Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Muhler Blob Top Bottle. Embossed: Henry Muhler 772 Bedford Ave. Brooklyn NY |
Remnants
The other day my nonagenarian mother accidentally activated an old phone message from an acquaintance of about eighty years telling about his health, which unfortunately included a brain tumor. It was a little spooky because the poor fellow was now a couple of months departed from this earth. It was undoubtedly the last message she got from him. The message was a couple months old, but sounded just like a brand new message even though it was just a remnant.
There are many ways to value finds. Many common finds will be appreciated more if you think of them as remnants of events, times and people.
I find a lot of soda bottles from the sixties along the Treasure Coast, which is somewhat surprising to me because I remember when those bottles could be redeemed for 2 cents a piece, with the larger bottles being worth 5 cents. I and the other neighborhood kids would search along the roads and creeks to find discarded bottles that we could redeem. At that time, a Hersey bar cost five cents, so you can see why any kid would be happy to find a bottle that could be redeemed at the grocery store.
Was that the beginning of my treasure hunting? I don't think so. I think it was earlier, when I went to find where the chickens laid their eggs or collect wild berries.
Eventually the No Deposit, No Return bottles came out, but I guess there are a lot of places today where you can still redeem bottles for money. Now it is an ecology thing.
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| No Deposit Pepsi Bottle Found on Treasure Coast |
It makes me think back when I find a soda bottle. When I recently found an old faded Mellow Yello bottle, it took me back to the first time I had Mellow Yello. It was at Six Flags Atlanta in 1979. Coca Cola was test marketing Mellow Yello outside the big pavilion where the Bump and Boogie dances were held. That was much later than when I was collecting bottles back in the sixties. I moved to Atlanta when I got a consulting job. The label on that bottle reads Return for Deposit right at the bottom of the label.
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| Faded Mellow Yello Bottle With Return for Deposit Label. |
I fondly remember hunting mostly Coca Cola bottles in the fifties and sixties and turning them in for a few cents. For a short time there was a less expensive competitor to the Hersey bar. It was called Lunch Bar and was a chocolate bar that cost only three cents. When those came out, I bought those instead of the more expensive Hersey bars.
Of course, you can find bottles going back into the 1800s (like the shown one at the top of the post) and occasionally even earlier. The older finds are neat finds, but they don't bring back the personal memories. It is still worth remembering that those older finds were once a part of someone's life before they came into your life.
You might let your mind wander. How was the bottle lost or discarded? Did they throw it off a steamboat going up the Indian River? Did they arrive at one of the stops on the Flagler railroad? Were they riding along the river when they finished their drink and tossed the bottle, or working on one of the local pineapple plantations? You might not know the story behind it, but there is a story behind the object, and it is a remnant of a life and time in history. Someone made it, sold it, and used it before you found it. I think we sometimes forget to appreciate that.
This post isn't about bottles. I just happened to use bottles for my examples. I could have just as easily used coins or other artifacts. This post is really about finds being remnants of someone's past that can take you back in time.
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The surf will only be 2 - 3 feet today, with the peak being at night. Nothing much better in the immediate forecast either.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
