Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
Along with the older and embossed bottles, I also find some ACL (painted label) bottles. They aren't as old or valuable but they are collectible and finer examples can be worth something. If you are old enough you might remember these bottles from your younger years.
The trouble with finding ACL bottles is that they are seldom in good enough condition to be of much interest to serious collectors. The labels get faded, discolored or wear off completely. You can see that from the above examples.
These are all money back return for deposit bottles. As a child, me and my friends were always happy to find a returnable bottle along the road. We would take them to the store, get our two, or sometimes five cents, and buy a gum drop or something. In those days a Hersey bar cost five cents, and there was even a chocolate bar called a Lunch Bar, which was just like a Hersey bar but only cost three cents. Being thrifty, that was always my choice.
Even though these bottles aren't worth much of anything, as a detectorist they can help you date a site. ACL bottles started in the 30s. Although I haven't done the research, the ones shown above are probably from the 60s or 70s. TAB for example, began in 1963 and was made by the Coca Cola company. As a diet soda having one calorie, it was popular in the 1970s. I don't know why diet sodas were so popular then. Compared to today, people in the seventies were skinny.
A lady that was the model for one of the popular diet sodas in the seventies lived on Indian River Drive several years ago. I forget now which diet soda it was. I'm not sure if it was TAB or one of the others.
Anyhow, these bottles sometimes have date codes on the bottom and when they don't you can usually find the date range for the bottle with just a little research.
Below are some more Treasure Coast ACL bottle finds.
Dr. Pepper bottles are popular collectibles. Of course there are older ones that are embossed rather than ACLs.
And here are some of the older Dr. Pepper bottles that you can find in that database.
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| Source: See database link above. |
I do have some nice embossed older Dr. Pepper bottles. As you can see, the ACL labels on the Treasure Coast finds are badly faded.
Below are a few more Treasure Coast ACLs.
The one of those that I like the most is the Masons Root Beer on the right. It is probably also the oldest. It has a date code on the bottom of 49. Too bad the label is so poor.
My second favorite of that group is the Royal Palm, which I never heard of before coming to Florida.
Sometime in the seventies, Coca Cola test piloted Mellow Yellow. They were giving samples at Six Flags Atlanta outside the building where they had the Bump and Boogie dances.
When you get older you can reflect on various times, people and places. I like the richer perspective.
Which reminds me. When I worked in Atlanta, I worked with a lady from the family that did a lot of the original Coca Cola advertisements. That impressed me. I was just a country bumpkin from a rural farm area in Pennyslvania.
Here is a site where you can find some history on Mason's Root Beer.
The Unofficial Mason's Root Beer History Thread | Antique Bottles, Glass, Jars Online Community
The Mason's trade-mark was first issued in August of 1947.
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Metal detectorists searching for World War II artifacts in a forest in Poland stumbled upon something far older: a nearly 2,000-year-old sword purposefully broken into three pieces. The weapon may have been a funeral offering for a fallen member of the Vandals, a Germanic tribe renowned for sacking Rome in the fifth century.
In January, two detectorists with the Inventun Association history club discovered the sword in the Jura, a hilly and forested region of southern Poland. A preliminary analysis by experts at the nearby Częstochowa Museum suggests the weapon was a double-edged spatha, a broadsword most commonly used by Germanic horse-mounted warriors during the time of the Roman Empire. From the third century B.C. to the fifth century A.D., Poland was inhabited by people of the Przeworsk culture, which included the Vandals...
Here is the link for the rest of that article.
Shattered 1,800-year-old sword was 'ritually sacrificed' and may be from Vandal warrior's grave | Live Scince
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Looks like the surf will be small for the rest of the week
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net
