear on eBay. According to my pal, its possible to scour online auctions and acquire museum quality pottery, sculpture and fine art without paying anything close to a dealer’s prices or even what it’s worth – for a variety of reasons.

Knowledge, which comes from taking the time to do the research is key to prosperity in this line of work. By simply knowing a little more than the average buyer, my friend was able to score a really wonderful piece of early American pottery, and what’s even better – it’s a rare mistake.

This salt-glazed stoneware jug was made by Israel Seymour in Troy, New York who made pottery between 1824 and 1850 in that area. It features a floral and feather design, the maker’s stamp is above an incised bird perched on a leaf with a small bird on its back. Like designs on many stoneware vessels made in New York in the early 19th century, the bird motif is done in cobalt, a metal oxide that does not lose its color in the heat of the kiln. This is a form of decoration long used in Central Europe.

The New York potters used cobalt imported from Europe, which was expensive, but only a little was needed to produce the characteristic strong blue colour. The motifs inscribed or painted on the surface have their origins in the European stoneware tradition, but American potters developed their own repertoire of designs that referred to their New World context; highly prized are patriotic subjects of the American eagle with the flag and arrows, and naval scenes depicting the War of 1812. Common subjects are birds, including recognizable species like pigeons, doves, peahens, sandpipers, and chickens, as well as others that are entirely fanciful.

I. Seymour of Troy NY made a mistake when he was stamping this ovid jug. He wrote Cloversville NY which was wrong – there never was a Cloversville, but there was certainly a Churchill &Co from Gloversville. That man, and his dry goods firm, was a pillar in the community, and we found a lot of great information on him. So Mr. Seymour also misspelled his client's name. This potter had no attention to detail.

Churchill & Co Gloversville 2 Gallon Stoneware Jug was made by Israel Seymour of Troy New York in about 1829. This jug was a special order from Henry Churchill for possibly celebrating the opening of the Post Office or for the naming of the village of Gloversville Ny. in 1929. Henry Churchill must have been very disappointed when he received the Stoneware jugs that he purchased from Israel Seymour. Not only is his name misspelled, the jugs read "Churchell & Co - Clovers ville ". Many potters in North America could not read or spell. There are many examples of misspelled stoneware jugs and crocks found to date, and this one is a beauty.

Henry Churchill, son of Jesse and Catherine (Smith) Churchill, was born in Middletown, Connecticut, February 17, 1807, died September 3, 1868. Early in life he came with his parents to Broadalbin, Fulton county, New York. He was educated in the public schools. and at an early age was thrown upon his own resources, developing into a strong, self-reliant man. From his twelfth to his twentieth year he was engaged in mechanical employment and mercantile life. For several years he was clerk in a store in Albany, where he acquired a thorough knowledge of merchandising methods and principles. He then relocated to Gloversville, New York, where he opened a store and prospered. For several years Churchill's store was the only one in Gloversville; he was the first postmaster of Gloversville. In the year of financial disaster, 1840, by the unexpected and heavy failures of those to whom he had entrusted his means, he lost everything he had accumulated in his years of prosperity. He had, however, the confidence of his fellow townsmen and large advances were made to him which enabled him to again start in business. In a short time he had paid off all his indebtedness and was firmly established in a large and prosperous business. From this point his career was one of unbroken success. He bought a large tract of land then near but later in the very heart of Gloversville and almost entirely covered with buildings. It extended from what is now Pine street to the "Fork in the road," and in 1851 this was all planted in corn. When he had completed the plans for such a residence as he desired, he sent men into the woods, who cut the lumber required. In the middle of his growing cornfield (now South Main street, and the center of Gloversville) he began his foundations, proceeded with the erection of his house, into which he moved in 1860. The first meeting preliminary to the organization of the Fulton County Bank was held in this house and was attended by the McLarens, Judsons, Messrs. McNab, Wells, Carson and others, well-known citizens. When the organization was completed, Henry Churchill was elected its first president. He was also president of the board of trustees of Gloversville Seminary, and an efficient promoter of the interests of his village

Here's the 1827 price list that Henry Churchill might have perused before ordering the stoneware jugs.

Between 1820 - 1850 many pottery shops sprang up along the Hudson River and along the New York State canal system making vessels of various shapes and sizes for the ships and shipping. During kiln firing, salt was applied to vessels that combined with clay silica to create a smooth, lustrous finish. Chocolate brown Albany Slip, named for where the clay was mined, was used to coat the insides of vessels. To identify or decorate the vessel, a painter applied a metallic oxide clay slip that turned a rich blue when fired. Sometimes manganese that turned purplish-brown was used. Simple identification included the makers’ mark and the vessel’s capacity. The New York History blog posted Dec 22 detailed donations to their State Museum from Adam Weitsman, along with photos including this piece showing a canal barge.

Salt glazed stoneware was vitally important to the development of New York State and its central role in western expansion of the country via the Hudson River, the Erie Canal and its network of feeder canals, and through the Great Lakes to the western river systems. Stoneware vessels were in high demand for storage and preservation of drinking water, milk, butter, eggs, beer, ale, whisky, pickles and salted meat. Clay deposits ideal for making stoneware were found in what is now South Amboy, New Jersey, lower Manhattan and eastern Long Island. As a result, New York State became a large stoneware producer.

Back in around 1829 the nearest pottery co. to Gloversville was in Troy NY. and that was about 50 miles away. After checking the potters of Troy NY, we found that I. Seymour's pottery number ( 2 ) stamp on his jugs was the same on all the 2 gallon jugs he produced. All potters had their own pottery stamp made with their name on it. It was basically a wood block with a handle and metal type face attached to the block. This was perhaps a rare attempt at making advertising for someone else on an order of stoneware jugs. And it went horribly wrong. This certainly could not have been a great transaction between Henry Churchill and Israel Seymour. It must have been an embarrassment to both great men.

Digging Long Forgotten Outhouse Privies in Manhattan NYC

2011-11-18T15:52:00.001-08:00

As keeper of the Dumpdiggers Blog I get a lot of wonderful emails, photos and cries for help from readers. People ask me to appraise the things, give proper names of things, and contact info, or they write long accounts of historic digs but fail to send any pictures. I will publish anything, but there has to be pictures...

One such writer, a veteran Dumpdigger living in New York City named Daniel McGee always sends great pictures and text, and is a regular contributor. He writes about his own adventures with his gang as they research and dig up pioneer privies on abandon or otherwise transitional properties in Manhattan. Its fascinating stuff. Dan has style too - he usually leads with a wide shot of the area, and this time, its a picture of Manhattan! Here's the new World Trade Center being erected in the center of town.

Dan McGee and his crew specialize in finding broken buildings and exploring their backyards. They dig test pits and only sink shafts when they strike bottles. They liberate history from holes in the ground just days before the backhoes and bulldozers appear to demolish structures and excavate the earth, and take everything away.

Dan writes (his words until END),

El Monstro De Gotham

SALVAGING AN ENORMOUS URBAN VAULT, TEN FEET WIDE & SEVEN FEET ACROSS
C. 1840. DSMcGee www.TheManhattanWellDiggers.com

'El Monstro De Gotham' is Spanish for 'The Monster Of Gotham'. The privy-well is among the largest ever encountered here in NYC, i.e., Gotham (however it wasn't exactly deep at only 7-8 feet but I may have covered that in the other notes).

The property we were digging on will soon be redeveloped...which is the main reason we were able to go in and salvage what we could, before they remove the old well and its contents. The point is, nearly all the digs we undertake are unpaid 'salvage operations', in the sense that the areas have/or will-soon-be totally altered/ destroyed by necessary developments. As such, we consider our 20+ years of volunteer digging and investigating activities, including documentation via photography, article writing, bottle and artifact retrieval and processing, etc., to be an integral part of the Historical Digging record nationwide; and perhaps even further afield in some cases.

The site is part of a row of old buildings, circa 1840. The privy-well (the old outhouse vault, chamber, etc.) was uncharacteristically made of freestanding redbrick; they're usually constructed of freestanding field-stone in the New York Metropolitan region; in that sense it was somewhat similar to a rainwater cistern when awe first opened it up at had a look.

To make a long story short, the way in which I became aware of the potential dig was this: After getting off the subway with my gear and swiftly heading to a particular spot on a construction site where I knew the owner would probably allow me to probe and test dig that afternoon...A faint voice (or instinctual urge, intuition or whatever) goaded me to walk down a certain street a couple blocks away, so I did. Several blocks later I forgot all about the 'voice', and, that's when two women began shouting 'Hey, Hey'. It was cold and they had their hoods up so I didn't recognize them as I briefly turned back to see who it was. I naturally assumed they were mistaking me for someone else. Then, from about a 100 feet away down a side-street I heard my first name called out...how odd the guy they were looking for had same name as me (I still didn't recognize them due to the distance between us). Then, something to the effect of 'we'd recognize that probe anywhere...!'

After all it is fairly unique in appearance, particularly when being taken up and down the streets and avenues, not too mention the often overcrowded and bustling subways of New York. Again, long story short, some good friends of theirs had been holding up their property renovation until the back corner spot could be investigated; they'd had us in mind all along but the actual connection wasn't made until right at that moment.

On this historical dig, the massive 'double privy' (privy well, privy chamber, or privy vault), turned out to be the largest we've encountered so far here in the New York Metropolitan area. Measuring over 10 feet wide (!) and 7 feet across, thankfully it was only between 7-8 feet deep.

For the record, had it been the customary 10-15 feet deep, the logistical problems we encountered would not have allowed many of the bottles and assorted artifacts to be safely salvaged, or for the operation to be completed entirely.

For instance, on the second day our skeleton crew had to bail many gallons of water which were continuously seeping into the active layer and rendering successful extractions of bottles and artifacts nearly impossible the entire time; not too mention doubling the workload for the duration of the excavation.

*There is no doubt that this very large vault was used by two adjoining townhouses, which were built around 1840 or so. In fact it's outer circumference extended 6 feet into what would have been the neighbors yard back in the mid 19th century.

Also, like most others we've investigated on historical digs over the last 2 decades, the privy-well had been dipped (thoroughly cleaned out, or prohibitively disturbed as the 'ARKO's' are fond of saying) to about only a foot or so from base level, most likely right around the time modern plumbing was installed at the residence. Despite this very common scenario, i.e., the stark reality that the first 6 feet or so of dirt we bucketed out was merely sterile back-fill material, essentially devoid of bottles and artifacts, we made many interesting antique bottle discoveries down near the floor of the vault.

Here are two umbrella style inkwells, emerald green and aqua, circa 1850-1855.

HARRISON’S / COLOMBIAN / INK, circa 1855.

We found a few rare early Patent Medicines including,
"Hastings Compound Syrup of Naptha" circa 1855-1860. This aromatic substance was invented in London in 1848 by Dr. Hastings who promoted his formula as 'The great Remedy for Consumption, Asthma, Spitting of Blood, Night Sweats, Husky Throat, Wasting of the Flesh, Coughs, Colds and all Diseases of the Chest and Lungs. Contemporary newspapers ads claimed that Hastings’ compound was being used in the hospitals and among the best physicians."

Cobalt blue, eight paneled teakettle ink, circa 1875. This is gorgeous and in great condition.

There were four of us involved with the historical dig at various times throughout the three days of investigation, myself, Mya, JJ Galione, and "Celtic Willy" from Sligo town.

As is nearly always the case we were incredibly busy during the entire salvage excavation...we never had a chance to get decent pics of the last 2 helpers or to take many good dig shots for that matter. In fact the best examples are the ones you see here and on the Facebook Page.

BRANT'S INDIAN BALSAM, circa 1855. The second pic to the left shows bottom, displays its pontiled base.

To the right are an assortment of bone and ivory toothbrush handles, circa 1850s-1870s.

In summary, there were many smooth base examples ranging from 1885-1865, there were over 30 pontiled examples, a half dozen tobacco pipes, an equal number of bone or ivory toothbrushes, and a bunch of ceramic and pottery fragments. The latter, along with a bunch of earlier bottles and so on, were trampled upon, decimated that is, as is almost always the case on these historical digs, while the dippers went about their lowly, odoriferous task of cleaning out the reeking night soil deposits back in the late 19th century.

Despite their heavy footwork and vigorous shoveling as they went about the grimy process of acquiring waste-generated fertilizer, over 75 intact bottles, some manufactured as early as the 1840s, were reclaimed from the shadowy environs down below.

Premier Antique Show, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Oct 28-30, 2011

2011-10-29T10:02:00.001-07:00

The Premier Antique Show Metro Toronto Convention Center, 255 Front St West on Oct 28th, 29th and 30th 2011 is well stocked with furniture, fine art paintings, fancy dishes, antique tools, sporting goods, coins, candy dispensers, musical, medical, military instruments all laid out on beautiful wooden tables or locked away in wood and glass cabinets, or under lights in glass and steel display cases. Each dealer has invested in professional hangers, lighting fixtures and has suitable furniture for showcasing their wares. Most have illuminated display cases on top of which rests a stack of freshly printed business cards. They’re at this show to sell stuff, and also to network and make connections with pickers, dealers, art directors, props buyers, interior decorators and designers.

Antiques Shows Are Like Museums on Acid

Have you ever been to a really high-end antiques show? It’s kind of overwhelming. There are so many beautiful objects of art, and history from all over the planet all collected together without any context or any attempt at sorting out their individual stories, and so to a logical mind, it’s like a museum on acid. Pick up any one object and somebody will scurry over and shed their knowledge and you can eat it up and keep eating and getting more and more knowledge from every dealer until finally, you’re full. And then you just want out. You have to get away as fast as possible before you throw it all up over somebody.

The advertisement boasts, ‘Decorative arts, Canadiana, vintage designs and accessories, fine jewelry, and objects of art.‘ And that’s accurate. It’s the best stuff on the pro tour; the Premier shows are like the PGA of Antiques. Someday in the near future the miracle of cyber computing will make available an advanced inventory management software that will be able to sort everything out and tell user where to find all the bits and pieces of a particular period, niche or genre of collecting, no matter how small.

Each object is a piece of many stories, and today the premier antique show is a kaleidoscope of high end history and culture that ignores shoes, ships and sealing wax to focus on cabbages and Kings. There are cameo broaches by the bushel, bronze statues, Bakelite telephones, long steel swords, authentic military medals and mint condition model airplanes. The elephants are called pachyderms here. There are fine art paintings and art deco signage and lots of great pottery.. But there are NO antique glass bottles or insulators anywhere - there are however some stoneware jugs and crocks but these are hidden away under the cabinets and chests of drawers, and made visible only to the person who's looking for them, and wants to find them.

Antique Dealers Don’t Like Canadian Pickers TV Show

At one point I had an interesting exchange with some very articulate and knowledgeable people with some interesting insights into the cable TV show craze sweeping North America. The rise of such mercantile concepts as Pawn Stars, and other antiques pickers has TV companies scrambling for new concepts in this niche and many of these folks have had phone calls or emails from one television company or another. And to my surprise I discovered that this crowd likes American Pickers TV show, but does not care much for the Canadian version. They noted how Canadian Pickers only seems to shop at well known antique dealers' houses and shops wherein of course they cannot possible find a bargain in the true spirit of being a picker. And more. These snippets of text I scribbled on my pad,
“Its just a TV show and you can't be a real picker on TV. “
“They don’t rip people off - they get ripped off. They pay too much !“
“And the stuff they buy is what’s hot, not quality. They buy art deco signs and TV antiques, old gas pumps and reconditioned juke boxes. Show pieces. I’d like to see one episode on Georgian furniture and then we’ll see how much they really know.”
“The TV Pickers like to buy show what the young people today call ‘vintage’”
Standex Electronics reed switch is a magnet thingy inside a small vacuum tube.

How To Find the Antique Show in the Metro Convention Center

Heritage Antique Shows www.heritageantiqueshows.com

Premier Antique Show, LIST OF DEALERS

Andrew Zegers, Oshawa, ON
Antique Diamond, Toronto ON
Antique Clocks and More, Toronto, ON
Antiquing with Helen, Toronto ON
Artophile, Port Perry , ON
Barry Ezine, Moffat, ON
Bayshore, Kingston, ON
Bernardi’s Antiques, Toronto, ON
Carmen Berdan, Toronto, ON
Cherry Hill Antique, (CADA), Grafton, ON
Christel Art, Montreal, PQC.R.
Cornish, Exeter, ON
Cynthia Findlay Antiques, Toronto, ON
Decart Inc, Longueuil, PQ
Daniel Tsang, Montreal, PQ
Farirholme Antiques, Toronto, ON
Fred Louckes, St Catherines, ON
Gallery de Louve, Montreal, PQ
Gary Dawson, Aurora ON
George Brown, Toronto, ON
Glenn Manor Galleries, Shakespeare, ON
Great Britain, Toronto, ON
I Miss You Vintage, Toronto, ON
Inquisitive Antiques, Toronto, ON
J. Taylor Antiques (CADA) Hamilton, ON
Jane Vining, Toronto, ON
Jonny’s Antiques (CADA), Shakespeare, ON
Manley & Sheppard, Toronto, ON
Michael Rowan (CADA) Green River, ON
Paul Murray Fine & Decorative Arts (CADA)
Kitchener, ONPatricia’s Antiques, Cobourg, ON
Paul Braybrook, Sarnia, ON
Peter E. Baker Antiquaire (CADA) Elgin, PQ
Peter Vernon, Toronto, ON
Poirer Schweitzer, Montreal, PQ
Polikers, Greenwood, ON
Richard Fienstead Holder, Toronto, ON
Richard Fulton, Toronto, ON
Royal Antique Rugs, Toronto, ON
T. Donald (Perovic) Antiques, Toronto, ON
Times Past Antiques, Ottawa, ON
Turner Chapel Antiques, Oakville ON

Antique Glass Bottles Found Under Southcore Financial Centre & Delta Hotel Toronto, The Story of Rees' Wharf

2011-08-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

I was standing on the north side of Bremner Ave, halfway between York St and Simcoe St surveying the future site of the Southcore Financial Centre & Delta Hotel Toronto towers, on a hot Weds Aug 9th 2011 afternoon, just after 5pm. It was quitting time, and I was there at the gate, waiting for these guys to knock off for the day. Once again my contacts had put me onto another downtown Toronto excavation site run by people who will let me shoot their bottles and tell their stories, alongside the history of the property. But on that day the massive hydraulic backhoes were still down there jack hammering the shale fifty feet below the sidewalks at a quarter after five. They hadn't quit yet.
There was no sign of my merchant historian friend either, but I could see the excavation workers were also expecting him. They were milling about two pick-up trucks about hundred meters away, inside the fence. To my delight I could see one fellow setting up some antique glass bottles in the tailgate exhibition.

I waved at the crew and rather trepidatiously walked into the yard, expecting someone to evict me. I held up my camera and announced that I was party to this show and sale – I was a friend of so and so, and so was expected?

Harry, the youngest member of the excavation crew, had just taken off his green fluorescent reflective vest, and was kicking the sand out of his work boots as I approached. He smiled and shook my hand and then gestured to the array of ready glass that was waiting to be perused and photographed – his display would be documented on Dumpdiggers for the rest of time. I told him who I was and he said 'yeah, I like your site'. So I knew he knew what he was getting into by standing in front of my lens beside historic Canadian glass.

The bottles actually belonged to the backhoe operator, but most had been retrieved by Harry, this young lad who manages the gate; his job is to document each and every truck that comes through the gate. He's the camp secretary. When the excavator shakes his bucket a certain way, it’s a signal to Harry to come over and pick up the bottle that’s visible underneath the behemoth’s jaws. There is minimal disruption to the work, according to Harry who was rather proud of the assembled artifacts.

This patch of land on modern day Bremner Ave wasn't a big city dump, like other sites nearby, but rather it was another stretch of the Toronto lake shore that was filled in with debris, and anything handy in the 1870s and 1880s as the railroad grew and people wanted a better port facility at the bottom of the city. In the 1840's, before the railroad came to Toronto, this was Rees' Pier.

So if we were to go back in time right on this spot we'd all be underwater or standing on the water opposite Rees Pier or what became known as the Rees' Wharf. This location is very historic. It was on these wooden docks and facilities through which the mass exodus of Irish immigrants entered the 1840's era New World of opportunities. Rees' wharf was an important conduit in the city, and life in Canada.

