Found these in a ditch setting traps today. One is a whiskey bottle the dark one is a hair tonic by FW Fitch and middle sized one was some kind of a chemical used to take the paint smell out is what internet said. Seen some older broken ones there with really cool designs on them so gonna root around a little longer there tomorrow

Cool find! Nowadays everything comes in plastic which will have no interest to anyone in the future.

Cool finds but.
I found out years ago, although old, very few are worth $ if you're wondering?

DRF, do you happen to know the dollar value of those old bottles? Everyonce in awhile you can find one that is valuable.

Cool find

Old bottles are cool but unfortunately like most things there were millions of them made so they aren't worth much other than your personal value.

You must be in a remote part of Southern Illinois. Somewhere where they dont mow ditches or get much foot traffic. Or have 5 feet of snow. Pretty cool to find something like this in 2023. Did wind or water uncover these or were they barely visible stuck in the mud? Anything Ive ever found like old cans or old bottles have been when Im trompin around in the woods or especially old abandoned farmplaces.

Behind an old cabin there was a small dumping area locally. Lots of those bottles.

I've found some pretty cool old bottles when trapping on some of the farms here in NY. Seems most every farm had a old dumping spot on the property somewhere. I've saved the old cork style medicine bottles that I've found over the years although I don't think they're worth too much. Most of them are blue or clear and you can see bubbles in the glass. I've found some pretty cool (but rusty) license plates from the 1920s-30s at these dumping spots too.

Old Bottles are cool.

I have a few I really like.

Those bottles have no value as they are machine made screw top bottles. Bundle them and sell for a buck. Go back and look for pop, milke or bottles that are embossed or have complete painted labels.

Basically, what you have there is somebody's trash..

Not sure. I always get a kick out of finding old stuff like this while setting traps or just walking. Beaver chewed sticks with a cool shape to them, turtle shells, neat looking drift wood almost always comes home with me lol

Northwest Illinois. Found in a ditch along bank that is very low this year. They just dug this ditch a few years back.

If everyone disposes of (throw away or shoot) bottles like these based on value now, some preserved may be worth something in the future...I keep thinking about my shoeboxes full of baseball and football cards that went in the trash when my parents moved about 1970. (I'm sure there was maybe a Honus Wagner in there)...Probably the main reason I have underlying packrat tendencies now!

X2 I feel your pain with the cards.I too had shoeboxes full of them.When we moved off the farm in the early 70s,they all went in the burn pile.Figured I was too old for them now and didn't need them anymore.I know there were several Johnny Unitas cards in there,that go for around $2000 each right now.

My brother and I used to collect old bottles. We'd clean them up and sell the at a local flea market. Cork top bottles were all we sold, nobody wanted screw tops. And the cork tops that had twisted on necks (seam stopped at the shoulders) were the most sought after. We'd sell them for five and ten cents. Some guys bought whole lots from us, probably for resale.

We'd bum around the woods and abandon farm fields as kids on summer break from school. We'd locate the farm dump, every farm had one, and start digging. The deeper you dug the older the stuff you uncovered. In addition to cork top bottles we'd find lots of broken Blue Willow flatware and stoneware crocks. Sometimes we'd get lucky and find undamaged stuff. I still have one of the crocks.

I have a few hundred of the old type bottles Many have embossing on them that identifies the company that made/sold the product Hutchinson top ,boob top, crown top applied top are all older style bottles that where hand made before the newer screw top bottles which are machine made Of all that I have only one is an open pontil (sp) bottle . The older bottles where hand blown and the top was applied to the bottle after it was taken out of the mold I have been told the one I found dates back to the 1860's/ 1870's era And it may be depending on condition worth $50 to $75.00 I am no expert but I think mine is in very good condition .Many of the rest are neat old pieces of history .But they are worth about $2 to $5 each . For me digging bottles is like checking traps .You never know what you might find I enjoy local history so finding those items tell me the life story of the people that made a living in the area a little more than a hundred years ago . For me bottle digging and trapping are both addicting .An one more way trapping and bottle digging are alike is when trapping you make a large amount of effort to catch and put up your fur And when it is time go to the buyer they offer you a price he will pay you Up to that point you have all the expenses and labor in your collection . And now a third party tells you how much you get paid for it The same goes for digging bottles .You are digging in a dump that has lots of broken glass ,rusty wire and other metal junk ,broken pottery Often times there is vegetation growing in and on top of the dump itself .Poke berry prision ivy thistle, all types a briars etc and any number of bugs and bees and the occasional snake Once you have them dug ,which is a time consuming effort . Like Lugnut said the older more desirable bottles are at the bottom of the pile .And have ben there for maybe more than a 100 years . The freezing and thawing of all those years have many of those bottles packed together like cement . And if you are trying to save the most valuable items you need to be like INDIANIA JONES and use the utmost care and restrain to slowly remove what might be just another pile of broken glass or perhaps a bottle you never uncover and is truly rare and worth maybe a hundred dollars Included are 2 pictures of a few of my many examples of how people lived in and around the places I have found the remains of their lifestyle

Thank you for update, w side rd. 151.

Anyone interested in old bottles, native American items, metal detecting items related to the fur trade industry .etc and anything related to those subjects should check out treasurenet.com forum .It covers every possible aspect looking for finding preserving find out what items are worth etc Another good place to check out info just related to old bottles is sha.org/botte/date.htm