After hearing the many stories from some of my bottle digging friends about the digging opportunities on the East Coast, I knew it was time to give it a try. Since I am currently flying halftime as a corporate pilot, I had a chance to do what might be a once-in-a-lifetime dig. I recruited two bottle digging friends, Russ West and Chris Harper to travel with me, and based on their trip of two years ago, we decided to return to the area of Erie, Pennsylvania. 

While the interests of Russ and Chris would primarily be in bottles, I knew that it was possible to find some unusual insulators. Russ's dad, who owns a travel agency in Mt. Vernon, Washington, set us up with tickets and reservations. We flew on Northwest Airlines from Seattle to Detroit, then Detroit to Erie.

It was Chris's first time on an airliner, and he managed to do just fine, even though we hit a little rough air descending into Erie. Russ had a busy "night before" the flight and he slept most of the way. I entertained Chris with stories about the noises heard on an airplane -- things like the wing blots falling off or the landing gear leaving the airplane in flight.

We arrived in Erie at about 10:00 p.m. and were met by our local contact. He took us to our hotel where we unpacked our probes and tools. By the way, when we showed up at SeaTac to go, Chris's probes and shovels were in a box that looked like a bazooka, Russ's were wrapped in tarps, and mine looked like an oversize bass guitar. The ticket clerks accepted them and they arrived safely in Erie. Needless to say, they were the most important luggage we had. 

Our first day was spent doing some research at the library, and we found the library was moving from downtown to a new location on the Bayfront Hiway. This meant that the maps were not available to copy, so we had to make do with the 1865 maps. We started digging that day about noon, and soon the bottles were coming out. Rather than relate everything we found (which would be many thousands of bottles long), I'll kind of describe items as they were found.

Having never dug on the East Coast before, I was curious as to what type of bottles and odd insulators would be most common and available there. I soon found out that due to the heat and humidity of the summers, everyone drank something, and many times the bottles ended up down the privy. I think of digging in my home state of Washington, where finding an embossed beer or Hutchinson soda is very uncommon (and cause for celebration). In Erie, every hole from the 1880's or newer usually had embossed beers and sodas, sometimes lots of them.

I also had to learn a new system of dating homes, in that the Civil War era homes and earlier have certain distinctive characteristics in architecture and style that allows one to date them fairly accurately. In the first week of digging, we dug many bottles. One hole had 100 embossed Erie beers, many of which were very rare, and worth between $20-30 each. In fact, we dug about 50 of one beer which, prior to this dig, had been selling for about $65 each. We flirted with pontiled items, finding broken open pontiled scroll flasks, and whole common open pontiled patent medicines and unembossed open pontiled bottles.

Another difference between digging in Washington and Pennsylvania is that many old style fruit jars were thrown away in the 1870's. When you're down in a privy looking at an aqua jar base, it is not usually a Ball Mason or similar vintage jar. It is usually an early 1858, or very likely a wax sealer.

We dug lots of stoneware, including wax sealers, butter crocks, big jugs, yellow-ware, Bennington, and other neat items. There is a tremendous amount of stoneware in privies back east, some of it is really nice. I sent home a yellow-ware chamber pot with a white center with blue peacocks glazed in the middle. We found many broken jugs with salt-glaze and cobalt decorations. 

After a few days in Erie, the local collectors caught on to us, and usually one or two were parked outside our motel room waiting for our return from the day's digging. We used a rotation system to split up the finds, with anything over $500 going into a final sale and split of the money after we came home, but lesser items being divided up each day. After the first week of digging, Chris and Russ received nicknames: Chris was called "Chief Brown Cloud" for his ability to clear a privy at a moment's notice, and Russ was called "Dr. Death" or "Dr. Jack", after Jack Kevorkian, for his ability to break bottles with his two-prong-fork! 

As we got more accustomed to knowing where to find the outhouses, we began to do better as our trip progressed. By the last week, we were finding pontil pits behind each home we checked. Some of the bottles and insulators were great. Behind a home that overlooked the old P.R.R., we dug two insulators out of outhouses. Russ had gotten permission to dig behind an 1850's home site, now a garden and lawn. He knew of my interest in insulators, and in the past has pulled out items like an "E.C.& M.Co." and a "California Electric Works" in Washington state. He knew just enough to know when he had found an unusual item, not a common Hemingray or Brookfield.

I was digging in the neighboring yard when Russ ran over to the fence and shouted that he had just found an insulator. Considering the age of the home we were behind, I rushed over to the fence looking for threadless! He handed me a crude dark aqua unembossed CD 127 no name, in great condition except for a minor wire groove chip. I had brought John and Carol McDougald's Price Guide for Insulators along on the trip, and I was eager to get back to the hotel to check out this baby! 

We ended up digging about 10 privies in the two backyards, and in the last pit we found another insulator. This pit seemed somewhat disturbed, as we were finding a wide range of bottles and china dating from the 1860's into the 1890's. I probed the pit, Chris started it, and soon he was pulling out some good keepers. About halfway down, Russ took a turn in the pit, and I kneeled opposite the dirt pile to check for marbles, buttons and other small items that he might throw out with the shovelfuls of dirt. Suddenly, an insulator appeared in a scoop of dirt, unnoticed by Russ. I picked it up and immediately noticed four evenly spaced projections jutting out around the dome of the aqua insulator. AN EMMINGER! I jumped up and began to hop around, telling Russ and Chris that we had just dug one of the rarest and most valuable insulators in the world! I suppose I should add that we found only the top two-thirds of the Emminger. Needless to say, we were pretty pumped up after this find!

On one of the days, we dug behind what must have been a "crack house," as all these skinny blonde and brunette gals kept coming and going, and visiting with a big guy inside. He must have thought we were the cops or something, as he watched us and finally wandered out to check us out after a while. Chris was down five feet in a rich pit, and the bottles were coming out nicely!. The fellow from the house finally believed that we were digging for bottles. When he first came out, I said "Howdy, Pilgrim" in my best John Wayne imitation. He looked at me and said, "Whatcha callin' me 'pilgrim' for, man, my ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower!" 

Pretty soon he was back with something in his pocket, a baggie with something in it. I was sure hoping it wasn't cocaine he wanted to sell! He pulled out the baggie and it was full of baseball and football cards! There was a Cal Ripkin, Jr. rookie card, John Elway, Kirby Puckett rookie, Tony Gwynn, etc. etc. We didn't want to buy them as they might be "hot', but the low price of $30 for all the cards overcame any moral objection to the purchase! We also found a CD 102 Star, CD 145 Brookfield and CD 162 Brookfield in a new pit behind his home. 

The last insulator found on our trip came from digging behind an 1830 home located in the downtown area next to the hospital. Russ probed out a pit that seemed to be very skimpy, with perhaps one bottle in it. He dug it and the "bottle" turned out to be a threadless insulator, a Wade style from the 1850's period! The wood covering had long since rotted away, but the glass was in good condition. 

I was also able to purchase an unusual porcelain insulator, a medium cobalt blue Pittsburg style cable.

We dug literally thousands of bottles and half a dozen insulators in the three weeks we were there, and we had a really fun and interesting time. I hope to make this an annual pilgrimage to look for both good bottles and insulators.

AN EMMINGER!! proudly displayed by 
David Bethman, Ferndale, Washington.

VISITING WESTERN WASHINGTON? Stop at the Bottle Vault, I-5 Antique Mall, Exit 260 (I-5), Bellingham, WA Nice assortment of U.S. and Canadian glass and porcelain insulators, bottles and fruit jars. DAVID BETHMAN, (360) 380-5770