Dr William Rees and the Rees' Wharf in Toronto

REES, WILLIAM, physician and surgeon; b. c.1800, son of Evans Rees of Bristol, Eng.; d. unmarried 4 Feb. 1874 in Toronto, Ont.

William Rees studied medicine in England under Sir Astley Cooper and came to Canada in 1819. He was an assistant health officer at the port of Quebec in 1822. In 1829 he moved to York (Toronto) and, after examination by the Medical Board of Upper Canada in January 1830, he purchased the practice of John Porter Daly. With the exception of a brief sojourn in Cobourg in 1832 Rees lived the rest of his life in Toronto. He ran unsuccessfully in the first riding of York for election to the Legislative Assembly in 1834, but distinguished himself during the Upper Canada Rebellion when he was appointed surgeon to the guard-ship at Toronto, and assistant surgeon to the regiment of Queen’s Rangers.

From what this author can determine, Dr William Rees had the long wooden dock and support buildings erected in 1837 as a disembarkation point for emigrants to Toronto. Rees advocated throughout his career numerous measures for social reform and the development of public service. When he began his practice in the city he advertised that he would vaccinate the poor people and give them medical advice free of charge. In 1837 he constructed a wharf which had no formal name, but became known as Rees' Wharf and he is also said to have built public baths on the waterfront at Toronto for the use of immigrants in the same year. He lived there, or nearby in a cottage beside a small hill for many years.

This square patch of the Toronto harbour became very important in the 1840s when Irish potato crops had caught a blight that caused widespread crop failure that resulted in the 'Irish Potato Famine' and one of the largest European mass emigrations in modern history. Those who pressed on to Toronto were required to disembark at Rees' Wharf, where they were processed at a make shift shed by Edward McElderry, the local Emigration Agent and representative of the Government of the Province of Canada (the union of what is now Quebec and Ontario) and Constable John B Townsend, who was the Clerk of the Toronto Board of Health.

In 1847, over 100,000 Irish immigrants migrated to Canada. Nearly 40,000 of these people passed through Toronto, which at the time had a population of just under 20,000. Most had come through Grosse Ile, which was a special station set up to aid the refugees of the worst famine in the history of the British Isles. In the summer of that year, 863 Irish people died in the fever sheds that were erected at King Street West and John Street. In total 1,100 people lost their lives during this tragic time.

Look at this 1862 Map of Toronto. Rees' Wharf is situated just south of the Provincial Parliament Buildings. East of this map insert, there are some unfamiliar street names, like Graves St for example (became Pearl St) and Market Street. Dr Rees was already a very well respected physician in this 'garrison town' turn provincial capital. He helped found the Provincial Insane Asylum. At the height of his accomplishments he was struck by a mental patient in the asylum and it was a blow from which he never quite recovered. This incident marks the beginning of a slow decline of his professional career and social prospects. When he died in 1874 he was a poor man.

The shoreline is open and lush and green as was the fashion in the 1800s. Civilized men would take the air at night and ambulate about the grounds - this was a place of recreation near the Ontario General Assembly buildings. Whenever I look at the early pictures of Toronto I’m struck by the gardens and open landscape of the lake shore.
Look at this vision of the 1840 Toronto with a horse track and 'gardens' for the civilized people of Upper Canada's largest settlement. The place grew in prominence because it was a Garrison Town and home to Fort York and the seat of a shared government with Montreal - Upper and Lower Canada.
THIRD PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, 1834
The Upper Canadian parliament buildings, designed by Thomas Rogers and constructed between 1829 and 1832, stood at Front and Simcoe streets. The surrounding area was largely a mixed institutional and affluent suburban district that had emerged after the War of 1812. However, less prestigious structures, such as immigrant sheds and taverns, stood nearby, as sharp neighbourhood distinctions did not exist in Georgian Toronto.

Here's what this patch of land is forecast to look like in 2013,
Southcore Financial Centre is a major mixed-use office tower development built in Toronto's downtown core. Designed to exceed the expectations of today's globally connected tenants and urban travelers, this three-phase project will include two office towers totaling 1.4 million sq.ft. and the Delta Toronto – a next generation, premium 4-star hotel. Connected to the urban forest, this fully integrated complex will provide an enclosed pedestrian access to Union Station, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the PATH network.
Located on 3.25 acres at the centre of Toronto's expanding financial core and entertainment district, SFC occupies a full block from York to Lower Simcoe Streets along Bremner Ave. The fully integrated complex will be connected to Union Station and all of downtown Toronto via the already extensive PATH network.

While digging the foundation for this megalith, the backhoe operators encountered pockets of dump, either material that was household trash dumped there in the 1870s to fill in the lake or the natural bottles and pottery pieces that are thrown into the lake off the pier and came to rest in the mud of the lake bed for 150 years.

Buying Bottles on Excavation Sites

Not much of what happened next can I relate in any detail but suffice to say that there was a mercantile exchange and some people had to visit nearby ATM machines and get more cash.

Here is a photo montage, starting with the players involved in negotiating a fair price for these historic artifacts. The buyer and the seller and the banter was as colourful as the old bottles.

Here are some of the best bottles in their hands.

This is a Brain Bros Lager Beer bottle from Hornby Ontario that's quite rare. This bottle traveled some distance to end up in the Toronto lake shore.
I was able to get some more information on Hornby and I even found an 1877 image of the brewery. It was a large operation in a small town. This tract was written in EHS Archives,

"BRAIN BREWERY"
This 9th Line business was established in 1845. The beer became famous and the business expanded to employ ten men and 40 horses! Only the main house remains, although it has been extensively renovated. This sketch (below) is from the 1877 Halton Atlas"

And there was another great early Canadian beer bottle, very rare. The gem seen below is embossed,
Rob Davies / Lager Beer / Dominion Brewer / Toronto

Here's a Robertson tan ginger beer bottle that another operator proffered for sale but closer inspection revealed it has a crack and that makes it about worthless according to the visiting expert. That verdict was immediately rejected by the seller who announced that it would find a ready buyer in a flea market near his house. I reflected on that - it would indeed, as this is exactly the type of bottle you would think was incredibly rare and valuable and worth buying in any condition at any price. But it isn't - this is a common Toronto late 1800's ginger beer bottle, and not worth that much, especially when cracked.

An Earlier Stash Sold
The Merchant Historian who is my contact to this world had visited this site one or two days earlier, and he'd made deals with another one of the machine operators. He sent me these pictures so I can show them here, and thereby offer a more complete assessment of the artifacts found on site.

Here are the highlights. These two bottle are both rare and beautiful and date from mid to late 1800s. They were found intact with only slight damage not visible in this picture.
On the left is a light cobalt blue Pilgrim Soda bottle and beside it is a lovely ribbed ink bottle with spout top. This ink is embossed Commercial Ink Co London, and my merchant historian friend swears this is a product of London Ontario (which would make it worth than if was simply another lovely UK ink). The Pilgrim is worth about ?? (it has some damage) and the ink could be obtained for ? ? somebody email me, or leave in the comments more accurate price data. I will follow up if and when this piece goes to auction.

In the main ditch immediately inside the gate there's a pile of wood debris and metal pipes etc that was recovered by the excavators, and separated out of the loads being shipped north as 'clean fill' to some other part of Ontario that needs building up.
The metal pipes and castings are very interesting and no doubt all have stories, but the ship's anchor is the centerpiece. Here was an iron anchor that was lost back in the 1800s, perhaps by a sailboat, or a steamer that was docked at Rees' Wharf.

Alexander Ferguson MacLaren was the Grand Fromage of 1900s Canadian Political Cheesemakers

2011-07-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

Alexander Ferguson MacLAREN, M. P. for North Perth, was born in Perth, County of Lanark, on February 3rd, 1854. He is the son of John MacLaren, his mother being Ellen Buchanan Ferguson. Some of what I know about this man and these antique stoneware cheese pots comes from History of the County of Perth, 1825-1902
William Johnston, 1903. pp.548 and 551-552.

Dumpdiggers knows that Alexander MacLaren was a cheese buyer for a major cheese importer in the 1870s who soon after became cheesemaker in the 1880s.

In 1892 this man introduced a new dairy product to the world, "MacLaren's Imperial Cheese." which may have been a more spreadable food product, as it was contained in the ceramic jar seen below (after KRAFT bought it?). For distributing this perishable food product, several offices were eventually set-up in Toronto, New York, London (England), Chicago, Detroit, Mexico, China, Japan and Africa.

This one food product made Alex Maclaren rather famous, also his skill as cheese critic and buyer and seller for example although still a young man, he was chosen as sole judge in the cheese department at the Chicago World's Fair. Canadians carried off many honours at the event.

Alexander MacLaren was a busy man. He was president of the A. F. MacLaren Imperial Cheese Co., limited; president Imperial Veneer Co., Toronto and Sudbury; president Imperial Wood Fibre Plaster Co., of Toronto; director of Slate and Cement Co., Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. with capital holdings exceeding $2,000,000. He was also director of the Industrial Fair Board, Toronto, and chairman of Dairy Committee; he was also president of the Western Dairymen's Association from 1896 and 1897.

On April 29, 1885, Alex MacLaren married Miss Janet McLeod. Shortly after marriage MacLaren become active in politics. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the electoral district of Perth North at the general elections of 1896. A Conservative, he was re-elected in 1900 and 1904. He was defeated in 1908. MacLaren died in 1917 in Toronto from kidney problems. In 1920, MacLaren's cheese company was purchased by J. L. Kraft and Brothers Company.

Manhattan Well Diggers, June 2011 Bakery Dig

2011-07-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

The Manhattan Well Diggers are at it again and DS McGee sent me some lovely pictures and text relating to their latest excavation, on the site of a US Civil War era bakery. Here's a link to their website The Manhatten Well Diggers and here's a link to the Bakery Excavation in Manhattan Well Diggers Facebook Page.

THE SECRET LOCATION: Behind the fence beside the red brick building is an empty lot. On this site, 130 years ago there was a bakery, which operated here between 1855-1865, and would have baked the bread that New Yorkers ate as they read news of Civil War battles. DS McGee writes, "Prior to the Civil War era salvage dig of this weekend, we investigated a shallow woodliner ( a latrine that had wood boards lining the interior of the shaft) which dated to about 1885-1915, and a long narrow 'trough' privy, 10 feet from end to end, 3 feet wide, and only 3 feet deep, which was constructed of stone and filled with mostly 1880s-1910s 'hutch' style beer and soda bottles." So readers come to understand that the dig team has been on this property before, and only just recently found the oldest 'well' as they call a privy (latrine).

Over time the team sunk many test pits which are small probative holes until they encountered something, anything especially a rich deposit of historic glass - on this day they found the top of a century old well. McGee writes of this picture, 'Here is one small section of the 'privy well' open for the first time in about 130 years.' This 'well' was made of heavy stone, its circumference nearly six feet across, once emptied, from the floor to the top of the yard measured 7 1/2 feet. Click the picture, it expands and you can see they have a small privy rod - a four foot spring steel rod on which there is usually a short piece of grid pipe welded for a handle.

The bottles came up in clutches, along other detritus. One of the first bottles discovered was this large green medicine bottle, seen here alongside a Civil War era soda or beer, a XXX Ginger Ale, and others. Manufacture date of the items ranges from about 1860-1875.

It was hot digging for two people but they had an early start. Their mission was to go on site and recover anything found in the ground before a professional excavation company goes to work digging up the ground for nearby building improvements. Both diggers are obligated to fill in the hole again before they leave - both are absolutely committed to savouring the day, and it was probably one of the longest days of their lives.

It took all morning and afternoon to get to the bottom of the oldest latrine hole on the property, but look what treasures they saved.
Perhaps most spectacular is this teal green "T&M" medicine bottle, heavily embossed on both side panels, and a very pronounced 'open pontil' scar on base, c.1855. This is a fairly rare find on any salvage dig and a nice addition to any New York druggist bottle collection. Now DS Mcgee has the task of determining just who or what was T&M? and what concoction was once sold in this container?
DR. PORTER / NEW YORK, c. 1865, seen here just as it appeared in the ground. And below are clay saloon pipes, manufactured between about 1855-1875. These are usually found without stems because the pipes were disposable in that the stem was seldom cleaned but rather broken off and shortened as it became clogged.
Here's the final stash or what most Dumpdigging teams will 'The Picks', because at the end of the dig everyone will pick from the pile (usually after flipping a coin to see who picks first). I would take that Civil War era umbrella ink seen in the front row. Click the picture - it expands!
In his closing remarks DS McGee writes, '...despite the intense heat and labor intensive conditions, we were able to salvage over 30 antique bottles before the backyard renovation was underway.' Good work McGee. Keep saving history and sending us the pictures.

55th Annual Warkworth Donnybrook Show and Sale

2011-06-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 18th 2011 was a hot day and a hot night in the town of Warkworth Ontario. The 55th Annual Warkworth Donnybrook Sale and Auction packed the Fair Grounds with bargains and bargain hunters of every description.

The material is collected in mass donations, and then sold in rummage sales and at auction in the town community center / hockey arena

The action started in the northwest red barn at 5pm. The event now dominates the entire Fair Grounds; it has outgrown the hockey arena. There are two additional venues full of stuff. the two red barns at the west end of the Fairgrounds are filled with boxes full of stuff
material

At 5pm there were over three hundred people waiting out front of the red barns. This is where the evening started. At age 55 the event has grown larger than the hockey arena - the clothing, books and toys are now kept in this separate venue which is first to open to the public and thereby heighten its ';early attraction' status

Here’s the crowd sorting through the toys, ceramic bookends, knickknacks , insulated drink cups, clock radios, PS2 gamer controllers, VHS tapes, BugsBunny underwear

Hamburgers were $4.00 each and came with optional (free) fried onions. Proceeds are donated to The Scouts - no longer are they just 'boy' scouts.

HOW THE DONNYBROOK WORKS
Weeks before the annual event, the Warkworth Community Service Club spreads the word in newspapers and meetings. Residents of the town and surrounding area are encouraged to donate goods they no longer want or need * but still in good working order and of some value to someone. After 55 years pretty much everyone knows the drill and most farm families donate something as the closing of act of their own annual spring cleaning ritual. When cleaning their houses and barns, local townspeople and farmers make two piles – one for the dump and the other for the Donnybrook.
Members of the service club drive their trucks around and pick up the material that people leave curbside on a particular night - or more rural participants can drop off material that same night at the arena.

The old electronics equipment sells for a premium in Toronto antiques stores to scores of well paid IT staff who marvel at how downright simple things used to be.

The rest of the hockey arena floor was littered with furniture of all descriptions, sofas perfect for the cottage, wall units, tables and chairs, electronics, household goods, sporting goods,

At 7PM THE AUCTION STARTED

For 30 minutes before the auction started a man in a red shirt droned on over the PA system,
‘The Auction starts at 7pm’
‘You don’t need to be registered to bid in the auction’
‘Just pay a service club member in a red shirt’
‘The antiques and collectibles are along the north wall of the arena, under the clock’

Marshall Gummer was there and acting it up as The Appraiser

The fellow who purchased the side table is Jim Connor from Campbellford, an astute and knowledgable collector. The item was a late Georgian or Early Victorian paper mache serving tray with mother-of-pearl inlay. The base was probably a later addition but did not fool Jim in spotting a treasure. His $60 purchase is probably worth $300-$400 !

Miller's Prepared Glycerine

2011-06-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

MILLER, HUGH, pharmacist, jp, and office holder; b. 2 June 1818 in Inverness, Scotland; m. 8 June 1847 Helen Dow in Whitby, Upper Canada, and they had seven children; d. 24 Dec. 1898 in Toronto.

Hugh Miller immigrated to Upper Canada in 1841 and established himself in Toronto. Having been trained as a pharmacist, he worked briefly for two pharmaceutical firms before opening a retail pharmacy on King Street East. He continued to operate it, enjoying a reasonable success, until his death. For a time two of his sons were associated with him in the practice. The elder, William, was most actively involved, but he died in 1894; Kenneth A. had left pharmacy in the early 1880s.

Besides operating his business, Miller was prominent in the establishment and administration of various organizations of Ontario pharmacists. During the 1860s, following the lead of their colleagues in Britain and the United States, pharmacists in the Canadas had begun to move towards formal associations in order to counter threats from the medical profession to their accustomed freedoms. Miller was a founding member and vice-president of the Canadian Pharmaceutical Society, established in 1867 in Toronto accountants to press the new federal government for legislation which would create a regulatory and professional association. By the autumn of 1868 it had become evident that such legislation would not be quickly forthcoming, and the CPhS turned to the provincial government for help. Miller and a handful of colleagues were selected to draft pharmacy legislation, which became the Ontario Pharmacy Act of 1871.

The act created the Ontario College of Pharmacy as a regulatory body with the power to issue licences to those entitled to practise under the act and allowed physicians and surgeons to be licensed as pharmacists without examination. It also outlined the organizational structure of the OCP, empowered it to hold property, and controlled the sale of poisons, the use of titles such as druggist and pharmacist, and the operation of pharmaceutical shops. The college, which until the early part of the 20th century had considerable national importance, also carried responsibility for the education of pharmacists. Its first president was William Elliot. Miller was elected to the council of the OCP at its inception, and he was regularly returned until 1888, serving as president between 1881 and 1883. During his presidency the OCP founded a school of pharmacy, which became affiliated with the University of Toronto in 1892 and an independent faculty of the university in 1953.

Although Miller never ran for political office, he was a staunch supporter of the Liberal party and a confidant of George Brown* and Alexander Mackenzie. He never forgot his homeland, and he was active in a number of Scottish organizations in Toronto, including the St Andrew’s Society, the Sons of Scotland, the Caledonian Society, and the Gaelic Society. He also belonged to the York Pioneer and Historical Society. Described in an obituary as “one of the most esteemed” freemasons in Toronto, he had joined the order in Britain and in Toronto was associated with St Andrew’s Lodge No. 16. During the last 25 years of his life, Miller acted as a justice of the peace, and from about 1894 as an assistant police magistrate. The latter activity, in which he was engaged until the day before his death, earned him wide respect.

Ernst W. Stieb

Here's product shots,

Canadian Druggist (Strathroy, Ont., and Toronto), 11 (1899): 9. Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal (Toronto), 32 (1898–99): 282. Evening News (Toronto), 27 Dec. 1898. Globe, 26 Dec. 1898. Toronto World, 26 Dec. 1898. Toronto directory, 1843–99. A brief history of pharmacy in Canada, ed. A. V. Raison ([Toronto, 1969]), 70–75. Elizabeth MacNab, A legal history of health professions in Ontario . . . (Toronto, [1970]), 216–43. One hundred years of pharmacy in Canada, 1867–1967, [ed. E. W. Stieb] (Toronto, 1969). B. P. DesRoches, “The first 100 years of pharmacy in Ontario,” Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal, 105 (1972): 225–27. E. W. Stieb, “A century of formal pharmaceutical education in Ontario,” Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal (Ottawa), 116 (1983): 104–7, 153–57; “A professional keeping shop: the nineteenth-century apothecary,” Material Hist. Bull. (Ottawa), 22 (1985): 1–10.

© 2000 University of Toronto/Université Laval

Acquiring Antique Bottles From Excavators in Downtown Toronto Construction Sites - May 2011

2011-05-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

The title says it all...

For many years I've heard about avaricious antiques collectors who stand at the fence out front of downtown Toronto excavation sites and arrange to buy found objects from the workers. The crafty collector infuses the excavators with a duty to save their Canadian heritage, just by talking about the old bottles passionately and teaching them some history. The friendly merchant who makes lunchtime visits to the dig site sets a policy and offers to buy everything found intact for $5 a bottle, and $10 for all pottery. This was a recipe for getting rich in the 1980s when bottle prices were high and the dumps were the oldest. But then a lot of tall buildings were built along the lake shore in the 1990s, and even more in the 2000s, and bottle prices plummeted with every excavation. Also, the site workers themselves got smarter, and now they're bottle collectors too.

Here I am making 'first contact' with Shawn the Shovel Man at Cherry St. and Lakeshore.

The guys on the boring machines at Cherry and Lakeshore are finding some interesting things with every corkscrew down into the mud.

