VOLUME 56 NO. 1 - JANUARY 1997USDANEWS VOLUME 56 NO. 1 - JANUARY 1997
You're out walking in the woods somewhere in Connecticut, see, and suddenly you stumble across a collection of tools, including an axe, a gardening rake, a root saw, a pick, and a shovel--and milling around the tools is a Labrador retriever.
What is this? A grave robber's nest? Somebody planting petunias in the forest?
No, chances
are you've chanced upon the accessories that Dick Fox uses to pursue his
hobby--collecting old bottles.
For the past 20 years Fox, a food inspector with the Food Safety and Inspection Service based in Pomfret Center, Conn., has been visiting rural and/or wooded sites around New England, digging up and recovering antique bottles that are often 80 to 125 years old.
"The best sites to visit," he advised, "are along old railroad lines or along river banks." He added that he often checks old maps and records of a town to determine where its initial settled areas are located--and which often prove to be a veritable gold mine of discarded bottles.
When digging on private property, he will first ask permission--and may offer to share his findings with the property owner. "I help them learn about the history of their own property," he pointed out.
"We think that litter is bad in society today--but it was really bad a century ago, especially along the banks of rivers," Fox observed.
So, just how many bottles does he have in his own personal collection?
"About a thousand," estimated Jo-Ann Botte, an administrative support assistant with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's field office in Boston. "And the oldest one," Fox added, "is a 150-year-old ruby red wine bottle, which I found in Litchfield, Connecticut, which is still intact, in good condition, and worth about $100."
Fox noted that his collection includes a sizable quantity of miniature medicine bottles from the early 1900s. "But old milk bottles remain the most popular find," he added, "and bring the highest price--averaging about $15."
"Collecting old bottles shows the development of manufacturing methods that produced such qualities as color, form, personality, and beauty," Fox said. "As a bottle digger, I gain insight into how people lived, what their habits were, what they ate, and what their sicknesses were."
"Each bottle is a link in the progression of history."
Fox recalled that a decidedly memorable incident happened recently when, on a dig, he and a partner, with their dog assisting, had amassed two burlap bags full of old bottles--when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by police cruisers.
"We were lined up and searched," he recounted. "But, once the police officers realized we weren't doing drugs, we all got a big laugh." Fox said he even gave an officer a 70-year-old aquamarine canning jar.
"The officer was pleased--and then said to us 'Just don't dig up any trees'!"
"The key to this pursuit for me," Fox quipped, "is that I used to dig some pretty quick foxholes in the Army--so I can dig rather well." ¤
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