Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Scooping Tips. |
If you work in shallow water, there will probably be times when you have trouble getting an item scooped up. There can be various reasons for that. One is strong currents.
When you lift a scoop, that will create currents that will cause sand and objects that are not firmly in the scoop to fall out, with or without strong cross currents.
Lifting your scoop more slowly can help.
Gold chains can be very difficult to get in your scoop. Even when you get some of a chain in the scoop, there can be enough hanging out, to pull the entire chain out as you lift the scoop.
Of course light objects can also get swept away as you lift your scoop.
Too much sand in the scoop will cause more sand and other objects to fall out as you lift. Be careful to not over-fill your scoop.
Here is something I have found helpful. When you stick your scoop in the sand, tilt the handle farther back so the front of the scoop is angled up more, but don't lift yet. Before lifting, vibrate your scoop. Shake it in very short quick strokes. That will allow some of the sand to sift through and the object will fall deeper into the scoop before you lift.
In three words, it is tilt - sift - lift.
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Among the more common bottles you will find are Bromo Seltzer and Vaseline. I've found a lot of embossed Vaseline bottles. I usually don't keep bottles with screw tops, but the Vaseline bottles are so heavily embossed that I did keep some of them.
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| Embossed Vaseline Bottle. |
This bottle is not one of the older Vaseline bottles that I've found.
The first known reference to the name Vaseline was by Robert Chesebrough in 1872 (U.S. patent 127,568).
As you would suspect, the first containers for Vaseline were not screw top bottles.
As always, doing your research can make your finds more meaningful. I found out, for example, that the bottles for Vaseline were made in a factory where my father worked in his early teen years. It is possible that he actually packed the bottle above. I'll have to do some additional research.
Like anything that has success, there are copies. Moroline was a competitor to Vaseline.
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| Embossed Moroline Bottle. |
Surprisingly, Vaseline bottles have been thoroughly studied and inspection of the bottle can provide a very good estimate of the age of a site.
A Tour Through Time in Vaseline Bottles is a 30 page document with references written by John Lockhart and presented on the Society for Historical Archaeology web site.
Here is the link.
https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/Vaseline2015.pdf
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I've been trying to store my bottles more compactly and safely. Here is something I'm trying, and it seems like it should work.
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| Large Plastic Container That Once Held Animal Crackers. |
Cardboard strips separate the layers.
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It looks like we'll have at least another week of one foot surf on the Treasure Coast.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