There's a lot of development happening in the West Donlands. There are plenty of shovels in the ground and old Toronto bottles are popping up everywhere.

Let's look at the future of this place. This is 2015

Athletes Village - Pan American Games Park - Lower Donlands. On November 6th 2009, it was announced that Toronto had won the 2015 Pan Am Games, on the first ballot.

Now journey back to 1793, to the shores of muddy york.
Archeologists are busy digging up the foundations of old buildings as they search for history ahead of steam shovels developing this quarter for the Pan Am games. Here's a discussion on Urban Toronto asking and telling about archeologists in the Old City - the oldest part of Toronto. Click the map - the picture expands and you can see right where Toronto started. This is the 1793 Map of the Toronto Harbour made by Joseph Bouchette.

The Lower Donlands, just east of The Distillery District, is one of the oldest parts of Toronto. It’s been neglected for years and is only now undergoing some long overdue development.

Earlier this year, I posted about a lost creek that became a Toronto city dump in the late 1880s, at King and River Sts. Streetcar Developments condo buildings have some special engineering to suck up water at the base of the northwest wall and channel it through pipes to return it to the municipal sewer system drainage on the south side of the structure. They had to do this or the underground parking lot would flood because of a spring to the north that made the original lost creek which, previously, ran into the Don River. This natural water system was buried in garbage in the late 1880s. The excavation workers at that site carried away boxes full of early pottery and glass bottles while the machines were digging the riverbed. The one picture of 1870s era stoneware beers that I obtained for the blog was only a small portion of the hoard that sprung forth, only to be reburied in dump trucks or snatched away by staff.

Over the years the luckiest and friendliest excavation site workers have become well paid ‘inside men', and profit by selling or trading what they find in the ground. Most just liquidate for cash, but some of these guys amass large collections of museum quality artifacts. At Cherry Street and Lakeshore the boys are keen to find things, but unfortunately there's a lot of broken material due to the corkscrew boring mechanism...

Working right on top of the Martin Goodman bike path south of the railroad bridge, and in the shadow of the Gardiner Expressway overhead, these yellow clad men are the most unlikely time travelers you'll ever meet, but with every corkscrew full of earth they dredge up from twenty feet down, they voyage back to the shoreline of the earliest British settlement.

On May 18th I was passing alongside the site and hoping to get somebody’s attention, because I smelled a good story. At that time, I just wanted to know if they were finding anything? And were they finding any old bottles and pottery? With just one quick scan of site and huge screw machine however I could see that the apparatus was not historical artifact friendly.

But there were bottles here. The two story tall drill came up out the ground and it was possible, just for moment, to see the industrial age dump on the blades. You could see historic rubbish being removed from the earth; century old garbage was staring at me right there on the blade. The crew is here boring down into the earth to make cylindrical holes in the ground and sink steel pipes that will soon be filled with concrete to anchor buildings. The ground is a century old city dump very near the original mouth of the Don River.

Then it happened again and this time right in front of my eyes. The giant auger came up out of the pipe, the huge corkscrew blade spun around and all the clumps of mud came flying off the blade. There was an unbroken Chas Wilson soda bottle that rolled off the clumps and a little blue Bromo Seltzer finger sized bottle was spotted in the mud beside it. They were retrieved and wiped clean.

Through the chain link fence around the construction site, further along at the base of 'the piles' I could see broken pot lids and broken stoneware. With my sharp eyes I spotted other small cylindrical pottery vessels covered in white furnace ash. And once again as the auger came up out of the pipe I saw a cross section of a decent little dump with multiple ‘goody veins’ right there on the blades. I should have taken a video of that moment, or a picture of the booty on that huge drill bit – but I was standing right beside Shawn the Shovelman and I couldn’t very well make media in such an overt manner at that particular time.

The excavators are curious about why some bottles are worth more than others? They always ask which bottles to look out for, and if you tell them a name, any name, they'll squint their eyes and try for a moment to commit the words to memory. The older guys with good collections already know what to pick up - and it all happens so fast. The backhoe operator will pause the machine and give a nod to his shovel man when he sees something he wants. He'll get out of the machine himself and get down and pick it up if he sees blue glass, or any unbroken pottery, or any torpedo shaped glass bottles - that's money. If he gets out of the rig a lot it will annoy the site manager and the people watching the clock will soon make rules against the bottle collecting.

At Cherry St. I got the general impression that the guy running the biggest machine was in charge of the whole operation. When I handed my card to Shawn he removed his muddy gloves and carried the card with some care all the way over to the corkscrew operator. This bearded chap scrutinized my card from inside the cab of his two story drilling machine. He looked up at me in the gate. I waved. He nodded. Then I turned around and walked back to The Distillery...

At my office, I did some research on the area and found some great cartography. This very old area has changed considerably since the 1800s. This land was also the site of a large city dump – the Keating Channel is a relatively new development. Here's a map of this area in the 1870s. On this date in history, the city of Toronto is ready to expand by dumping household garbage into the marshy lake shore. (Click these map pictures, they expand.)

Look at the little river channel through the marsh south of the Grand Trunk Railway. I put the X in the wrong spot - the railway tracks are still there. The diggers are actually digging in the original mouth of the Don River!

Now here is the same property in 1910. Notice there is no sign of the Don River here whatsoever. The mouth of the river has been buried using mostly household trash and wood ash. (Click these map pictures, they expand.)

Now here is the same property in 1941 - now there is a steel bridge over the Don River spillway, the Keating Channel (Click these map pictures, they expand.)

TWO DAYS LATER MY PHONE RANG

Two days later I got a phone call from the big screw driver and he asked me if I would like to come down to the site and have a peek at what he's been picking up all week. He was pretty excited about some recently recovered bottles. He wanted to sell them. ‘Listen’ the voice says, ‘I’ve got six boxes in my garage, and my wife is clean freak. I’ve got to get rid of some.' And soon enough he asks if perhaps I'd like to buy the whole lot? "Of course," I reply, 'bring everything.'

Of course I won't buy the whole works – not unless I can see squat sodas and ginger beers in the boxes, but yes, I will come and look at them and cherry pick through the boxes looking for the best bottles to buy. I'll make purchases, one at a time, haggling for the lowest possible price per item, while angling for freebies.

The following afternoon, Weds May 25th 2011 I had my first experience as a construction site bottle picker. I was there waiting at the gate at 12:00 noon sharp as per our earlier arrangement. For years I’ve heard about hoarders who've made fortunes buying and selling valuable glass vessels found in excavation sites. The pieces change hands three or fours times before the end up in the city's best antique shops. But that was then, and this is now. Bottles and stoneware collectibles have plummeted in price. And the merchandise that was put on display that afternoon really wasn't all that special.

The Excavation Site Bottle Show Started at Noon

Here's a clear class Orange Crush, and below is a Bromo Seltzer.

Found a little Balsam Honey.

Some common Toronto patent medicines,

Some common early Toronto milk bottles

and at least one bottle I'd never seen before...

Stay tuned for more information and more pictures...

Big Money Bottles Sold On eBay, May 2011

2011-05-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

.
Hamilton’s Patent Stoneware – R. Johnson Greek St. London This pottery piece sold for: £6,310.99 (36 bids in total).
The bottle stands about 7” tall and it's not a torpedo in the truest sense, it stands up on a level surface!
It's thought to date from early to mid nineteenth century !
The bottle is glazed up to its shoulders; lip with some scratch marks and a bit of rust and dirt. The surface lettering reads: “Hamilton’s Patent R. Johnson, 15 Greek St. London”.

Royal Dalton Kingsware Whiskey Bottle – The Forty Thieves This is "The Forty Thieves" Kingsware pear shaped Whiskey Flask.
This very pretty whiskey bottle sold for: C $4,800.00 (20 bids in total)
The bottle stands about 8.5” tall and 4” in diameter
There is a small chip on the spout that must be mentioned.
But the paint and glaze are still in tip top condition.

H. Sproatt Toronto Torpedo Soda Bottle (Rare Teal)

This lovely old soda bottle just sold for: US $1,075.00 (17 bids in total)
It's one of Canada’s earliest soda bottles, and was very likely made at Lockport Glassworks in New York, NY.
The piece dates from approximately the 1850s-1860s.
The glass is a rare teal colour which is odd because most Sproatt torpedoes are aqua.
The lightly polished glass is clean with very few, minor scratches on the surface.

Rare Lime Green Gurd’s Ginger Beer Bottle – Montreal, Canada

This lime green ginger beer bottle just sold for: US $1,175.00 (13 bids in total)
It stands approximately 9.25” tall
The potter mark reads as follows, “29 Buchan & Portobello Edinburgh” with two tiny iron pops
There's a slight 1” line in the green on shoulder.
The product label reads: “Gurd’s Trademark Ginger Beer ‘The Perfect Drink’”
Hmmm I'd like to have one right now.

The 2011 Toronto Bottle Show

2011-04-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

The seventeenth annual Toronto Bottle Show was a big success.
The show is produced entirely by volunteers from the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors, one of Canada’s oldest and most respected clubs.

Sunday April 17th 2011 was a gray day with periods of rain and huge flakes of snow, but the miserable day outside didn't spoil the mood at the bottle show, in the gymnasium at Humber College in Rexdale. Over thirty different dealers waited inside at 9:29 am as over 100 collectors and enthusiasts lined up outside waiting for admission. The ticket price was only $5, but there were no exceptions! Click the pictures below; they expand so you see all the juicy details.

Dwight Fryer held up a triangular amber poison bottle with really pronounced horizontal ribs. It was German, a bottle produced for a wealthy chemist / druggist and the personal doctor to Ludwig III of Bavaria. The bottle had the word GIFT stamped in the glass midway down the panel. What was the GIFT? Poisonous lozenges! The bottle held disinfectant lozenges which could turn ordinary water into a disinfecting solution for surgical tools. These were called sublime pastels and the product was used before the 1900s. Dwight wanted $500 for the piece which he believed was quite rare. This collector specializes in poisons and so if he treasures a piece for its rarity than it must indeed be rare, or else he's an amazing salesman. I didn't spend $500, but I did buy a cobalt blue Teasdale chloradine and a coffin shaped carbolic acid bottle NOT TO BE TAKEN because I love them.

Brett Bloxam had the best table of different coloured insulators, with his best being displayed on a white board. Some are threadless and most are just real hard to find he told me. He was asking $100 or $200 for the Hudson glass pieces. For Brett it’s all just a wonderful hobby and nothing more – he always does well in the exchange of ideas and hard currency at the bottle show and likes being in on the fun as one of the dealers.

Michael Rosman holds up his book, 'Kinkly to Mae West' which encapsulates all his knowledge of orange crush collectibles. His Orange Crush t-shirt was visible from the door. He's a man that treasures uncommon isotopes of orange pop. Michael has studied and collected Crsuh for many years and now he's sharing his knowledge with other collectors. Michael Rosman has authored and sells a $40 print book. Good move. Its a fact that knowing the different bottles and their classifications is key to spotting and buying at good prices those precious rare variations. Michael also showed me the most current gem in his collection , which regrettably I didn’t get a picture of – it's a French language Orange Crush that was made for the Quebec market.

A quiet Ron Hunsperger collects beers, but is changing his focus to collecting bottles local to Oakville, Hamilton, especially Burlington. While I waited Ron had another conversation about Stratford medicines and then when he came back to me we discussed his black glass 1880 O'Keefe beer bottle that’s a particular dark shade of green. It looks black. The dark glass may have contained a light sensitive specialty brew and that's one of the reasons he brought it to the show.

Robert Lloyd had some insulators and bottles and he explained how these items reflected his own progression as a collector. His father was a cartridge collector and he would accompany his Dad to gun shows and didn’t have very much fun because he wasn’t allowed to touch things. So at a very young age he started collecting things he could handle, and that was insulators and bottles.

In the center of his table he had a porcelain doll in fair condition,. He described it as a good fixer upper for a period doll collector and I laughed wondering how a doll could ever be considered such a thing. But the face is great and X overall in good shape. it has a porcelain head, neck and shoulders and leather body . It is however missing its porcelain hands and has suffered a few small puncture wounds – Robert recalled how he’d once seen a period advertisement of this doll in the same newspaper that reported the assassination of Thomas Darcy McGee April 7, 1868.

Adam and James Jarzabek collect beverages and they both have a particular fondness for old milks and cream bottles. And milk caps and beer labels. And beer trays and old beer cans. Also present among their offerings were some rare sodas.

I ask dealers to pick up a bottle for a picture and Adam selected a Tossells bottle from Niagara Falls Ontario. The bottle was embossed with plenty of writing including the words Lager and Gingerale. How could it be both? The bottle could hold either liquid – the company made both , which meant they could comfortably put either beverage in this vessel alongside a paper label identifying which one it was.

Ron DeMoor is one of my favourite dealers and talk with him every year at the bottle show. I find him very personable and quick to make a jokes and tell me something interesting – he’s well liked by the rest of the crowd too, and so its good to visit him a little later after everyone has said hello. That way you’re not constantly being interrupted by gentle banter – their three ways deals - and the connections people make after not seeing each other for a year.

Ron and I talked about torpedo bottles and he posed with an English torpedo (and he revealed a secret to me…*) the bottle was embossed J.T. Shephard Co Geraldton Potass Water which is a form of soda beverage I concluded and didn’t ask any more ... I don’t think potass water would sell very well today hahah. I did ask how old it was, and Ron reckoned it was from the early 1880s but it could have been made earlier, as early as the 1860s. There are other specimens so it’s not 100% unique.

*Ron revealed to me that in his experience, torpedo bottles manufactured in North America are more egg shaped and have rounder bottoms than the English variety torpedo bottle which are more conical, and more 'torpedo like' if you will. That’s a good tip and something I will investigate further.

Have you got any one of a kind North American torpedo bottles? He reached for the R.A. Pilgrim torpedo. Is this rare? I asked. ‘There are three that we know of in Canada’, a nearby gentleman (pnjmarchand) volunteered the information that Robert Alfred Pilgrim of Hamilton was a merchant druggist / soda manufacturer and recent immigrant.

In 1848, (based on their advertising), Robert Alfred Pilgrim, then a 21 year old Englishman, established in Hamilton, Ontario, one of Canada's first pop works. Six of his seven sons joined him the mineral water trade as they became old enough to help. - P. Marchand
So 'Pilgrim Bros' soda bottles are younger than R.A. Pilgrim, the father of the boys. So how much money would Ron take for the piece? Ron hummed and wheezed and finally said he would consider all offers over two thousand dollars for this rare bit of Canadian history.

David Langford was selling many antiques, but very few bottles.
For David Langford selling stuff is part of the hobby; he explained to me that collectors are always evolving and sometimes devolving as they progress through life - these shows are great places to switch directions. Dave is switching directions, again. He was a banker and now a world traveler and avid bird watcher. He just got back from a trip to Sri Lanka. He loves antique advertisements that feature recognizable species of birds, and he used the phrase ornithological art. I made him write it down on my notepad so I could include it in this write-up. Have you got any ornithological themed period advertising? David's email is davidslangford AT hotmail DOT com

Ed Locke had lots of neat stuff to show and sell and a marvelous attitude alongside. His table was one of busier booths and our talk was twice interrupted by commercial traffic. Ed likes old advertising and that includes tin signs, box art, metal panels and even good condition cardboard signage. He knows how much art decorators and interior designers love old signs - there will always be a demand for these antiques because they look good on basement walls and Canadian cottages. Ed has been collecting posters and old signs and other fascinating things ever since he started decorating his own house twenty five years ago.

On the edge of his table, Ed kept some copper plates used to make beer and spirits advertising for newspapers. They were sealed in plastic, the visible cover is the printed positive image on the paper that wraps the negative copper etching on the top surface of the 1/4 inch thick copper plate – this reverse was hand carved by etching artists. But that wasn't the only print artifact he had on display...

Ed showed me a rock that is Solnhofen Stone from Germany and used for lithographic printing. This sedimentary rock is a very fine-grained, compact limestone. It’s the finest grained limestone in the world, and that’s why its so sought after for making the negative hand carved etchings used in early lithographic printing.

The uniquely fine granular qualities of Solnhofen Stone are remarkable because limestone is so prevalent on Earth. Yet Solnhofen Stone is only found in the Jura Mountains in Bavaria. Only this stone has the superfine quality necessary for lithographic printing. The curious piece gets more interesting when you ponder the rough hewn sides – how could a machine incorporate such an odd sized rock into any type of printing assembly? The printing rock has a lifespan. It is shaved down when a new advert is etched into the surface. So the rock lives on through many ads - one rock could be quite thin at the end of its life after having served up thousands of replications.

Robin Newton Smith holds a tea kettle ink embossed on all six sides. The Joshua Jonson Japan Writing Fluid London tea kettle ink is worth about $150 bucks he reckons - its from the 1830s. The piece is newly acquired and currently the apple of his eye and the centerpiece of his table, which had some great cobalt blue bottles and bottle of unusual colour. Robin was saying on how he believes that cobalt disappeared from glass making because it was high demand for medicine. He postulates that the high price of cobalt element which is key to making blue glass, disappeared from glass making because of its rising price due to the popularity of the freshly discovered 'cobalt treatment' medical procedure. An interesting hypothesis.

Robin collects early glass and not just early Canadian glass, but all sorts of early glass and not just bottles either. He once possessed Syrian glass which predated Christ, and he’s handled some Roman glass pieces too. Robin is the proprietor of NSA Auctions which is currently being retooled. He hopes to host another online antique glass auction in late 2011, and so we’ll all be watching for that.

Chris (Newf) Welton is a true Canadian dumpdigger and one with whom I've pitched a few holes. I like Newf and so does everyone else in the scene - he's a straight shooter with a lot of Hart.
The Toronto Bottle Show is always better with Newf and Malcolm together in their usual spot just inside the front door at the headland of the rows, if you know what I mean. There's no doubt its a position of honour; they earned that spot by always having the busiest table on the evening before the show. Remember, by and large, the set up on the Saturday night before the Sunday event is when the dealers buy from each other. At that time Chris Welton and Malcolm McCloud are by far the busiest vendors. As prolific dumpdiggers they're a perpetual source of fresh curiosities. Chris is a very charismatic digger and collector of early Canadian pottery and especially salt glazed stoneware.

Always ready with a story Chris related to me on how he recently attended an estate auction in a small town about an hour north of Toronto, during of snowstorm. With only 25 other buyers in the room, and only one other known bottle collector the conditions were perfect for scoring some nice treasure cheap... for but nothing caught his fancy until he spied this jug. Over by the fireplace he spotted an ovoid jug well decorated with Hart Pottery distinctive figural design around the number 2 denoting its capacity in gallons. More than one hundred and fifty years ago this beautiful jug was once filled with whiskey or rum or whatever a merchant could sell.

Here is a wonderful rare marmalade jar that belongs to Malcome McCloud, a veteran who digs in downtown Toronto and procured this relic from the earth last summer. The label reads 'Superior Orange Marmalade manufactured by William Hessin 179 King Street East'. These kinds of relics are terrific because they're really traceable - by using the 1800s business directories its possible to find the exact years that this merchant occupied that location and thereby date the artifact.

Frederick Hartl makes the drive from Quebec every year, and usually brings a friend named Jean Marc who unfortunately could not attend this year because of Monday morning commitment at furniture school in Quebec City.

Bottle collectors keep many wonderful things on their tables, but I've not seen bone handled steak knives before - The centerpiece of Frederic's 2011 table display was a mint condition set of Crown Sheffeld steak knives still in their original box. When I asked about these relics he told me that it was once a catalog reward item in a social currency program called Gold Star Stamps which rewarded good consumers with printable coupons for redemption in exchange for high quality items such as bone handled steak knives… curious

When it came to pose for a picture Frederic picked up his H. CHRISTIN ginger beer. It was made by Brantford pottery and now has a marvelous crackled finish. Frederic is partial to this one.
When he was just fifteen years old he started collecting the most commonly found old bottles and was giving himself an education by reading books. When he flipped to the section indexing the most valuable bottles in an early UNITS book he found this crown jewel held up as one of the most rare and vaunted of Canadian ceramic collectibles. At that time Frederic felt that he would probably never own such a precious thing, until last fall when he got an opportunity to buy one from a construction worker living in Ottawa. Frederic has his own website , french language Quebec bottles website.

