Some Old Winter Bottles

  Here are a few old bottles I found this week. The large green wine or champagne bottle was found wedged between some rocks at Fort Popham at low tide. We had a frigid day last week and I was unable to finish the day at work, so I drove by myself down to Popham Beach and Fort Popham. I nearly froze to death climbing around on the icy rocks behind the Fort, looking for cannonballs and old bottles. I didn't find any balls, but I did find the bottle--note the nice deep kick-up in the bottom, and the fantastic sea glass effect to the edges from a 100 years under salt water--and #4 lead plummet to add to my lead plummet collection. 

  The little aqua blue was found in Camden, at the bottom of an eight foot hole that had just been excavated for concrete. The embossing on the sides reads "3 in 1 Oil Co." I had just finished reading "Bottle Collecting in New England" by John Adams that morning, so I was excited to put its finer details up to what I had learned from the book. 

  And the little brown bottle was found at a Camden home while my good friend Ronald Van Heesjwick and I were doing some renovations. It's original purpose is a mystery, but I imagine it had something to do with medicine.

  I'm not going to do a review here, but I enjoyed the Adams book. It's not large, with only 25 pages of text and 100 pages of bottle pics and prices, but there were a few tidbits of important bottle hunting info to be gleaned, and the 1960's photos of Adams searching the New England forest for bottles with his wife and sons are amazing. Definitely worth a quick peruse if you get the chance.