Hey folks! Our friendly earth mover was here with his backhoe and one of his jobs was to dig a trench for the lines to our new Central Boiler wood burner. Well lo and behold, he dug thru an area that must have been a dump for someone who lived here many moons ago. I found some intact old glass jars and lots of broken pieces. The parts with dates are all in the 1800's. Some of the stuff is really neat. Before I spend a ton of time trying to find out if there's any value to these old things, is this anyone's "specialty"? I told my husband I thought I'd have Bruce (the earthmover) dig a little more in the area with the most glass. He thinks I'm nuts (what's new?), unless, of course, there's some value to some of these. If nothing else, they will look good washed and placed on top of the kitchen cabinets (dust catchers). Also, does anyone out there have a back up system, solar or otherwise, for their pump on an outside wood heater? I am leaning on a small solar system, my husband is leaning on the generator type. My concern is based on experiences with some of the storms we have had in the last ten years, are we going to be able to procure gas for a generator? We have gone through travel bans and the whole gamet. Of course thing like storms happen when you run low on the one item you alomost never run low on......

-- Tracey Burnash (burnash@gisco.net), August 06, 2001

Answers

Response to old bottles

Traey, A friend of mine is into old bottle collecting and he claims that bottles were thrown into the old outhouses and he likes to dig in that area for old bottles Bill

-- Bill Porter (porboy298@yahoo.com), August 06, 2001.

Response to old bottles

for an outside burner,,Id go with the generator,,UNLESS your going to improve on the solar panals for the house at some later time,, this way,, you;ll be started on it. If not,, then most of the time,,it will putting out power,,with no place to go,,,and without some type of discharge the batteries wont last too long

-- STAN (sopal@net-port.com), August 06, 2001.

Response to old bottles

Tracy, old bottles of various types are very collectible. Whiskey and medicine bottles with raised writing on them are good. Go to the library and look through the book section of collectibles. Am sure you will find several on old bottles, that will give you some idea of their value. I used to dig for old ones in the Yukon and Alaska, and when I wanted to dispose of all my "keepers" made quite a little on them. If they are right on your property, there's no reason why you can't dig out some of the area by hand and see what you can find that may have some value to a collector.

-- Duffy (hazelm@tenforward.com), August 06, 2001.

Response to old bottles

Wow when I said the area must have been a dump area I really didn't have a pun intended! Good thing I don't mind getting my hands dirty!

As for digging by hand, most of the glass is down, under sod, about 12 to 24 inches. That's a lot of digging! This is really kind of interesting because most of the bottles are either a frosty blue or are clear with raised letters. Knew I could depend on you folks for info. Thanks!

-- Tracey Burnash (burnash@gisco.net), August 06, 2001.

Response to old bottles

Hi Tracey,

In regards to the old bottles, look on ebay and see what's doing there. I have a whole bunch of bottles from the 1940-50 to sell, let me know what you find.

In the archives are some great details about going solar.
Here's one that I put some comments on - it is long but worth the read. http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=004cnB
The first question you need to ask is, for any off grid system, what do you plan on powering and how long do you plan on running the genny. There are genneraly two speeds for a genny 1800 rpm [slow] and 3600 rpm [fast]. Running a motor at the fast speed will mean it has a much shorter service life! Running a genny for run a few small items is not cost effective! It is better to use the genny to charge some batteries while the genny is being run anyways, it's 'free' /would of been wasted anyways power. You could add solar panels to this system as funds become available.
I've read many folks run the genny for ~2 hours a day, using 5/8 of a gallon per hour, to do all the big chores and recharge the batteries. Pump alot of water into a big resivour, run the vacuum cleaner, etc.
You can start real cheap and improve from there, it depends on what you plan on doing.
Please remember that cheapest is not always the best place to start!
just some thoughts.

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), August 06, 2001.

Take em to an "Antique Roadshow" when they come to your area for appraisal. You may even be able to contact them online. The show airs on PBS. I found old apothecary bottles once.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 06, 2001.