Terry Matz was full of surprises this year. The Torpedo Bottle king of the fair specializes in all manner items relating to torpedo bottles including molds and pressure guages. He has a lot of coloured glass on his table, pontiled glass and early stoneware and other Canada West trade merchandise.
Terry Matz is the club's resident bottle tumbler and he charges $20 a bottle no matter how dirty or how valuable. Any glass vessel can be made clean(er) by 'tumbling it' - someday I will detail this science / art form on this blog, but not today.

On the edge of the table Terry had a very curious copper mold for blowing torpedo bottles. I've never seen such a thing before. This hinged mold could accommodate the manufacture of three torpedo bottles at once. Jamie McDougall was passing by the table when Terry was demonstrating the device and mimicking the motions of the glass blower – Jamie correctly pointed out that this piece was no doubt used in a factory operation with many glass blowers, because all three chambers on the piece would have to be filled near simultaneously. Terry agreed there would be a process involving more than one glass blower – as soon as the compartments were blown full of glass the mold would get cut open. The newly formed glass cylinders sprang forth. the hot glass torpedo bottles would have each been embossed with the word Ozane which Terry believes is some form of aerated water that was sold in continental Europe. He has never seen such a container here in North America. Is that strange? Terry has spent his entire life collecting torpedo bottles and has never seen or even heard of one marked Ozane. Have you? As Terry was demonstrating another rarity – a JJ Dornat pressure gauge for checking the internal pressure of a soda siphon, I questioned his daughter behind the counter. There were some young people at the event, but not many. While Terry was demonstrating this device I snapped a shot of his booth and captured Evelyne Matz who has always come to the show with her Dad. She enjoys spending time with her father this way, and has ever since she was a little girl. Over the years, through osmosis she has inherited lots of knowledge and some degree of passion for the hobby. The bottle show is good family time and the two enjoy coming and meeting friends - when I probed deeper I found that they go digging together and Evelyn uncovered some unusual iron relics in a railroad dump. Check out Terry's website Torpedobottles.com
Email Terry, sodapach AT scinternet DOT com

Jamie McDougal is an extremely knowledgeable individual and 'book smart' collector that hunts and gathers really old antiquities all the way back to arrowheads and flint tools. His table is always a hodgepodge of really sensational stuff.

Jamie posed for my camera with a bottle that was embossed, ELEPIZONE certain cure for fits epilepsy H.C. Root MC Toronto ONT. The bottle has a slight sun cast amethyst colour which Jamie was quick to remind me meant the bottle was made before World War One when manganese became rather difficult to procure in North America.

Mark Wilson lamented that he had a quiet year and didn’t do any digging and only a little diving. He’s been passing the time buying and selling and doing a lot of reading online, streamlining his Peterborough area collection. Mark collects crocks and bottles from Peterbourogh and the Kawarthas. He had a David Knox gravitating stopper on the table for sale – its from Campbellford, and that’s too far away, on the other side of Rice lake and down the Trent River a stretch..
At the end of his table, and the property of another vendor on Mark's dive team were miniature wooden paddles that were selling for $50. This is cottage kitsch that was made to promote a vacation destination. Sometimes by these items were made by indigenous peoples and are labeled 'native crafts'. More sophisticated goods was imported by a tourism board, or a travel association that profited by the trade. These items were not created as advertising per say, but rather they were small knickknacks, or mementos that could be purchased in hotel gift shops and in restaurants and thrift stores in the small towns. They would be taken back to the cottage and mounted on the wall, or taken home and put in the living rooms of houses to remind the family of their cottage and their annual summer fun. Priced attractively at $50 a pair, or $100 for the Algonquin park piece, these would look great in a certain Muskoka cottage located fifteen minutes west of Bracebridge, on the sunny shores of Lake Muskoka.

This summer Mark hopes to do more diving in the lakes in and around Peterborough, which is his focus as a collector. He’s one of the most experienced divers in the Kawarthas and very good at finding wrecks and marine dump sites. He’s found many great old bottles over the years, at the bottom of the Kawartha Lakes which I assume to be Burleigh Falls, Buckhorn and Lindsay, but there are many more lakes farther east around Havelock. Do you need a freelance diver for any interesting antique salvage opportunities? If so, you couldn’t find a better candidate than Mark Wilson 705 area code 799 1943

Abel DaSilva and his wife June Ng had a mountain of stoneware that occupied every square inch of available table space. As usual, Abel did more talking and walking and orbiting the booth, while June remained behind the counter and handled all commercial transactions. Together they're quite a team and on this particular Sunday they did a lot of business.

Abel showed me some handsome pottery from a merchant named James Burns who was a wealthy grocer and spirits dealer in the 1840s St Lawrence Market in Toronto.

I was also attracted to Abel's large collection of whiskey water jugs that were the foremost row of his grand assembly. These were painted with faces and logos and cartoon characters and fashioned as barroom advertising for famous whiskey brands. Abel explained that whiskey and water was always a popular drink and these tiny pint sized pitchers held ice and water for bar patrons. 'They added some class to the joint you know' he said they were popular in America as early as 1910, and the trend emerged here in Canada after World War I, and lasted throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Today they range in price from $300 to $500 - the pieces sell well in online auctions.

When everyone was packing up, I managed to corner Pete Bechtel and Laura Casselli
These two bring their own personal style to the Toronto Bottle Show and in many ways they put themselves on display right alongside their uber brewerania. They are however extremely friendly. Laura likes rock and roll and is particularly fond of Joe Satriani.

On their table rested one of the most talked about pieces of the 2011 bottle show. A Dutch onion wine bottle from 1735 with its original contents. This fantastic museum grade antique is older than Canada and was the oldest bottle on display at the show. Recovered from the wreck of the T’Vliegenthart which was a 145 ft long barge. The Flying Hart left the Netherlands on her doomed course for the East Indies on February 3rd 1735 with 167 seamen, 83 soldiers, and 6 passengers. She was loaded with a large amount of gold and silver coins intended for trading for precious stones, spices and silks at the destination. The Flying Hart however never made it out of Dutch waters. It was shipwrecked, driven onto a sand bar by strong winds, she sustained severe damage causing her total loss. There were no recorded survivors. The wreck was recently found intact and the insides of the ship were examined and showed how the onion bottles were stored for transport in early Imperial Age Dutch merchant marine ships.

As I mentioned before, Pete's bottle still has its original contents. Pete told me that if they were to open the container they would have to drink the liquid very quickly, and that if you went back for second glass it would taste different, more acidic and the liquid would very rapidly oxidize and become an entirely different flavor.

The quality of the wine found in centuries old containers is drinkable, but Pete explained to me how quality of the wine or spirits depends on a great many factors. If bacteria get in, it's vinegar. If dry air caused the cork to shrivel and let oxygen into the vessel, the spirits are dead. If it was stored in too hot or too cold conditions, it's dead. And if it's been exposed to long periods of bright light, it's dead. If it's a wine that was never meant to be aged, then, well, it's not gonna be much good at all.

Waiter! This is old wine! Take it away and bring us some fresh wine! - Steve Martin

Here are some staff and bottle collecting legends that make the Toronto Bottle Show

Here's Melissa Clare doing the announcements and not freaking out when I got right up in her face and snapped this shot as she was speaking to the entire hall on the microphone. Melissa Clare 905 area 839 4645
You can email Melissa at show_inquiry AT canadianbottlecollectors DOT com

And here are some venerated experts Carl Parsons and Jamie

BIRDS OF SPRING

IRONSTONE TABLEWARE

Lost Creek under Toronto's Streetcar Condos

2010-12-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

While excavating the property at 510 King St East in Toronto, workers discovered a lost creek which was heaped with trash - some of which is now treasure.
Recently Dumpdiggers admin were treated to a fascinating account of valuable antique glass bottles and early Canadian pottery being recovered from construction site in downtown Toronto. The building project at 512 King St E is owned by a hip property developer called Streetcar. The site is located on the north side of King St. at River St which almost as far east on King as you can go – its opposite St Lawrence street which is the north western extremity of the massive River City condominium development.

By comparison, the relatively small 'Streetcar condos' building project on the north side of King St is well under way, and will probably be completed by the summer of 2011. But back when this property was still being excavated, in July 2010, the developers found plenty of evidence of a small creek that ran above ground here, up until the early 1880s. This creek was yet another tributary of the mighty Don River that was buried by man before the turn of the century.

Evidence of a lost creek under Toronto

The old glass jars and cream coloured stoneware beers floating on the top of the puddle at the bottom of the excavation are all that remains of a centuries old dump site that served industrial age Toronto. You can see the water is being sucked out of the hole by sump pumps. When these photos were taken, the spring water was drained into the storm sewers on the south side of the property and bottles were popping up all over the place.

The construction site manager was very helpful and accommodating, and was himself an expert in the history of the site. He shied away from my camera of course; posing for pictures on a job site can be risky. But to his credit, he was very forthcoming with good information. ‘The creek has no name' he said in provocative tone, and his words echo in my thoughts.

While pointing outside from behind his comfortable desk in the heated office trailer, he told me how the north facing wall of the excavation, and now the building's foundation is engineered with specific water collecting apparatus to channel the accumulation into nearby municipal storm sewers.

A good storyteller, the construction site manager recounted the hot July days when the backhoe operator dredged out several tones of metal debris that had been dumped and incinerated over a hundred years ago. Back then the natural water system was deliberately buried under the heaviest man-made materials available; industrial age iron scraps, building stones, broken bricks and cement was dumped here to suffocate the spring. The refuse also contained wagon loads of hundred year old household trash. The rubbish was incinerated in keeping with period legislation about dump maintenance with respect to hygiene, so only the strongest, luckiest bottles survived.

Q.S GRAINGER HOTEL KEEPER TORONTO CANADA 1880 BEER BOTTLE

The Dumpdiggers reader who contributed information to this story reported that this Q.S Grainger stoneware beer bottle came from this dig site. It was hand-turned on a pottery wheel by an unknown local potter in the 1880s. There are only a few remaining with this stamp, and every specimen is unique. He also wrote that, "There was an assortment of Toronto blob top pint & quart soda water bottles, many medicine bottles from Canada & USA, glass & stoneware, ink bottles, stoneware jars & pottery items. There was even one amber & one aqua glass fire grenade bottles! A few pot lids from the UK. A total of about 300 blown bottles that date from 1870 to 1905. This lot had a creek running from north to south of the property and it was filled in through many years with ashes. Mixed in the ash were numerous bottles. The workers only picked up the embossed bottles that were worth money and left the unembossed ones that were not worth someones time to clean."

Origins of the lost creek and its path to the Don River,
The lost creek originates from a natural spring just north of the excavation site. In the 1880s it was on the surface and ran south through this property and what is now the River City condo developments property, the future site of the Pan American games in 2014.

The lost creek fed into the Don River.
The Don River Straightening Project helped Toronto become a better city, but it also created rich pockets of good historic trash for Toronto diggers to unearth for centuries to come. Let me tell you a story about the Don River in Toronto in the late 1800s. The people of this great city have had a love / hate relationship with the Don since the origins of the British settlement in the 1790s. One hundred years later, desperate to stop the flooding, and to provide a shipping channel and to create additional industrial land near the lake, a vast scheme known as "the Don Improvement" was carried out in Toronto. The project straightened the river south of Gerrard St to make room on either side for railroads, roads and other urban infrastructure. Ashbridge's Marsh was drained and filled, eliminating a public health concern, while providing acres of new industrial land in the Port Lands. The expansion of the city in the early 1900 buried the last traces of the creek that once ran across 512 and 510 King St East.

Are these posts the remnants of a small bridge?

As you can see, wooden posts were visible at the bottom of the hole. Let me remind you that the bottom of the hole was almost ten feet below the surface of present day King St East. Were these wooden posts part of a small bridge across the lost creek? Picture that if you can, and its easy to see residents walking and talking... No doubt some of the antique glass soda bottles were discarded by the users themselves immediately after consuming the contents. Soda bottles are exactly the kind of rubbish that get's pitched by hand, while the milk bottles and medicines are more typical of a systematic municipal trash disposal program at the site.

One of the best bottles that was recovered was this amber Warner's Safe Cure which was a popular patent medicine. Because it has the names of three cities embossed in the glass, its what's known today as a 3 city Safe Cure.

3 CITY NERVINE 1/2 PINT 1889
WARNER’S ~ SAFE ~ NERVINE ~ LONDON - ENGLAND (LEFT SIDE) TORONTO - CANADA (RIGHT SIDE)~ ROCHESTER ~ N.Y. U.S.A. HALF PINT, AMBER, DC. This bottle's value is approximately $500 as per the Werner's Reference Guide blogspot. The website is definitely worth perusing if you have any Warner bottles in your collection.

Another excellent source of information on Warner Patent Medicine bottles is the Warner's Safe Cure Blog which is the product of a skilled writer that lives his passion for this specific type of antique glass. I've just spent three hours reading sixty posts on his site.

American Pickers is a new cable TV show about buying and selling old stuff

2010-11-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

Good news for Dumpdiggers all over the world – US cable television audiences have rediscovered a love for antiques and collectibles! Now there’s more than just Antiques Roadshow on the boob tube to educate and entertain collectors.

Much like the TV show Pawn Stars, the new TV series that I watch at 10pm on Tuesday nights on History Canada mines the drama of bartering, and the human exchange of words and emotions as buyers and sellers try to find common ground.

Unlike Pawn Stars, which is a cable TV show that's coloured by people who want or need the money, Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, the American Pickers travel great distances to deal with people who're usually more than a little reluctant to sell. And there’s the conflict. TV and indeed all storytelling mediums require somebody versus somebody or something to make interesting drama. Pawn Stars has a dysfunctional family dynamic going on, and The Traveling Antiques Road Show often pitted experts and against collectors. Here its different – the conflict comes from Mike and Frank and their desire to buy commodities that are not for sale. And therein lays the biggest single problem with the show. It’s just not real enough, and the numbers don’t quite add up.
These two experts travel around Iowa, the greater Midwest, and the Southern United States in a white panel van that’s emblazoned with their red and black Antique Archaeology business logo. Unlike real pickers who peruse antiques barns, yard sales and estate auctions, these guys show up uninvited at people's houses and attempt to buy their cherished antiques and collectibles. They are assisted by Danielle Colby-Cushman, who works remotely from a home base in LeClaire, Iowa to help them run their business.

According to the site’s web copy, Mike Wolf has earned a reputation as one of the country's foremost foragers, traveling coast to coast in search of forgotten treasures. Where other people see dilapidated barns and overgrown yards, Mike sees goldmines packed with rare finds and sensational stories. Wolfe and Fritz go prospecting in the homes of casual collectors, hoarders and people who have inherited large deposits of their ancestors junk.
What do the guys pick up exactly?
The Antique Archeology duo seems to get real excited by old musical equipment, vintage kitchenware, all manner of advertising signs and rare bits of scrap metal. They like old automobiles evn if they're only good for auto parts - they'll even buy old rusty bicycles. Fritz has a fondness for antique toys, antique oil cans, and Honda motorcycles.
The secret to being a picker is having a strong base of curious customers that can fuel such prospecting expeditions with ready cash. Mike's clients include interior designers, art directors, photographers and collectors. And although it’s probably the most important part of the business – it’s significant that we never get to see these people. When the acquisitions are finalized and the items are being loaded into the van, the producers of the show will flash graphics showing the amount paid and the amount at which the item has been valued… well anyone that’s actually in this business knows that’s just a hopeful guess. Not every item sells and in their business model the margins are so tight that if one item fails to sell it will ruin their month! I know... its just television.

These images are snapped from my TV set during the "Super Scooter" episode. The half hour shows how the pair works together. Wolfe is nearly drooling over a Vespa Ape scooter. The owner wants $5,000 for it, and Wolfe offers $4,500 -- which is rejected.

Season 2 premiered June 7, 2010 and turned into a real monster Monday hit for History when it was paired with Pawn Stars. American Pickers debuted with more than three million viewers and this month has approached four million, placing it among the 20 top-rated shows on cable.

see also

http://www.rcreader.com/news/american-pickers-feature/

and because Frank is my favourite of the two pickers, here's a link to his site:

http://www.frankfritzfinds.com/

The 2010 Four Seasons Bottle Collectors, Oct 16th General Meeting with Wooden Bottles, Rare Nervaline, And Hearts Everywhere

2010-10-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sean Murphy during the Show & Tell handles his big demijohn, and details his summer finds, including the framed unsold Cobourg Peterborough Railroad stock certificates visible behind an array of rare Hutchinson soda bottles, and some Matthews gravitating stopper bottles, with the original glass stopper rods. The stoneware crock is something we'll discuss later...

October 16th 2010, Dumpdiggers showed up unannounced at the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors Club General Meeting.

Inside the meeting room in the Arbour Heights Community Center and Wilson and Avenue Rd in Toronto Ontario, I Rob Campbell found a welcoming community of experts that generously share with me (and you) their most precious insights, and hard-to-find data that is priceless information. These folks will do anything and everything possible to forward the search for rare Canadian bottles. Indeed it's the hunt for those elusive treasures that always evokes the best discussions - that and the display of strange objects, ideas and the talk of treasures-unknown always sidelines the official minutes. You have to be a bottle collector to truly appreciate the width and breath of their knowledge and understanding of colonial age and early industrial age goods. They collect the first bottles, glass and pottery pieces made in Canada. They know Canadian manufacturing and retailing companies better than most university educated historians esp as it pertains to packaged goods in glass bottles. The seventeen people present at the event are a fraction of the membership. The folks were there to make decisions about shows and displays, and talk about their summer finds. Indeed half of those that attended brought something to share and discuss.

This picture of a rare Nerviline bottle, procured by a veteran Canadian antiques picker named Mike Duggan, is from Kingston Ontario Canada is a prime example of the level of sophistication...

Thanks Mike Duggan. I just love this picture because it shows the price of the product; the value of 50cents is stamped into the glass. Does that make this an early mistake? Its definitely a rare isotope of common bottle and a legendary product line. Yes this bottle is very rare indeed. You can imagine the problems that caused. If you are a general store retailer in the early 1900s and you want to raise or lower the price of Nerviline, you cant change the price from fifty cents a bottle without some explanation.

Also in the meeting we got to see the famous wooden bottles by Erik Tounonen that have inspired so much talk online.

That's right Erik's hand turned and carved wooden bottles are being discussed by bottle collectors all over the world. This young bottle digger is fifteen years old, and has sparked conversation on popular discussion forums. Here's Erik T wooden bottles debut thread on Antique hyphen Bottles dot Net discussion forum. Erik is only 15 yrs old . He showed up with a parent, who asked some very interesting questions actually, and she made some interesting remarks too. Everyone gave the young person some new ideas and sparked his bottle bug even more, if that's possible, with more insight into the art and science of finding colonial age dumps in Canada .
More notes about the bottle club meeting would have to include some non emotional reporting of the honest facts, first there was no coffee; an oversight made more profoundly acute by the appearance of gilded coffee cups in one of the displays. Secondly, the frequency and start time of the monthly general meetings was questioned by the Club President, who was the last to arrive and the main reason the meeting started late. lol

The meeting continued with a discussion about the finality of the venue and date for the annual bottle show - same place same date. Personally I was disappointed as I believe the Humber College arena which lacks a natural light source and is NOT handy for any potential consumers living in new condos downtown, is an event failure by design.

The meeting concluded with a random bottle raffle and draw for a mystery prize which was won by the president named Dave , I honestly cant remember Dave's last name and I will update this post to include more information.

Dumpdiggers hopes that by giving inside glimpses of Four Seasons Bottle Club events, I'm raising awareness about what actually happens ... hopefully more people will come out and join up , eager to study and learn the subculture and various antiques classifications relating to antique Canadian glass bottles, early Canadian pottery and British colonial age stoneware. I'm encouraged by the fact that Erik found the association he sought through this portal, and hopeful that I can attract other citizen diggers and passionate bottle collectors with more of the same thought provoking content and ideas.

iMAGINE IF YOU SAW A HEART SYMBOL SOMEWHERE EVERYDAY?
my friend has a strange and powerful curse / gift ... Casie, the curious companion I brought to the bottle club meeting confessed to me earlier yesterday that she sees a heart symbol somewhere, every single day in her life, whether she wants to or not. When she first told me of her gift / curse I laughed - what a wonderful thing to have and notice. But then imagine if that happened to you... How would you feel?

