First, I'd like to say "what a cool web site!" The write-ups and pictures are great. I was sad when Scotts Privy Page stopped posting updated digs on their web site but now your web site has become my new fix! I belong to the Middle Tennessee Medal Detecting Club which is a mix of metal and bottle heads. A few of my buds and I are big into digging bottles in downtown Nashville, TN. There is so much development going on that it's become a bottle digger's paradise. There hasn't been anything yet that has topped the 1995 excavation for the Farmers Market where they hauled truck loads of dirt loaded with pre-civil war glass for several years to 4 different dump sites. In one pile of dirt, my buddy and I found 5 complete Civil War brogan's that still had the leather shoe laces in them, 1 canteen, 1 ammunition pouch, Confederate and Union coat buttons, 2 very crude Cathedral bottles (1 teal green pepper sauce and 1 rare aqua honey), 1 spanish moss saddle blanket, 1 crock ink, 2 hair dye bottles, and 3 squat cobalt blue McCormick sodas. For 2 years, we dug bottles every weekend at any one of the 4 dumpsites. I watched as certain bottle prices dropped by some 50% or more as diggers started selling mass quantities of the same bottles. The cobalt blue McCormicks once so prized by locals went from $200 plus to $80 in one month. If I knew then what I know now, I would of quite my job and took a part-time position just to have time to dig!     

    My bottle frenzy started in Charleston, SC where my Father purchased a "fixer uper" in the downtown area. I started digging in the basement and had no idea what kinds of bottles I was finding. When we moved to Nashville, I sold most of them to a local dealer in fear that some may get stolen or broke (dumb ass!). I remember selling the lot for a couple hundered dollars and a few years later found out what a mistake I made. Most were SC Dispensary bottles, black glass embossed, large ale, and medicines. The house was built around 1723 so I imagine a few dated to the 1700s (dumb ass!). You learn once and move on. I've been digging bottles and metal detecting since 1989 in Nashville and surrounding areas. It's been a great experience and I hope to return to that basement in Charleston some day. Anyway, enough of the introduction and on to the story.    

    Over the past 2 weeks, there has been a construction site in the heart of downtown Nashville that has yielded thousands of rare bottles. Unfortunately, this is the same construction crew that developed the Farmers Market in 1995 and caught on to the value of what we were finding toward the end. So they fenced the place off a month ago and we got to watched them load crate after crate of crock jugs and beers, squat sodas, cathedrals, ...etc. would make any bottle digger sick! We pleaded and pleaded with them to let us dig but no availe. At one point, a buddy of mine was trying to negotiate with the Forman inside the gate to obtain some window of opportunity where we could dig. He noticed on a pile of dirt right next to where they were standing a teal green pepper sauce cathedral and a cobalt blue E.Ottenville squate soda laying on top of the pile. He was able to grab them before a dozer swept them away. The forman let him keep the bottles but turned down our request to dig. To make things worse, the dirt they were hauling out of the site was being dumped at an airport as part of a runway extension project, crap! I thought quickly and called a friend who worked for the FAA and investigated plane crashes. He used his pass to get us on the site yesterday and we had some luck. The amount of dirt with broken glass and pottery they dumped was endless. Unfortunately, the construction crew had also walked the piles very carefully to pick up the remaining bottles. We were still able to do some digging and surface hunting to pick up a nice collection. My haul included 2 beautiful Gerst Beer crocks with the yellow neck and tan body embossed with an outstanding picture of a naked lady, vines, rooster, and the words The Moerlein-Gerst Brewing Co. "Old Jug Lager" (something in German) "Fully Matured, Veritable Luxury, The Fashionable Beverage of the Day, Brilliant in Color, Absolutely pure, Stimulating, Rejuvenating, Nashville, TN USA." The other bottles include a large amber "Phillips Emulsion Cod-Liver Oil New York", 2 aqua Deihl & Lord Nashville TN aqua Sodas blop top, 1 cobalt blue E.Ottenville soda, black ale, nice gray crock jug with a small chip on the lip, a large aqua torepedo bottle, and a ton of medicines. Strange part, as you would think the smaller bottles would more likely survive the trip to the dump, not one ink bottle we found was intact. But happy as a tick on a hound to say the least! It was fun to dig on a sunny day of 65 degrees in January and teach my friend a little about bottle digging at the airport. Strange circumstances but good!

Tom Williams. Addicted Nashville Digger.