I See HEARTS Everywhere... a blog by Casie Campbell

So of course I was overwhelmed when, much to my surprise, as we walked into the bottle club meeting and glanced at the displays there it was, her heart for the day.

Thanks Sean Murphy for bringing and sharing this wonderful treasure.

Dumpdiggers Help Friends Move into Old Buildings

2010-08-16T00:48:00.001-07:00

Don't Be So Eager To Avoid Helping Friends Move, esp if the are moving into a centuries old building located in one of the oldest parts of Toronto.

A wise man who still has a strong back should eagerly volunteer to help friends move. Yes I know it sounds strange, and somehow counter intuitive, but like the god Bokonon says in Kurt Vonagut's Cat's Cradle that "peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God" by which I interpret to mean that it's good to step out of your everyday circle and do strange things when people ask you to accompany them, esp friends. And especially when they are as eclectic as my friend Clivero. Who has asked not to be lenzed here poor anonymous bloke. I helped the daft bugger move cause he couldn't get anyone else and could barely afford the cube van. And he had some big items down in the basement, one of which was a solid walnut box with some kind of Japanese doors that swing down vertical and of course Clive said nothing when we were lifting it... and it chopped my fingers. Ouch!

But otherwise it was a great day. Yes certainly I'll help clean out old basements full of memories and bad business deals. While sorting boxes I heard the whole story and filled in the blanks as I perused years of collected bits of this and that some trash and some treasure. It wasn't possible to throw out anything and we all walked away with boxes full of stuff. I got some nice wall clocks and a wood plane,

This primitive Canadiana wood plane looks almost homemade, its a classic.

Here's a Smith Corona typewriter still sitting on the shelf where it was abandon twenty years ago when its original owner upgraded to a personal computer.

The shelves of the basement wall systems were stocked with junk that's too valuable to throw away, but not easy to liquidate by any cost effective method.

The Wenzel Projector Company circa 1940
There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia file or much information about the Wenzel Projector Co. that I can find online, but I did manage to learn that in 1938 they made and sold a 35mm theater sound projector; Wenzel Ace 1939 was a sound projector 16mm? and although theatre projection technology was improving to include better soudn and brighter picture, historians note that Wenzel Ace projector like others on the market at the time, was a direct copy of another competitor named Simplex and their classic design projector produced years earlier.
This is the left arm of a hand cranked reel to reel editor's board spool mechanism. The editor cranks these spools and cuts the footage under the light, cutting between frames. This is how you get to become a director - but cutting a story together and learning what matters. Same's true with blogging

This fellow named Tom A Wilson seems to be positioning himself as the catch-all for antique film projector equipment on the internet. It's a smart idea to use social media marketing to start discussions like Vintage 35mm movie projectors wanted, on photo forums and Wanted: antique film projectors, on photography-on-the-net, and other discussions on other forums. Tom A Wilson is living the job and being that guy, the antique film projector guy. Its smart because he also becomes the go-to guy for other wealthier collectors and he makes a marketplace where none existed before.

Interesting in seeing more old film production and projection equipment? Here is Tom A. Wilson's Flickr photostream in which there are many sets and many categories of antiquities in this obscure but noble genre.

Four Seasons Bottle Collectors 12 June 2010 Club Dig

2010-06-13T05:58:00.000-07:00

The morning of 12 June 2010 appeared grey and overcast. Perfect for digging bottles. The Saturday had been set aside by Dumpdiggers all over the city, earmarked as a day of discovery in the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors 2010 'Club Dig'. The secret location was an old dump in the heart of the city of Toronto.

Old and new diggers gathered together to make the trip. The story is recorded in excruciating detail in a story entitled Digging Bottles with The Four Seasons Bottle Collectors in Toronto.

Carl Parsons is a storyteller and venerated member of the FSBC. He's been an antique dealer specializing in Canadian glass bottles for over thirty years and he knows his way around a couple hundred old dumps in Ontario. He led the tour down into the day's dig site and alongside 'Indian" Al Pothier they selected the exact spot based on shade more than anything else... nobody could remember if the exact spot in this site had been dug before, as the dump is one of the oldest in the city, and the terrain is constantly changing.

The crew got busy right away and dug out a large hole. The soil was soft and light, a gentle mixture of sand and ash with fragments of dump - broken china and bits of brick were visible on the shovels.

Tex and Mac were the new diggers and they worked hard sinking the hole down to a six foot depth. Then the guys got busy with hand trowels and garden forks. Carl put on a demonstration to show how he often uses a hoe with holes cut in the blade (to let water out), but today's dump was dry as a bone. The hole wasnt very deep, about six feet from surface, when Al Pothier declared that they'd hit bottom and now they'd best look to the sides.

Al had a pocket of good dump to the south of his position and Mac and Tex found some hard packed virgin dump to the north of their spot in the hole... but sadly it was under the day's dirt pile and so any excavation in that direction meant moving the dirt pile on the surface. all the same some old sauce bottles were discovered and there were a few exciting moments when some soda shards and stoneware bottoms were spotted in the virgin dump tract at the bottom of the hole.

You can read more of the day's adventure in Digging Bottles with The Four Seasons Bottle Collectors in Toronto in the Shovel Guild Library on Dumpdiggers.com

Secrets to Collecting PEZ Candy Dispensers

2010-06-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

PEZ Dispensers have been collectible for over 80 years! Two of the most famous North American PEZ dispensers are Mickey Mouse and Uncle Sam. Every serious PEZ collector has a rare and special prize they dream about finding every night. Maybe its 'Eeyore with the line on his face', or one of three different Batman PEZ dispensers, or probably some other super rare variation that only a handful of people even know exist.

The article entitled, On Collecting PEZ Dispensers on Dumpdiggers has more savvy secrets, but doesn't go into much detail on how to tell the age of your PEZ dispenser, nor does it give any good solid facts to help junk store scavengers and eBay pickers.

Did you know that there's a patent number on the stem of each plastic pill popping contraption? The first two digits of that number reflect the year span in which it was manufactured. It's helpful to know the date before purchasing a PEZ® and this information will help.

Want to know the date your PEZ dispenser was manufactured? Pay attention to the first two numbers in the patent. The following list will help you to determine when they were produced.
2.6: between 1952 and 1968
3.4: between 1968 and 1974
3.8: between 1974 and 1976
3.9: between 1976 and 1990
4.9: 1990 to current date

Three Disney Princesses in PEZ

Here are two PEZ dispensers in the hands of Steve Reynolds of ‘It’s a Matter of Time’ antiques at Gerrard and Jones Ave in Toronto.

The Pink Panther Pez Dispenser is very attractive and could be among the more rare models in the years to come, if you believe Sabah Karimi in her article, Pez Dispensers You Don't Own.

She writes, "... the PEZ following really does exist... group of serious PEZ collectors meets at conventions around the country to share the secrets of the trade; from history lessons to hosting a trading post for avid collectors, it's a lifestyle of strategic collecting for these PEZ enthusiasts."

How to Spot rare Pez dispensers today.
This photo shows a close up of the throat whistle in the Shrek Donkey PEZ dispenser. The contrivance makes the distinctive baying sound in keeping with the Eddie Murphy powered voice track of this extremely popular cartoon character. Because of the whistle many of this model of Pez dispensers were well used. Either way I'm sure the whistle feature adds value. Thanks Steve Reynold for giving up a matter of time to show me around your store. Trackback to Robsome blog.

Someone who collects PEZ® dispensers is called a PEZhead. The man who discovered Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) didn't patent the process because the material wasn't good for anything in 1880s, but years later PVC pipe and PVC trim is very high demand and used by builders as interior and exterior ornamentation or decorative material to spruce up aluminum siding and cinder block walls. PVC trim is much better than wood for this application.

Vintage Costume Jewellery Show and Sale at Leaside Gardens

2010-05-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a great adventure in a world diametrically opposed to the bottle club world and the adventure I'd enjoyed a week previous at the Toronto Bottle Show. Yet in many ways they were similar. I wrote about the 2010 Vintage Costume Jewellery Show and published the article in the Shovel Guild Library on Dumpdiggers, and therein I explored the similarities of experts honing their crafts, after years of learning they become gems.

Remarkable people like Dianne Rawski who gave me a great one on one training about vintage cameo brooches and what to look for when trafficking in this obscure sub category

On 24 April 2010 Dumpdiggers descended on the Toronto Vintage Costume Jewellery Club Annual Show & Sale at Leaside Gardens. There were twenty dealers here vending all manner of collectibles but mostly designer costume jewellery from the 1950's and 60's

2010 Toronto Bottle Club Show and Sale

2010-04-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday April 18th 2010 was a beautiful day for the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors club Toronto Bottle Show at the Humber College gymnasium in Rexdale Ontario. The show consists of about sixty dealers and has an attendance of over thousand people, but the room is filled with about a half million dollars worth of rare and valuable early Canadian antique bottles and glass.

Of course I wrote about the 2010 Toronto Bottle Show on Dumpdiggers.com and detailed the event, highlighting exceptional bottles, bargains and the best dealers that make it all happen. Year after year, this show gets better and better (except the bottles seem to be going down in price).

The article details ten different antique glass and pottery dealers alongside their favourite collectibles. I interviewed Tim Denton, Fred Spoelstra, Pete Bechtel, Dwight Fryer, Cliff and Donna Stunden, Kert Wrigley, Jamie McDougall, Bill Ash, Terry Matz, Richard St Onge and Bill Cook, Michael Anders, Tim Maitland, Marcus Johnson and closed the piece on Scott Wallace and Scott Jordan sitting pretty at the Maple Leaf Auctions table.

The article also chronicles my day's traveling companion, Kelly Gadzala the Toronto Grunge Queen blogger who specializes in writing about finding vintage collectibles, clothing and keepsakes.

The Toronto Bottle Show is always an emotional experience for me - it breaks my heart to see great pieces of glass selling for ten or twelve dollars, and whenever I spot something that I have in my own collection I almost don't even want to look at the price, as I'm sure it will always be priced to move here and cost much less than I paid, or had valued in my own head. I think it would be worthwhile to visit this show and spend forty thousand dollars buying the best pieces - it would be a great investment in the future.

Maple Syrup Antiques at Sandy Flats Sugar Bush

2010-04-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Maple has a season. The Ojibwa people knew this period of the year was special, and they called this moon phase the "sugaring off" period, or the "maple moon" or "sugar month". The tradition of sugaring off became established in communities in the deciduous forests of North America, and has survived to the present time.

On Saturday April 9th 2010, Dumpdiggers visited the Sandy Flats Sugar Bush in Warkworth Ontario.

with Hugh and Lorene Campbell, the local beekeepers / honey producers. Campbell’s Honey house is located less than 3Km away from this sugar bush, between Roseneath and Warkworth. It’s a delicious coincidence because maple syrup is a pure, natural sweetener, the only other liquid natural sweetener being honey. But unlike honey, maple syrup has more trace minerals essential to good nutrition: potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, zinc, copper and tin, as well as calcium are found in concentrations 15x higher than honey. And its important to note that maple syrup contains only one-tenth as much sodium as honey.

It’s a little known fact that the manufacture of maple sugar is limited to the Maple Belt, the hardwood forest stretching from the midwestern US through Ontario, Québec and New England and into the Canadian Maritimes.

Relics of the Maple Sugar Industry at Sandy Flats Sugar Bush
Hanging on the wall of the pancake restaurant at the Sandy Flats Sugar Bush is a world class display of vintage Canadian maple sugar industry antiques. I briefly paused to admire and photograph the collection of vintage tools, and equipment, including some very valuable hand carved wooden maple sugar molds.

Maple products are harvested exclusively from the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) was known and valued by the native peoples of eastern North America long before the arrival of European settlers.

An Iroquois legend tells of the piercing of the bark of a maple and the use of the "sweet water" to cook venison, a happy accident which established the culinary tradition of maple-cured meats.

French settlers probably learned from the Indians how to tap trees to obtain sap and how to boil it to reduce it to sweet syrup or sugar slabs to be stored for later use.

George Potter’s family diary records his great great grandmother’s sap spile as being a simple cedar splint, in keeping with native practices. Here is a reprinting of the material I found on the wall.

From the diary of my great, great grandmother, Mary Mac Kenzie Ross, 1840.
“John was busy clearing around our cabin, getting a plot ready to spade for potatoes in the spring. A neighbor noticed he had several short cuts of cedar logs. ‘Mr. Ross’, said he, ‘you want to lay those aside and in the winter make sap troughs and spiles ready for the run of sap in the spring.’ Then he told him how to make maple syrup. We were quite taken back there was so much work about it, because in Scotland they thought maple trees ran syrup when they were tapped. However, we borrowed an iron kettle and tapped the maple trees in the spring, boiling the sap outside, although it was dark and smoky tasting. We thought it was a treat.”
George Potter

Other Writings on the Wall at Sandy Flats Sugar Bush

History of the Sandy Flat Sugar Bush

George, growing up as a young boy helped his father collecting and boiling syrup, so when the Potter’s first bought the property tapping the trees was just a hobby. Alice working as a schoolteacher and George owning a men’s clothing store downtown Warkworth. They began with 50 taps, 200 taps then progressed to more than 500.
What started as a hobby soon became a business as Alice and George found themselves running sap all through the night. Alice and George made a decision to retire from their current jobs and commit themselves to the Sugar Bush. As a result of their decision they began to upgrade their equipment. They soon installed a modern pipeline system to transport the sap, this meant more taps (5500), more sap. With all this extra sap a larger evaporator was needed. Today they operate 2 wood-fired evaporators and use a reverse osmosis (nicknamed R.O.) method of making maple syrup. Soon not only were they making maple syrup but maple butter, maple stirred sugar and other syrup products. All of their products are 100% pure. In 1987 the Potter’s began entering their syrup in local fairs winning ribbon after ribbon, but the local fairs were just a guideline to the larger fairs. It proved to be worth their time as it led them to winning a 4 World Championships at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Toronto, Ontario in 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1994. Just a couple weeks ago the Potter’s were inducted in the Maple Hall of Fame in the Ameliasburgh Maple Museum.

History of the Land

Over the years the tree’s on the Potter’s land have been tapped off and on since the mid 1800’s. The first owner of the Sandy Flat Sugar Bush was William R. Losie who first began tapping the maples. The Miner Family, the next owners also tapped the tree’s as well as the third owners, The Milford McVety Family who continued tapping until 1968. The bush laid dormant until George and Alice Potter started making syrup in the early 1970’s.

The History of the Maple Syrup Festival

Originally when the Sandy Flat Sugar Bush became a business they had an “Open House” policy were people were invited to come as they please, tour the grounds and enjoy a traditional maple breakfast. A few years later in 1985 the Kinsman Club decided to get involved by hosting a weekend where club members would cook outdoors for visitors who attended the event. While at the Bush you can enjoy a old fashioned horse drawn sleigh ride, taffy on the snow, compare the native, pioneer and modern methods of gathering and processing sap, educational nature trails, join the log sawing contest, and listen and watch the old thyme square dancing and Potter Band. In 1987 the service club got involved by also hosting a weekend during March. Soon there were many more people wanting to contribute their interests and include the community. The 55 Plus club started organizing other events and a Maple Syrup Festival Committee was begun. Mary Hermiston as Treasurer, Vic Taylor and Jim Horne lad a service club committee. The Percy Quilters displaying a variety of finished pieces in the Town Hall, also a newly finished quilt is raffled off on the Sunday afternoon. Wood, works and wonders is another attraction you will find at the Town Hall where there is a display of handcrafted wood products for sale. Just beside the Town Hall you will find a petting zoo and pony rides. You can visit the antique show and sale at the Percy Centennial School where local antique dealers have brought together an extensive display of treasures from the past. An art show displayed at the Heritage Centre organized by the Northumberland Hills Art Association where local artists have come together for the show. On the festival weekend approximately 8,000-10,000 people traveling from all over.

Some Basic Facts about the Modern Maple Sugar Industry
From the Canadian Encyclopedia’s page on the Maple Sugar Industry, I learned that there are currently over 16 000 maple-syrup producers in North America, with over 80% in Canada. In 1995 total world production was 18 981 kl, of which Canada produced 14 890 kl. The province of Québec produced 13 540 kl, which represents over 90% of the total Canadian production. The rest of the Canadian production came from Ontario (5%), New Brunswick (4%) and Nova Scotia (1%).
In the early part of the 1970s, the traditional buyers were the large food companies. When the US Food and Drug Administration reduced the minimum volume of maple syrup that must be listed as an ingredient in products sold as "maple syrup" and "maple sugar" from 15% to 2%, sales plunged dramatically and the industry experienced a major crisis. Efforts were made to develop a new market aimed directly at the consumer and the growth of this market has rejuvenated the industry. Maple products are now consumed in over 30 countries. Maple syrup remains one of the best natural sweetening sources in the world. It is still served mainly over pancakes, but recently it has also been considered a condiment. It is now used in fine cuisine to prepare sauces, glazes and vinaigrettes. In addition to its use as a syrup or as an ingredient in fine cuisine, and capitalizing on its magic and mystery, some consumers around the World prepare concoctions for special diets or for purification purposes or during special events such as fasting.

Its clear that by the crowds at the facility that day that family operated sugar shanties, which are so evocative of Canada's pioneer past, will remain a thriving part of the rural Canadian landscape . In the future, Dumpdiggers believes that Canadian maple syrup industry will grow and prosper in as a natural sweetner. Much like single variety honey has found tremendous support in cuisine arts, maple sugar will rise in value in the modern food industry, and become the preferred sweetner of the world's finest palates.

Abel DaSilva Buys And Sells Antiques in Downtown Toronto

2010-01-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

Abel DaSilva outside the St Lawrence Sunday Market in Toronto, told Dumpdiggers that the only he time he doesn't make money shopping for antiques is when he doesn't buy anything. A bold statement, and we loved it. And from that moment forward, on Sunday January 3rd I personally watched the man like a hawk, determined to learn the secrets of his success.

Just after the holidays, I wrote and published two stories about an afternoon that I spent with Abel DaSilva, Toronto’s foremost antique glass bottle merchant and quite knowledgeable in multiple subjects. He's an eBay power seller, and a prolific Yahoo Groups discussion forum participant.

Shopping for Antiques at the Sunday Market in Toronto with Abel DaSilva is a first person account of what I saw while following Abel around the St Lawrence Hall as he sniffed and pawed hundreds of collectibles. This article establishes the setting and chronicles the purchases of a wise man leveraging his knowledge of history. Abel understands tricky niche markets for collectibles and how to buy local and sell global using eBay and related Yahoo antiques collecting groups.

Another article, perhaps even more fascinating, is entitled Sightseeing with Abel DaSilva in Downtown Toronto, and this matter sifts through half a dozen stories about four different building lots in the downtown core. In each of these urban properties there were truckloads of historically significant antique glass bottles discovered by professional excavators with no mandate to preserve or even document their finds. What happened to this stuff? Abel knows the whereabouts of almost all the buried booty, and has stories about what's still under just about every new structure on the Toronto shoreline.

What’s even better is how Abel befriends the excavation company employees, site supervisors and heavy machinery operators by sharing his knowledge of the specimens they unearth in their digging projects. Abel doesn't have much time between when the men and machines start excavating, and when the pile drivers start pounding, and the first concrete teams arrive to pour cement in insulated concrete forms for walls and floors, and reinforced pillars for the parking garages. Mr DaSilva gets their attention two ways. He makes them take time out of their busy schedules because 1) he's very generous about sharing tips, and heritage information about the site and its contents, and 2) he has a fistful of ready cash. Click the pictures they expand - look carefully at the picture above right, and you can see hundred year old glass bottles in the ashes behind the bulldozer.

New York City Bottle Diggers Strike Beauty in Night Soil Story

2009-12-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, Dumpdiggers got an email from an Ole friend in New York City boasting about conducting a clandestine archeological dig in one of the most densely populated places on planet Earth. The Manhattan Well Diggers are tireless explorers and this story highlights their abilities and imaginations.

The author is a dedicated digger that waxes poetic about his trips twenty feet down in the depths of his hometown. New York City has some of America’s most historically fascinating suburbs and the trinkets, bottles, jars and crocks and porcelain potlids that these guys dredge up makes all Dumpdiggers suddenly snap to attention .

In this particular story, Dan and his team dig a deep hole behind a renovated townhouse and there go back in time to recover these wonderful objects. With that same trusty blue shovel Dan and his team recover various pontiled items from the 1850s and early 1860s including an eight sided desk ink: HARRISON'S / COLUMBIAN / INK and a CLIREHUGH'S / TRICOPHEROUS / FOR THE HAIR & SKIN / NEW YORK. Also uncovered was a brown and white potlid with an eagle at the center atop a shield baring stars and stripes, CHLORINE DETERGENT & ORRIS DENTIFICE / FOR / CLEANSING & PRESERVING / THE / TEETH / PREPARED BY / ROYCE & ESTERLY / DENTAL SURGEONS. Soon after we discovered a BARKER'S / CHEVEUX TONIQUE / FOR THE HAIR / BDWAY N. Y

Dan starts his latest adventure by telling readers some historical facts like how in 1851 the Hudson River Railroad opened a station at West 30th Street and how business flourished as breweries and soda-water factories, malt houses, stone cutting yards, large stables and slaughter houses, lumber and coal yards, grew up around the tracks etc. The housing was notably inferior as it was hastily erected to accommodate newly arrived immigrants. The narrow houses and wooden buildings sprang up overnight, sometimes right alongside stretches of stylish brick townhouses (which is what they were digging). In the 1850s and 60s, downtown Manhattan is reported to have contained approx 20,000 structures, mostly small or mid-sized factories and sweatshops.

The fire insurance maps show few of the savory little details however, and do not differentiate between style or function of the buildings beyond showing churches, and hotels. The only way to learn what actual living conditions existed from place to place is to dig.

The nicest piece recovered, in my opinion, is this beautiful teakettle ink circa 1860-65, in mint condition. When positioned in direct sunlight it produces a marvelous deep purple colour. It’s made of dark violet or black-amethyst glass, possibly of English or French origin. Dan describes how it was ferreted out from near the privy floor, and remarks on how the exact likeness has never been seen before (by him).

In all there were nine pontiled aqua medicines with raised lettering, mostly cosmetics for the hair and skin, an umbrella ink, and others. Additionally, another potlid and matching base, one clay pipe, one ivory toothbrush handle, a small quantity of common food bones, and an assortment of fruit and vegetable seeds sprinkled therein. Also discovered was a Barker's Cheveux Tonic; DR D. JAYNE'S / HAIR TONIC / PHILADA; BOGLE'S / HYPERION FLUID / FOR THE HAR; HURD'S / HAIR RESTORER; PHALON & SON / PERFUMERS, N. Y.; DR. D. C. KELLINGER / N. Y; ROUSSEL'S / UNRIVALED / PREMIUM / SHAVING CREAM… / X. BAZIN. / 114 Chestnut St / PHILADELPHIA. The earlier base reads GOLD MEDALS AWARDED / E. ROUSSEL / 114 Chestnut St / PHILADA / PERFUMER

Vist ManhattenWellDiggers.com to read the rest of Night Soil.

Elfshot: Sticks and Stones, an Archeology Blog on Canada Blog Friends

2009-09-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

Tim Rast writes Elfshot: Sticks and Stones , which is an archeology blog centered on his life and work in St Johns, Newfoundland. Tim is a modern day flintknapper and his domain is profiled this week on Canada Blog Friends.

A flintknapper is someone who makes stone arrowheads, and Tim specializes in recreating the authentic points used by the Maritime Archaic Indians, the Groswater and Dorset Palaeoeskimo and the Newfoundland Recent Indians.

"Knapping" is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian or other stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls, and flushwork decoration.

Dumpdiggers everywhere could learn a thing or two about Flintknapping by reading Tim's blog. He makes it fun and easy because his writing is terrific. Start with this piece about Dorset Palaeoeskimo knives because it’s a pretty good little snapshot of what the site is, and what Elfshot is all about. It brings archaeology, arts and crafts, and geothermal energy in the high Arctic all together, with a pinch of polar bears.

Tim Rast describes his experiments patinating copper as a fun bit of household chemistry that’s useful for the sort of artifact reproduction work that he does.

Dumpdiggers might also find Tim's first post about the Tuktut Nogait bow that he's working on for Parks Canada to be quite interesting, but the Ioffe Site post is really outstanding. In this piece he describes a site that he found while working as a resource archaeologist for an Adventure Canada cruise last fall.

Tim Rast is Canadian, from Alberta. He has two university degrees including a Masters in Anthropology from Memorial University in Newfoundland. He's a terrific writer, researcher and blogger, and a bright light in the darkness that surrounds the study of the earliest Canadian people.

Passion for the Past Antiques in Toronto

2009-09-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

The writing is on the chalkboard out front of Passion for the Past antiques store at 1646 Queen St West (Queen and Roncesvalles) in downtown Toronto, Ontario.

For ten years now the shop at the top of the hill has been selling fine china, dishware, glass, furniture and jewelry to the people of Toronto. But now the portal is closing.

Passion for the Past goes online!

Joe is going to sell online and reduce his expenses by about 90%. And he doesnt need Smojoe to tell him that selling online is an entirely different business. It requires promotions and online storytelling, and the love and respect of editors, bloggers and discussion forum moderators.

Here's Joe with a prized LORRAINE GLASS CO. MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADIAN HAND BLOWN RED GLASS CENTERPIECE, 27” LONG X 10” WIDE X 10” HIGH, CIRCA 1962-1974 this gorgeous piece of art glass is a good example of what Joe loves to sell at his bricks and mortar store and now online.

The hand drawn signs out front of the venue have the look of frustration and desperation in their manner - 70% off is hard to ignore in any font. And that's what brought me into the store. Once inside I met Joe Clement and his mother and was carried away by their friendly manner and entertaining conversation. Joe has the slight trace of an East Coast accent, but complains that its from working with John and his diction should be French.

Joseph Clement is partners with John Hogan, whom I’d met before when I was in there earlier in the summer. Joe was new to me. He made me laugh when I asked him about certain things and their cultural values? His rather dismissive remarks told me that he worships antiques on an entirely higher level than us Dumpdiggers; perhaps he places craftsmanship above historic value. "Put it this way," he says "If this place were on fire I would waste my time grabbing anything from that case."

2] ANCHOR HOCKING GLASS CO., VINTAGE FIRE KING GLASS MIXING BOWL, 8 1/2" DIAMETER X 5 1/4” DEPTH/HEIGHT, CIRCA 1950-1960

Sadly I didn't get a decent picture of Joe's MIDDLESEX FURNITURE COMPANY ANTIQUE MAHOGANY CHINA CABINET.

See anything you like? Contact Passion for the Past as follows,

John Hogan or Joe Clement
Passion For The Past Antiques
1646 Queen Street West,
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada
M6R 1B2

Phone: (416) 535-3883
Email: infoATpassionforthepastantiquesDOTcom

Store Hours:
Tuesday-Sunday:11:00 AM to 6:00 PM;
Monday: Closed

Here's a Mustache Cup from Germany.

Directions:
1 1/2 blocks East of Roncesvalles Ave. and Queen St. West intersection, between Callender St. and Triller Ave.

The Canadiana Guidebook by William Philip Wilson

2009-08-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

Among the many research tools that I treasure as much as my treasures, is a small paperback book published in 1974 by Greey de Pencier Publications in Toronto called The Canadiana Guidebook and subtitled Antique Collecting in Ontario.

The author, William Phillip Wilson notes in the introduction that Canada is still a young country and is just beginning to understand its heritage. His work sets about identifying all things 'Canadiana' with an eye on buying and collecting antiques as investments. His guidebook comes complete with maps to all the most prominent antiques hotspots in the province (in 1974) of Ontario and pages full of helpful tips, terms and references.

Indeed the Table of Contents sets forth the dimensions of his categorization and includes Furniture, Treen, Iron, tin, brass and copper, Silver, Pewter, Ceramics, Glass, Textiles, prints, painting and framing, and also includes lists of stores, and maps of Upper Canada.

Types of wood furniture are first assembled by making a distinction between softwoods and hardwoods. Mr Wilson teaches how to recognize Maple furniture from Birch, and the unique characteristics of Butternut, Oak, Chestnut and Cherry. He quotes Thomas Ormsbee'a Field Guide To Early American Furniture (Boston: Little, 1951), when he writes on how to spot Hepplewhite armchairs and 'chicken coop' Windsor side chairs in so much clutter at local antiques shops or mismatched, painted and stacked on tables at antiques auctions. Now I want to own a Schrank or clothes cupboard from the 1830s someday...

Treen is an old word. In the same way ‘wooden’ means made from wood, the word ‘treen’ is the old English word that means the object was made from a tree. Hardwood was most often used for treen objects, especially kitchen utensils. Maple was most popular and birch next. Treen objects include splint boxes, bowls, butter moulds, rolling pins, scoops and mashers and the most coveted pieces, and therefore most often faked items to genuine 1800’s Quebec maple sugar moulds.

Iron is broken into two categories, cast and wrought iron and he shows pictures of commonly faked cast iron items. On page 58 I found a sketch of the Naughty Nellie bootjack which I'd once read about elsewhere and heard mentioned in other texts. Commonly found iron Canadiana includes things like vegetable choppers, cast iron ‘T.Eaton’ trivets, corking forks, and cruise (grease lamps), tobacco cutters and coffee grinders and the big ticket items are cast iron parlor stoves, cauldrons, vats, baking pots and tea kettles.

Tin doesn't mean 100% tin as the word is commonly applied to sheet iron objects with a protective tin coating in the lexicon of Canadiana. There were many generations of whitsmiths or tinsmiths in both upper and lower Canada and the most outstanding Canadian tinsmithing is exhibited in weathervanes which are eagerly sought by all Canadiana collectors. The chanteclair or ‘crow cock’ from Quebec is most obvious weathervane, but other variations like banners and horses, fish, cattle and beavers exist. Tole or toleware is another popular field inside this category – the word means tin in French and came into the English language in the mid 1800s to designate tin that has been painted or decorated to distinguish it from other more utilitarian items. Common toleware items would include spice boxes, serving trays, document boxes, and chambersticks (a candle stick with wax moat made ‘for the chamber’).

Brass and copper Mr Wilson mentions a Toronto coppersmith named H.Piper and Brothers as being a prolific mid to late 1800’s Toronto based producer of brass and copper items. Items to look for include decorative candlesticks, brass coal scuttles and cauldrons and most specifically copper tea kettles and brass pots esp a ‘jelly pan’ or kettle that was developed in 1851 made of thinner ‘lathe spun’ brass that allowed jellies to simmer properly on wood stoves. Lastly look for chamber sticks and pierced candle lanterns. William Philip Wilson cautions against buying ‘horse brass’ pieces, that’s what the industry calls the brass decorations that have been harvested from old saddles, because these pieces are the most commonly faked brass items as the age and authenticity of such objects is very difficult to determine.

Books detailing the trade in period iron, tin brass and copper that Phillip referenced include Seymour Lindsay Iron and Brass Implements of the English and American House 1964, and Mary Earl Gould Antique Tin and Toleware 1957, and thirdly he referenced Louise K Lantz Old American Kitchenware 1971 which he says has lots of tin and cast iron pieces illustrated and lastly Margaret Coffin American Country Tinware covers American painted tin authoritatively.

Pewter and Britannia Metal are described next on pg 76. Pewter is an alloy or mixture of metals with tin as its base metal. According to the intended purpose lead, copper, antimony or bismuth, and more often a combination of all three metals were mixed with tin to make pewter.

The finest pewter contains no lead at all and was used for dinner plates, tankards, and cutlery – the cheapest pewter may contain as much as 25% lead and this of course was the subject of much medical inquiry in the late 1800’s after England adopted laws to restrict lead in household utensils. No such law was enacted in Canada, but very little is known about Canadian pewterers. Unlike European productions which had makers marks and sometimes quality stamps, Canadian pieces were often sold unmarked. But there are some exceptions and these include the flying angel mark of Jean Menut and the beaver mark of Thomas Menut, both of Montreal.

Ceramics is broken into three sub chapters, the first being Earthenware. William Philip Wilson defines this as ‘made from local clay’ that turns a buff or red colour in the kiln at temperatures between 1200 and 1500 degrees F. From the earliest days of settlement, earthenware potters in Upper Canada were influenced by three traditions, French, English and Pennsylvania German. Wilson details how the manufacture of earthenware was often a family industry and could be done by farmers at home in the winter months.

Stoneware is made with a high-firing clay (2000 to 2200 F) that was not discovered in Canada until around 1910. Consequently all 19th Century Canadian potteries arranged for the delivery of this particular type of clay from pits in New Jersey. The importation of clay and the more complicated manufacture of kilns and facilities meant that stoneware manufacture required a factory of sorts and had to be run more as a business. Because stoneware contains silica, or natural glass, it vitrifies or bonds together when fired and as a result it does not need a glaze or seal. Typical shapes in salt glazed stoneware include jugs, storage crocks and bottles. Lean glazed stoneware is something else and when its presented with brown slip over yellow the glaze is called Benningtonware in the USA and Rockingham in Canada. The chapter concludes opposite illustrations of common makers marks used by the St Johns Stone Chinaware Company, St John’s, Quebec, 1873-93.

William Philip Wilson's favourite books on Canadian potteries includes my own favourite book by Donald Webster, Early Canadian Pottery which Wilson deems essential, and Elizabeth Collards 19th Century Pottery and Porcelain in Canada Montreal 1967 which he says is very well researched. And the author tips his hat to R.W Finlayson Portneuf Pottery and Other Early Wares, Don Mills Ontario, Longman, 1972. This book is a wealth of information that’s both a good analysis of Portneuf and many other transfer prints and imports.

Finally, after a great chapter on glass which I'll save for another post, and some insight into fine art and framed paintings, and some description of Canadiana painting frames themselves, William Philip Wilson leaves readers with maps to his favourite antiques hunting grounds in Southern Ontario Canada.

Glover Boys visit Meyersburg Flea Market

2009-08-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

An article on Dumpdiggers.com details an Adventure in the Meyersburg Flea Market. The story explains how the youngsters sought information and transported a fresh dug amber cork top food flavouring bottle to that location for appraisal.

Exploring the lush countryside west of Warkworth Ontario the Glover Boys found a surface dump filled with bottles and mechanical debris.

Practiced dumpdiggers they took the time to sink test pits all through the site to identify the historic perimeters in order to gain understanding of the whole sum of buried material. It's important to know the answers to questions like, how old is this dump? and where was the gate by which all the dump wagons delivered the trash? And finally everyone was eager to dig down and find out for certain what exactly was moldered away as antique treasure right beneath our feet?

Three foot deep test pits should show signs of period dumping before any further digging occurs. The tell tale clues generally include white furnace ash soil layers atop bits of glass and pottery and the rubble of bricks and cement. Dig deeper and you'll find orange soil and that's where the old bottles lurk.

Manhattan Well Diggers Excavate Old America

2009-07-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Dumpdigging in Old American Cities

That would be a good name for a book. Someone should focus on that subject and research and write that best seller; I'd only have to start an online discussion by which everyone involved can contribute their digs and photos. This would amount to half the content. Today that's how people conduct interactive research on a subject. Perhaps a thread on the Dumpdiggers Discussion Forum would help?

On Sunday there came a curious email from someone south of the border. This little birdie was very excited, and very eager to share the thrill and spread the obsession that is the bottle bug virus.

First, remember the cloak and dagger nature of digging relics and why talk of buried treasure engenders such secrets and lies. Only then can you appreciate how difficult it is for anyone to get rare and pretty pictures of a spectacular dig in downtown New York City, because this activity is done in secret. And I believe this blog is the first to display these pictures, another rare honour in this subculture.

You all know how I feel about the heritage police in Canada... Our bureaucracy of backward thinkers have their own blanket rules propagated only to protect their own outdated establishment, and nothing else. True diggers hold a higher moral code which binds them to use the internet and share as much as possible about their quest and their activities. They strive to educate the public by whatever means necessary in order to communicate the subtle excitement of excavating history...

So I was honored to receive these pictures of Dan, Tim & Mya, the Manhattan Well Diggers doing their thing at the bottom of some deep holes in the middle of their great city. Thanks to Joe who sent along some text too, and I love the cryptic tone that hearkens back to the days of adventure on the high seas, when X marked the spot.

Here's what Joe wrote, transcribed, in that cryptic email,

We’ll take the A Train…to The Village that is.

On the way to twenty-one feet of exceptionally fertile night soil
with the Manhattan Well Diggers.

"Rolling swiftly down the tracks in a dark tube, situated under a sizable metropolis, on the way to dig a privy is a fairly unique endeavor by most standards...."

..."Lining up a dig in the heart of New York today is significant. Abandoned buildings, those constructed without plumbing in the mid nineteenth century or earlier, which once dotted the streets of certain key neighborhoods, and the numerous easily accessible open lots containing great digging potential, are basically long gone..."

"...a week ago we had the pleasure of excavating a hundred intact bottles and miscellaneous pieces from 1845-1870. These were unearthed in the privy right next door from today’s adventures. Remarkably, during day two of that project the broken remains of a small photograph, showing a seated gentlemen and believed to be a daguerreotype, were uncovered in the privy. The gold plate which surrounds the glass picture indicates it was most likely taken at KIMBALL 347 BROADWAY N-Y. An 1856 listing was confirmed for that address in New York. The third and final day of that excavation was spent sifting and assembling various shard-piles for the local history professor who owns the property..."

by Daniel McGee

Do you have anything you want to share with the world? My email address is rob AT dumpdiggers DOT com and I'll publish your stories and link to your site and help you share your knowledge and ambitions.

A Dumpdiggers Perusal

2009-07-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

This dumpdigger made a house call today, Sat Jun 10th 2009 the author spent a lovely Saturday afternoon with Dale Thurman, deep in the concrete jungle, east of Yonge St just below Bloor, and right in the heart of Toronto's downtown core. The wise man contacted me seeking an appraisal, and so I've created this post to help relate the experience to you.

Dale Thurman is a building contractor and jack of all trades with a long resume and a career of happy customers. He doesn’t advertise his business anymore, but rather works steady all year long on word of mouth referrals and co ventures. Dale is an old school structural engineer, a restoration expert and savvy pack rat.

He's also a studied historian and the self appointed protector of the Thurman family heirlooms and special keepsakes. His apartment is well organized to accommodate the mission. The living room shelters a drafting table, sewing machines and lathes and the walls are lined with filing cabinets and shelves; its part museum part machine shop. Dale’s office could double as a mad scientist's lair.

He asked me for an honest appraisal.
When I stepped in the door I knew immediately what I was seeing – a bottle bug. Dale is obsessed with glass and at age 56 he's still taking home anything and everything he finds because he can't bear to part with the objects after experiencing the thrill of discovering them at work. After forty years of doing home renovations on the oldest houses in this city, Mr Thurman had unearthed lots of bottles. At one site in particular, near the intersection of Jones St and Queen St (in what I consider the ‘golden triangle’ of Toronto) he trenched into a 1920’s residential dump full of old sodas, medicines, and food bottles.

Visitors in Dale's apartment see immediately, above the front windows, a wide shelf with about two hundred pieces of glass stacked in rows. At first glace it appears to be treasure trove of old bottles, but closer inspection reveals that almost every piece is machine made, most are blanks, one fifth are screw tops and some are badly damaged. In the most severe cases, some of Dale's bottles are partially melted (from the dump fires). However, I soon spied on the wall of his apartment two bottles with faded brown paper labels that I knew were going to be significant.

Even from the floor I could read the labels,

E.E. RUTHERFORD (Re-Astilled Glycerin)

J.F. HARTZ Co., PURE OLIVE OIL

Although glycerin and olive oil are both found in the early 1900s kitchen, these bottles appear medicinal and were probably used in a pharmacological enterprise.

Then we focused on the Dairy Bottles. My experience has taught me that there are more collectors of dairies and sodas than there are for medicines and sauce bottles and food jars (cathedral pickles excluded) even though these genres of glass bottles are also richly embossed and usually just as pretty.

In perusing Dale's milks I lifted each specimen to scrutinize the bottom for pontil mark that would reveal it as a blown bottle, but this tell tale scar is not present in any of Dale's bottles. Although he did have some milks with embossing from local dairies that I have never seen before… These two creatures are new to me:

THOS DOWNING / 127 / CARLAW MILK

J. HOLLINGER + CO / MAIN 2055

Gazing further down the collection I spotted a square cobalt blue bottle sticking its neck and shoulders above a grove of sodas on the far end of the crowded shelf. I directed Dale to fetch down this relic at once, and he lifted it from the ranks. A tall blue E.B Shuttleworth chemical bottle that is so gorgeously almost perfect. A tiny chip on the lip is the only flaw, and its dirty. The bottle needs a good brisk tumbling, but its a gem.

I soon counseled to put this jewel in the window. This one vessel is worth more than everything else and should be polished and specially presented in the sunlight.

Dale also has some antique maps, books and ephemera. He has a brochure from the Lusitania, and a 1912 tourist photo book entitled Canada, From Ocean to Ocean that features good crisp black and white photos of popular hot spots in every city all across the nation. He keeps this tome alongside the 1935 Arrow Toronto Street Guide which has a lovely fold out map glued to the last page.

In closing I congratulated Dale on saving, preserving and keeping safe these lovely pieces of Canadian history.

Time Team America Debuts on PBS

2009-06-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

The British hit TV series TIME TEAM, which plays on PBS on Monday nights has spawned an American franchise. TIME TEAM AMERICA debuts Wednesday, July 8 at 8 PM, ET on PBS. Yes it must be written all in caps, that's how they are branding the name.

Much like the CSI type of experts who drive so much American prime-time TV drama, this group of specialists works 'cases' to probe mysteries in real time.

According to insiders this series has a much different feel than a typical PBS documentary. TIME TEAM AMERICA lets viewers eavesdrop on archaeologist who are grappling with the uncertainties of different excavation situations and testing different, and often conflicting theories. Here's host Colin Campbell (left) and Chief Investigator Adrien Hannus (right).

Just like the hugely popular British series, the American clone follows a team of scholars who are mostly archaeologists, geologists, geophysicists and historians of course. These people will again race against time to unearth some of America's most intriguing archaeological sites.

But its the race against time that I always found most contrived. Anybody who knows anything about time management and digging dumps and forgotten heritage sites trenches knows that the best stuff comes out of the hole at the end of the summer. It takes weeks to find proper goody veins and honey holes in any site, weeks to tell each site's story. So it seems reckless to me to cut apart these old places and not do comprehensive digs.

Check out a sneak peak here: http://pressroom.pbs.org/documents/time_team_sizzle_doc

Preview the full premiere episode, "Fort Raleigh, North Carolina," on the new PBS video portal at: http://pressroom.pbs.org/programs/time_team_america

Beauty Pageant Collectibles

2009-05-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Beauty pageants were once a large part of our culture. In the old days, before and after World War II, there were beauty pageants for just about everything. I found pictures online that show regional beauty queens in every major tourist destination across Canada, and several corporate beauty queens representing our entire nation. In the age of print media and flash photography, this was seen as a great way to promote a retail business, and get people of all ages to focus on your goods. The prospect of finding and promoting a new celebrity attached to a company's name was a terrific incentive to corporate Canada.

For teen girls in the 1960s, the beauty pageant offered a real chance to finally be recognized as a princess, and start living life as a celebrity, if only for a year.

In my other job as a social media consultant and online marketing strategist, I've been doing some work for Miss Teen Canada and I've been studying beauty pageants and the illusion of stardom and celebrity cult that's so important to each event's overall success. For example, the size of the audience, and marital status of the Host, the quality and appearance of the designer swim wear, and of course the Judges themselves are key players in the media mix. The judges must be vaunted celebrities in order to bestow their celebrity status upon eager participants, and the excitement in the room builds as the evening draws to a dramatic conclusion.

Look at the SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL in this vintage 1962 era Beauty Pageant Tiara Crown worth approx $65 US on eBay. This was fashioned in California for some event that goes unrecorded today, but perhaps it was a splashy affair that was televised.

And this is my favourite, look at this 1971 DAWN BEAUTY PAGEANT cartoon comic book advertisement for a doll set that comes with a run way and HOST. This old comic book ad ran in 'Golden Age comic books' and other female teen publications as a promotion. The ad measures approximately 6x9 inches and features Dawn, Longlocks, Dale, Glori, Angie and Jessica.

Cocaine in Antique Patent Medicines

2009-05-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

In the forty years between 1865 and 1905 a great many patent medicines, pain killers, hair tonics and even some relaxing beverages proudly advertised the use of cocaine as an active ingredient. That’s a forty year window of cocaine-as-medicine related collectibles. After I found this great article in the University of Buffalo archives, I just had to share some of it. Yes I've borrowed some images and text, but I've also added my own research and opinions were pertinent.

Cocaine was first synthesized in pure form by Albert Niemann in 1860 when he extracted pure cocaine powder from the leaves of Erythroxylum coca (more commonly known as the coca plant). Soon after it was isolated, cocaine was used to try to cure illnesses and fight pain because drugs composed of cocaine made people happy. A little too happy…

It wasn't long after the isolation of pure cocaine that people became aware of the addictive potential of the drug, which eventually led to the introduction of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 (in the United States) which required all American drug manufacturers to list all of the ingredients on the product labels. Today, the use of cocaine as medicine had been tempered by past experience. Nevertheless, standard narcotic remedies like paregoric remained readily available into the early 20th century, and Benzedrine inhalers were marketed without prescription until the early 1950s. Codeine wasn't removed from most over-the-counter cough suppressants until the early 1980s.

Coca Wine, anyone? As the name suggests, this was a mixture of strong wine and cocaine. Metcalf Coca Wine was one of a huge variety of wines with cocaine on the market. Everybody used to say that it would make you happy and as a bonus it would also work as a medicinal treatment. I recently saw a bottle in the collection of a famous Canadian marriage counselor with a fancy office on Queen St W in Toronto.

Mariani Wine’s Vin Mariani was a very popular drink in both Italy and France in the late 1860s, and was perhaps the most famous Coca wine of all time. It’s rumoured that Pope Leo XIII used to carry a bottle on his person. Vin Mariani which was developed in 1863 by the Corsican entrepreneur Angelo Mariani who exported the wine all over the world where it won many international awards including a Vatican gold medal for excellence.

Yes we all know there was once cocaine in Coca Cola, and that’s another reason why early Coke bottles are such spectacular collectibles.

Inspired by the European success of coca wines, the alcoholic beverages that combined wine and cocaine, an Atlanta Georgia pharmacist named John Pemberton developed his own cocktail based on Vin Mariani and called it Pemberton's French Wine Coca. It proved popular among American consumers. But in 1886, when the State of Georgia introduced Prohibition, Pemberton replaced the wine in his recipe with non-alcoholic corn syrup. The new recipe was similar to, but not exactly the same as Coca-Cola.

At the end of the 19th century, the fear of drug abuse made coca-based drinks less popular. This eventually led to the prohibition of cocaine in the United States, and the removal of cocaine from coca wine as well as Coca-Cola, although the coca leaf remained in use in that example.

Maltine was very popular in North America. Produced by the Maltine Manufacturing Company of New York. Period advertising suggested that consumers should take a full glass with or after every meal, but children should only take half a glass.

Here’s a paperweight promoting C.F. Boehringer & Soehne ( Mannheim , Germany ). The object evidences the pride this German company had being the biggest producers in the world of products containing Quinine Sulphate and Cocaine Hydrochlorate. Additionally their 1906 ad states, "Prices no higher than for any other brand"

Cocaine tablets - the article in the University of Buffalo archives has a poor condition and poorly photographed 1900 era newspaper advertisement that reads ‘All stage actors, singers teachers and preachers must have them for a maximum performance. Great to "smooth" the voice.

I found this picture of a product called Forced March on the Cocaine.org information site. The testimonials promises the product, "Allays hunger and prolongs the power of endurance"

Cocaine flavoured toothache drops would make a majestic collectible today. I’m sure this product was very popular with children in 1885 and I read about a club in the late 1800s that would consume cocaine infused beverages before and during musical dance classes. The band would play music faster and faster until it wasn't a civilized gathering anymore

The 2009 Toronto Bottle Show

2009-04-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

At 6pm on Saturday April 18th the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors Club was busy setting up their annual show and sale. The Toronto Bottle Show is the largest antique glass bottle and pottery exposition (and tins, stoneware, insulators, ephemera and so much more) in Canada, with approx 75 antiques dealers and impressive attendance. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the empty gymnasium as I looked at all the empty tables... In just a few hours the dealers waiting outside would enter and display thousands of historic antiquities for show, sale and trade.

Saturday Night Set-Up
I laboured right alongside the other members of the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors Club on Saturday April 18th to help set up the show. The entire episode is the subject of this article, Dealers Night at The Bottle Show which also chronicles the excitement of watching Malcom and Newf unpack and sell three years of dug treasure to ready buyers and collectors that were the other dealers.

Sunday's Bottle Show

On April 19th 2009 the morning sun warmed the faces of several hundred people outside the gymnasium at Humber College in Rexdale, Ontario as they waited to enter the building and marvel at all the beautiful glass inside.

Dealers included,
Michael Anders,
Dean Axelson and Judy Axelson,
John Barclay and Marie Renault,
Brett Bloxam and Jackie Bloxam,
Robert Brak and Linda Brak,
Mark Clayton and Candice Clayton,
Bill Cook and Bill Ash,
Abel DaSilva and June Ng,
Ron Demoor and John Dunbar,
Mike Emre and Barbara Emre,
Bob Falle,
Ray Ruddy,
John Finlay, Dave Marrotte,
Dwight Fryer and Earl Fryer,
John Goodyer and Mark Wilson,
Frederic Hartl and Jean-Marc Helie,
Bob Hayward and Tyler Hayward,
Grahame Hudson and George Jones,
Ron Hunsperger and Russ Hunsperger,
Barbara Jackson and Randall Mathieu,
Adam Jarzabek, Steve Vasda,
Marcus Johnson,
Scott Jordan and Paul Marchand,
John Knight, John Knight sr,
Robert Lloyd, Blake Woods,
Ed Locke, Sheryl MacKenzie,
Tim and Jim Maitland,
Michael Malanowski and Caitlin Malanowski,
Terry Matz and Evelyn Matz,
Malcom Mcleod and Newf,
Jamie McDougall,
Glen and Cynthia Moorhouse,
Morris Marlowe and Wendy Marlowe,
Steve Mouck,
Robin Newton-Smith, Richard Clark,
Jason Pfeffer and Barb Pfeffer,
Norm Playtor and Jackie Playtor,
Collin Potter and Jennifer Potter,
Michael Rossman and Jan Rossman,
Fred Spoelstra and Bill Comer,
Cliff Stunden and Donna Stunden,
Scott Wallace and John Wells,
Roger Warren and Carol Warren,
Jack Welton and Judy Welton, and Kert Wrigley.

Readers can find more pictures and stories documenting the 2009 Toronto Bottle Show in the Dumpdiggers Library.

New Sherman Jewellery Book

2009-03-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Sandra Caldwell and Evelyn Yallen have created, or should I say compiled, the most comprehensive book of Sherman Jewellery photographs in existence. If you're like me, and you hunt unsigned Sherman at yard sales, rummage sales and estate auctions, make The Masterpiece Collection your new reference manual.

Sherman Jewellery, The Masterpiece Collection is a 216 page 8-1/2 x 11 hardcover in full colour that features the best of the best of Sherman, including figurals, men's jewellery, unusual colour combinations, beads, art glass, and an illustrated chapter on the signed vs. unsigned debate.

More importantly, Sandra Caldwell and Evelyn Yallen are expert collectors and therefore skilled at summarizing the subtleties of Sherman; every sentence makes readers more aware of the jewelry design business and the realities of the post war Canadian fashion marketplace. The Masterpiece Collection offers a look at some of the rarest Sherman pieces, and focuses on the many colours of Swarovski stones he used to create his designs. Buying and reading this book will make you an expert in Sherman jewelry. More details about Hunting Unsigned Sherman in the Dumpdiggers Library.

Table of Contents

Why We Collect
Sherman: A Brief History
Prices and pricing Sherman
Signed vs Unsigned: The Great Debate
Clear Jewelry
Aurora Borealis and Topaz Jewelry
Black, grey and hematite jewelry
Blue Jewelry
Green Jewelry
Red and pink jewelry
Purple and alexandrite jewelry
Unusual colours
Beads
Art glass, gold tone and men’s jewellery
Figurals and centennials
Multiples
Last but not least

The book details market trends and Canadian competitors like Artistic, Continental and Keyes. It also references American firms like Boucher, Coro, and Trifari. Wisdom is shared in short sentences like, ’Much as Boucher is known for his use of baguette stones, Sherman loved marquise stones and used them liberally. It is one of the features that makes a piece of Sherman jewellery so identifiable.’

Regarding the Great Debate: How much Sherman jewellery is unsigned? On page 12 and 13 there are no pictures. That anomaly alone should immediately signal readers that something important is written here. On these two pages Sandra and Evelyn have laid out their position on the great debate – they get down to business stating why they believe “there is a significant amount of unsigned Sherman” waiting to be found; because,

1. Sherman is hard to fake, and there would be very little profit in replications.
2. Original owners attest to buying both signed and unsigned pieces in same box.
3. Identical designs exist that are both signed and unsigned.
4. Sherman was often sold with cards and tags in gift boxes that served as a signature.

And let’s remember after all, it was just costume jewellery. Designers probably didnt feel obligated to sign their work as often in this fashion genre - because costume jewelery was considered disposable.

Aurora Borealis and Topaz Jewelry
Aurora, which is a technique for coating stones in 1955 by Swarovski, was a novel treatment that gave interesting depth to designs by allowing the same stone to take on a different appearance and colour. the authors state that they believe, based on years of experience collecting Sherman, that there is more Aurora Borealis and Topaz jewelry in existence than any other make

Regarding Green Jewelry
According to Sandra and Evelyn, green jewelry is the least popular colour of all costume jewelry and so accordingly there are fewer green Sherman designs – does this make green jewelry more expensive today? Not necessarily, it depends on the beauty and modern functionality and modern desirability more . But of particular interest is the wide rigid cuff bracelet in an uncommon pale, celadon green with the usual cabochon glass stones

The book shows rare pieces and uncommon designs using unfoiled, reverse set stones. Whenever possible it shows sets where everything matches, and time and time again the necklace is signed but the earrings are not signed or the bracelet is shown in the box with cardboard tag signature etc. This book is like having The Masterpiece Collection.

Sandra Caldwell and Evelyn Yallen have a website http://intotemptation.com, on which there are far more details and ecommerce links to buy the book for $60 dollars.

If you have any questions about Sherman Jewellery or the Masterpiece Collection, they can be reached by email at theshermanbook AT gmail DOT com.

Neal Kuellmer's Exceptional Art Glass

2009-03-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here's some of Neal Kuellmer's art glass. He was working on more borosilicate glass (Pyrex) pieces like the ones below when last we met. Click the pictures - they expand.

Have You Ever Met A Borosilicate Lampworker?

2009-03-05T22:55:00.000-08:00

Dumpdiggers met Neal Kuellmer, a borosilicate lampworker at his home studio on a rainy day, March 4th, 2009. He explained to me how lampworking is different than glassblowing; it requires a fraction of the energy and produces different results. Today its used to make intricate but functional art glass, jewelry, pipes and bongs.

Artist Neal Kuellmer of Metamorphosis Glassworks provides Canadian society with custom glass and functional art from his studio at 146 Brock Ave just north of Queen St W (other side of the bridge just past the beer store).

Unit 303 is at the back end of the top floor of an old industrial building (owned by Mervin of course) right off the railroad tracks opposite a primary school. The building is probably one of the last ‘artist communities’ left in Toronto, a city where sky high real estate prices have converted almost all of the old manufacturing and warehouse buildings into expensive urban condos. But this building proves there are still pockets of independent art production and manufacturing software, here and there, all along Queen West.

Neal has about twelve hundred square feet and two big windows under a metal roof upon which the rain outside beat a steady tattoo. Neal has the place all to himself, a creative domain in which to make his daily bread. The guy is pretty cool, he offered me a cold beer as soon I walked in the door and the beats were pumping. He posed for some pictures by the window before we got busy in his shop.

Neal doesn’t have a big blast furnace like the glassblowers at the Toronto Harbourfront Centre, but rather he uses a fat propane torch fixed to a bench. As I watched he worked a lump of material with glass rods – but I didn’t give him time to do anything fancy. Nor did I pause to learn anything about the processes; I'd have to experience it all over again to really understand it. While researching the subject however, I did find a great page on the history of lampwork in the Online Glass Museum.

Here’s what I do know: Kuellmer of Metamorphosis Glassworks makes functional art, jewelry, and ornaments to suit the public. He sells most of his work in shops along Queen St West and in special shows and exhibitions, some of which occur at his studio. Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with the main glass-forming constituents being silica and boron oxide. Borosilicate glass was first developed by German glassmaker Otto Schott in the late 19th century, and sold under the brand name "Duran" in 1893. After Corning Glass Works introduced Pyrex in 1915, it became a synonym for borosilicate glass in the English-speaking world. The European manufacturer of Pyrex, Arc International, still uses borosilicate glass to make its Pyrex glass kitchen products.

This coming spring and summer, Neal is opening his doors to the public, and will be sharing his studio and his experience with students. Do you want to make your own earrings? or how about a hanging mobile for your kitchen window? Neal is now taking appointments for one on one classes - that's the best way to learn the art and science of borosilicate lampwork. Very small classes (only one or two people each time) will be given five hours of information and practical execution, for one hundred dollars each. This fee covers all expenses and materials, anyone interested in learning the craft can email metaglass AT gmail DOT com.

Dumpdiggers joins the Four Season Bottle Collectors

2009-02-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

Saturday Feb 21st, 2009 at 7:02pm, Rob Campbell (that’s me) sat alone in Meeting Room #1 at Arbor Heights Community Center at Wilson and Avenue Rd in North York (northern Toronto) waiting for the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors to arrive.

This night was supposed to be their monthly club meeting? But one look out the window told me things might have changed. The weather outside was awful, and only getting worse. Eight inches of snow had already collected on the roads, snarling traffic throughout the GTA. I looked at my watch again; perhaps the meeting had been canceled?

Two minutes, to my relief Carl Parsons and Glenn Moorhouse strolled into the meeting room toting large Tupperware containers full of bottles, coffee and cookies. They were surprised to find me in there waiting, especially since we'd never met before.

In the next few minutes a dozen people arrived. More tables were set up, and the meet and greet centered around the collectibles on display between the windows, and the coffee pot in the kitchen.

Although I was a complete stranger to them all, I didn’t have to introduce myself. Everyone already knew who I was. Most had been to website, or read this blog. Some had seen Nancy J White's Jan 24th 09 Toronto Star article entitled Dumps, A Window To The Past, and some of those folks were a little ticked off.

When Mike Duggan made the association he gasped, ‘Oh so you’re that Rob Campbell? I want to strangle you’, and then he proceeded to list all the mistakes in that story.

I listened patiently. Everything he said was true. And I know deep down they all wanted to like me - bottle collectors want young blood around to mentor and shame. Everything went very smoothly after I took out my wallet and officially joined the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors. I paid $25 to become one of them, for a year.

“I've built Dumpdiggers for you” I explained later, "and now I’ll donate time and energy to share this web enterprise and help the subculture. Look upon Dumpdiggers.com as Rob Campbell's contribution to the Four Season's Bottle Collecting fraternity. Send me any messages you want broadcast.'

Four Seasons Bottle Collectors, 21Feb2009 Meeting

After the monthly Business Report and the Treasurer's Update, the president Jamie McDougal once again brought the group's focus back to me, the new member. What did I collect? How can they help me? And that query put the focus squarely back onto Dumpdiggers and all the wonderful things an enterprise 2.0 interactive website can do to help grow a bottle club. It was determined then that I should speak on the subject at the upcoming bottle show - I agreed.

Anyway, I got yet another chance to illustrate Dumpdiggers.com functionality when Glenn Moorhouse revealed he was selling bundles of vintage club newsletters, full of unique information, for approx $25 dollars each. “Why not sell smaller downloads for five dollars each?” I interrupted. The process would be simple enough – scan the newsletters and then convert the files to pdfs. These are called ebooks, and they're a great way to share information and increase a customer base at the same time. IN this case it would be a great way for collectors all across Canada and the United States to access and consume the rare information, and the club could make a few bucks every month for doing nothing.

At halftime, the business portion of the Four Seasons Bottle Collectors meeting culminated in a dollar per ticket raffle for a mysterious prize.

Darren Spindler won the draw. That was exciting. Carl Parsons stood up and presented Darren with an attractive old English whiskey jug. The pottery had a cobalt blue glaze top and looked rather fancy - but I don't think it was worth very much.

Here's Darren Spindler. He’s one of the people I most wanted to meet. His Early Canadian Bottle Works website has always impressed me. It's a nice clean website, simple and socially relevant at the same time. And the digging stories are terrific. I look forward to more cooperation with Darren in the future - maybe we'll even get together dig someday?

Then the gathering turned to Show and Tell – this month’s theme was “Things We Love”, and for the next hour it was easy to see the passion that unites these people. Darren Spindler stood up first and described the five different things he brought - the most interesting of which was a framed Griffin Bros promotional material (a go-with?).

Melissa Clare went next and showed us a hot watering can, and some tins emblazoned with white roses.

The president of the FSBC, Jamie McDougal followed Melissa and described his favourite things; assembled on the table before him was an amber Dahls Ink, a tiny Hudson’s Bay extract bottle (turning amethyst) and a vault light (luxfor - which is a piece of glass designed to transmit light into buildings), that captured everyone's attention. After some research, I found this page which explains vault lights.

Last to present at 9:45pm, Sean Murphy detailed his display. He held up some green glazed (undercoat) crocks and jugs from Peterborough Ontario, an aqua fruit sealer with the correct metal ring and top, and some spectacular yard sale finds including an original but unsigned water colour painting of some quality.

At the conclusion of my first meeting as a member of the Four Season Bottle Collectors club I promised to write about and help promote the upcoming 16th Annual Toronto Bottle & Antique Show and Sale – Canada’s Premier Bottle Show Sunday April 19th 2009, 9:30 am – 3:00 pm, Humber College Gymnasium, 250 Humber College Blvd.

www.canadianbottlecollectors.com

The History Detectives on PBS

2009-02-18T06:06:00.000-08:00

Dumpdiggers love everything about The History Detectives television series on PBS. From the Elvis Costello soundtrack to the state of the art investigative science and technology, this show is a model for grade A infotainment.

The History Detectives concept is the logical extension of what I call 'object fantasy' and that's the precognitive notion that some diggers get when they pick up an item in the bottom of the hole and wonder, what pivotal role in history did this x play? Was this Wilfred Laurier's toothbrush? or perhaps those gin bottles were drained by Sir John A MacDonald? This kind of thinking is how the History Detectives came to exist. Imagine a temporal detective agency comprised of experts, with each member of the elite task force willing to put in the time, researching, digging in municipal archives, or doing chemical analysis in labs. Eventually these scholars determine the probability of truth.

For Dumpdiggers guarding priceless relics, History Detectives is where subjective fantasy meets objective reality.

So imagine my surprise when I opened my Dumpdiggers email yesterday and discovered that Amy R. Baroch the Sr. Project Manager at PBS Engage wrote Rob AT Dumpdiggers DOT com a letter asking for help spreading the message that her publicly funded enterprise is featuring History Detective, Tukufu Zuberi, as part of the ongoing blog series called “Five Good Questions.”

The series features a PBS celebrity or insider and asks visitors to send in questions to be answered the following week. The engage blog series is thrilled to have Tufuku as their feature this week, coinciding with a special episode of History Detectives next Monday, February 23 (9pm local time) dedicated to African-Americans’ impact on history and society.

Here's a chance for Dumpdiggers to ask any questions they want about American history, anthropology or what it’s like to explore and solve some of histories most fascinating mysteries, myths, and folklore. Twitter: amyPBS

Finally, the best thing about the History Detectives website on the PBS site, is the chapter on Investigative Techniques - here's a glimpse at their arsenal of tools and the processes by which they divine an artifact's true identity, point of origin and potential role in history.

The list includes Item Appraising, Ballistics, DNA Analysis, Document Examination, Forensic Anthropology, Geological Analysis, Historical Research, Paper Analysis, Patent Searches, Property Searches, Textile Analysis, Timber Dating and Weapons Dating.

Watch History Detectives Monday Nights at 9pm on PBS.

Historic Book Discovered At Goodwill

2009-02-05T18:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, at the bottom of a dusty book bin in a cluttered Goodwill donation outlet, Dumpdiggers found a rare book!

Historic Ontario: "Old Upper Canada" Fog, Frank Maracle Press Ltd.

For relic hunters this book is a double prize for it's not just a historic treasure, it's reference material for finding more historic treasure.

Prepared and distributed by the Canadian government, this 58 page booklet indexes the province's oldest attractions. Divided into historic regions, the book begins by outlining the Highways of New France.

After that introduction there's fifty eight pages of names, dates and facts beside Frank Fog's original pencil sketches of historic buildings presented as they would have appeared in their prime. Its chalk full of interesting stories and little known facts; I learned something on every page. For example did you know there's a cairn beside the Ottawa river near Green lake which commemorates the discovery of Samuel de Champlain's astrolabe? Lost in 1613 this relic was found 254 years later in the spring of 1867 by a farm boy named Edward Lee. He was swindled out of the prize by a steamboat captain...

How old is this book? Unfortunately I can't find a publishing date anywhere, but inside the front cover there's a portrait of John Robarts, who became the 17th premier of Ontario in 1961 and served in that capacity until 1971.

The Historic Ontario book contrasts the settlements at the bottom of Yonge St with growing communities all the way north to Huronia, the capital of the Huron nation near present day Midland.

The book imagines the Battle of the Thames and briefly describes the death of Tecumseh. It pinpoints Crysler's Farm and describes the victory that Lt-Col J.W. Morrison and the British Canadians enjoyed over a superior American force.

There's four pages on the City of Kingston, old Fort Henry and the Murry Redoubt, which I discovered to be a 'Martello tower' in Macdonald Park that once helped protect shipping in Kingston's busy port.

How much is this prize worth? I have to know. Chalk full of valuable information and handsomely decorated with awesome architectural sketches by a Canadian artist named Frank Fog, I have put this find on eBay and confirm its value. Why not sell it? I've already read and digested the contents. If I don't sell this book on eBay now, I'll just end up giving it away for free or it will get chewed by Digger, or suffer water damage and or become blemished by coffee cup rings in my care... so I'll let someone else guard this treasure.

Antique Showsales International - The Winter Sale at Sherway Gardens, Jan 25th to Feb 1st, 2009

2009-01-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

All week long, Antique Showsales International has brought The Winter Sale to Toronto!

From Jan 25th to Sunday Feb 1st there's plenty of antiques filling the aisles and courtyards of Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke, Ontario. This mall is found just west of Toronto where Hwy 427 meets the QEW. There's lots of parking and a TTC bus from Kipling st runs direct.

The Winter Sale is a remarkable week long festival of diverse decorator quality antiques - its remarkable because of the selection it provides shoppers. There's everything here; antique lamps, art glass, Bakelite, coins, Tiffany lamps, fine art paintings and sculptures, ephemera, prints, fine china, stoneware, tools and toys - everything! There's clothing too, lots of vintage dresses and boots and hats and headpieces. Furniture of all descriptions, tables and chairs, dressers and wardrobes.

Dumpdiggers arrived at twelve noon and stayed till close at five. I marveled at the wide selection of costume jewelry and one of the first people I bothered was Carol-Anne of Karol's Kollectibles. I couldn't stop looking at the exquisite display of Mariam Haskell and the beautiful Sherman cuff bracelets she keeps under glass - she has both rigid and soft examples of the collectible Montreal designer's work.

Here's Carol-Anna showing off a spectacular Sherman necklace. This piece was made in the late 1950's in Montreal and it was very popular with women who desired the flash and sizzle of Swarovski crystals - esp after the poverty and suffering of the war of Europe. Although all her pieces are signed, Carol-Anne reminds us, Sherman didn't sign all his work and because of the rhodium plated back plates it's very hard to replicate. If you have any questions about Sherman jewelry she is expert - Carol can be contacted at karolsrunwaygems AT aol DOT com, until she gets her website up and running.

Behold Katherine Choptiany of Nomadic Antiques. Her domain is easily recognized by the giant garden harps and the full length bejeweled Victorian opera dress at its radiant core. She's hard to miss. The base of her space is littered with boots and baubles and 1960's clutch purses. I don't know how she keeps an eye on it all. Lingering in her presence I learned that she's the Festival Director of the Moving Image Film Festival. Katherine's vintage coats and boots and are as breathtaking as her smile, and her conversation is informed and compelling... Dumpdiggers found it hard to break away.

David Burns came all the way from Guelph Ontario to sell his ephemera, beautiful art prints, vintage advertising, and old posters of every description. He handed me an antique business card. We had only talked for two minutes before a queue formed behind him, and his wisdom was soon tasked elsewhere dispensing reference numbers and commenting on laminate stocks and signature ink shades.

Treasure Hut Antiques is home to Pat and Penny George - don't bother trying to find their home base in Paris Ontario, they only display their wares at the big Canadian shows. Pat is a friendly guy and very knowledgeable - Dumpdiggers likes the way he presents his antiques as 'treasures'.

Hugh W Little has a tiny business card. But he's a big dealer and sells quality vintage art prints behind a truckload of ephemera in sorting boxes. He runs Vintageprints.ca online and while I watched he seemed to know quite a few of his customers by name. His booth is perfectly positioned just below the food court stairs and I gazed upon him busily showing paintings and prints as I enjoyed my Manchu Wok beef terriyaki.

Audette Antiques is a century old barn filled with country furniture and related smalls from Orono, Ontario - childhood home of Neil Young btw. They brought nice Canadiana pieces and Vintage tins and tools. They are also purveyors of silver cutlery and antique steel knives and kitchenware. I don't think they knew Neil, but they look about the same age.

Dumpdiggers chatted with Bob Charbonneau of Ivy Manor Antiques and marveled at his wide selection of silver flatware and sterling holloware. There's some Moorcraft and Roseville pottery, and also old coins and even some long forgotten bank notes.

And one minute later I met Marshall Gummer, The Appraiser.ca He was there to help promote the show and accompanied by Marion we three toured the corridor kiosks to say hello to his many friends, some of whom are dealers at The Twindmills Antique mall in Colborne, Ontario. I'll save their profiles for that post when I visit them this spring.

Together we delighted at the model ships on display in The Cellar Door. Here's Gary Dawdy backlit beside a fair sized schooner, a bargain at $1200. Gary and Gayle Dawdy hail from Kingston Ontario where they're also known as Dip and Strip Refinishing.

The carved wood and silver sculptures that I mentioned in the introduction are found in PA or Parisian Auctioneers. This is the domain of Phillippe et Anne Pallafray; the charming French speaking couple are residents of Ile d'Orleans, Quebec, Canada. I think they had some trouble understanding my Toronto English, and I had to work hard to glean exactly what they were saying, but their fine art paintings (some real medieval looking canvases) do all the talking.

Marshall Gummer was on Breakfast Television this morning, at approx 7:50 am. He showed off some of his best art glass and a Harlander painting and gave the audience some great ideas for marquee items to purchase as investments. Stand alone objects d'art really help define your individual style. That's what The Winter Sale is all about - its a buffet of beautiful objects that are powerful bits of Canadian art and culture.

Beware Fake Pot Lids on eBay!

2009-01-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

There are lots of diverse experts on the Dumpdiggers.com discussion forum. The site is a great place to fraternize with relic hunters, privydiggers and antiques collectors of all descriptions. Everyone has something to share, and diggers are now beginning to meet and frequent the boards in search of rare and valuable information.

It was obvious to me that Greg Dean was different right from the moment he arrived. He's an Aussie. And a bottle digger and historian. But most remarkably, he's a man with a message – beware fake transfer ware pot lids on eBay!

It was late November 2008 when Mr Dean first introduced himself as ‘Card Shark’ in the Dumpdiggers Discussion Forum and soon launched discussions about this ongoing fraud. But Greg Dean could talk about anything - his website is chock full of awesome digging pictures, (he has great photos showing thousands of recovered old bottles and pottery pieces beside deep holes in England). But the new member immediately posted links to his pot lids on display in a show somewhere and then proceeded to warn us all about a crises in the world of pot lids. Yes that’s right, pot lids. Crises.

What the heck are pot lids?
In the 1840s, as the steam engine transformed England, the kingdom's foremost chemists, druggists, and toiletry suppliers paid commercial artists to create pictorial labels which could be applied to ceramic containers using new ‘transfer printing’ techniques.

Greg Dean collects pot lids, among other things and some of the prettiest pot lids you ever did see are on display on his website, Dean Antiques.com

On the federation of historical bottle collectors website, there’s a very informative Adobe pdf article outlining the specifics of collecting pot lids. Collecting Pot Lids by Bruce Pynn and Swanson Jr begins by describing the ‘transfer-print’ procedure that makes 'transfer ware'.

The Transfer Print Process
To properly understand Greg Dean’s message, it’s important to understand how this early printing was actually accomplished. The simple process was as follows:
1. Ink is distributed on tissue paper from an engraved copper plate.
2. The art is baked onto the pottery or porcelain surface during the ‘bisque stage’
3. The paper is rubbed and some pressure is applied to assist in the transfer
4. The object is floated in water or washed until all the paper is removed.

What was inside the decorated pottery?
Toothpaste or tooth powder tins were almost always decorated, but also pomade, shaving cream, cold creams, various ointments (bear’s grease), mustache wax, shoe polish, and medicinal salves.

What are fake pot lids?
Some pot lids are very rare, and they are valuable because they are so beautiful and so hard to find. Reproductions MUST be clearly labeled as such and identified here. Greg Dean of Dean Antiques has written articles and posted pictures to help identify fakes, and document the relatively recent phenomenon of reproduction Pot Lids appearing on eBay. Here is a repo beside a genuine pot lid. Can you tell which is which?

Greg Dean writes about how to determine a pot lid label's authenticity on his website, Dean Antiques. From what I can gather it has to do with colour and the particular shade of light that’s reflected by genuine pieces under ultraviolet lamps. Buyers should also scrutinize the density of the lacquer or surface glaze, and the presence and quality of the crazing.

What is Crazing?
‘Crazing’ is the patchwork of fine cracks inside or under the surface of a glaze.

Technology Makes Reproduction Easier and More Effective:
Greg Dean laments that new photocopier technology is what makes it possible for unscrupulous artisans to mimic transfer printing so successfully – especially when these artists skillfully transpose images to a thin transparent film, and then apply this to a blank lid from the same time period.

Greg writes, “Using a blank or acid cleaned original as a base, the image can be easily resized and attached to fit almost anything.” But armed with proper knowledge it is possible to spot these reproductions.

Here are three Rob Smith Bears Grease lids:
The first of these three Rob Smith Bears Grease lids is real. It's extremely rare and has a well known pedigree in the X-Ball Collection.

The next two however are fakes. This art is just a modern photocopy of the original paper label, and from their grainy appearance Greg believes this eBay seller simply copied a reference publication. He writes, “This particular pot lid has been well documented over the years.

The copied label is adhered to a genuine more common antique lid, possibly once a paper label, sometimes even an acid etched lesser valued regional lid of approximate size, then sealed with some form of epoxy or similar. Although the transfer is generally less than sharp, unless you have owned or handled an original, on the spot identification can be deceptive.

Over time the fakery becomes more obvious as all repairs fade. It is not uncommon for repairers to coat their modified lids with urethane, or similar glazes to protect the porous "very workable" repairing compounds used from being discovered. Any discoloration should be carefully examined.

Ryan Stanton's History of Wheeling WV Blog

2009-01-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

Ryan P Stanton writes The Bell Rang blogspot and describes his domain in the subtitle, conversations with a student of history, education and junkism. Okay so what's what's with that name Ryan? Wait a minute let me think about it... Hey it's clever actually. The name shows the passage of time, and suggests an institution, a school. This blog is after school work?

This kid is Dumpdiggers new best friend. Not only is he a shining example of a new breed of collector, a web savvy, super literate relic hunting storyteller rising from the bowels of the internet, he's also a smart and friendly guy that's just agreed to run the Dumpdiggers ARENA Photo Battle Widget in the sidebar of his blog! And it looks great on the white background too.

Stanton is twenty five years old, a Taurus born in the year of the Rat, he favours education and is employed as a history teacher somewhere near Wheeling, West Virginia. He blogs about Wheeling a lot, which is cool, but he does something else that Dumpdiggers love...

Peruse Ryan Stanton’s Flickr photo galleries, to find awesome 'before and after' image sequences of historic locations. Ryan is good about walking and standing in the exact spot to capture the original angles. I wish Flickr had a Taylor dissolve unit so I could see the pictures dissolve into each other – check this out:

And now click here to see the Old Stone House Today. My personal favourite is a recreational adventure post about hiking around The Hempfield Tunnel and Viaduct. Ryan's style hints at something more - he leaves so many interesting story hooks unexplored.

Ryan is proud of Wheeling and its overall contribution to America. His pride shows in posts like The National Bank of West Virginia

And deep inside a remarkable post detailing an old Map of Wheeling West Virginia, Ryan quotes an article that reads, Wheeling's ideal geographic location was well suited for manufacturing, excellent transportation facilities, and cheap fuel (coal and gas). Iron, steel, coal, glass, manufacturing, textile, and retail - Wheeling had it all. Wow! Suddenly this Dumpdigger wants to know a whole lot more about this place.

Ryan’s stories hint at deeper mysteries that hopefully he’ll explore later in life. Dumpdiggers would like to know more about the rise and fall of Coon Island. When discussing the early map of Wheeling, Ryan writes For example, today, you will never find Coon Island on a map because it hardly exists. A small mining or gas community, all that remains of Coon Island is the row of houses that at one time represented something to do with the company. Dig behind them young man, dig up the stories behind those houses and share them with us.

Tell us more about McCollough's famous leap in 1777, Ohio River freight traffic, National Road toll houses, the old Stone House at Roney's Point, the Hobbes, Brockunier & Co. glass works, and the Wheeling Public Library (Wheeling was denied a Carnegie library). And the world will recognize The Bell Rang blog as the first and best online deposit of Wheeling’s immense and fascinating history – Wheeling’s contribution to America.

SC Digger's New Years Eve Plantation Hunt Video

2009-01-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

SC Digger has added another video to the collection...

Metal Detecting Saving History: #34 - New Year's Eve Dig

On December 31st 2008 SC digger woke up early and traveled to an historic plantation site somewhere in South Carolina to metal detect for century old brass and iron relics with special guest Russ Herbert.

This video is well paced and keeps viewers interested despite the fact that SC digger does not find anything extra remarkable in this one. The potential of this new site is revealed in some strange relics like brass caps and flat buttons, and broken heel plates and even a mysterious old padlock. I left a comment wherein I wondered if perhaps the padlock was shed by a runaway slave?

Dumpdiggers Critique

Like Truman Capote or Jean Luc Goddard in the 1950s, Dumpdiggers critiques these new fangled web videos. But first I'll acknowledge the bulk of SC digger's work on You Tube, which for I have tremendous respect, before I submit this genre is still finding itself, and SC digger could help it evolve better storytelling practices by giving viewers more information about the scene; it needs more backstory. If he could find and display some period photos and develop historic families and archetypal characters in the history of location, the found relics would have more meaning. And then when he picks up an old padlock it will be relevant, because it could possibly be linked to that runnaway slave!

Here's SC digger's table in the Dumpdiggers Underground Show and Sale wherein someday it will be possible to click through to his Saving History website and purchase his DVDs.