#vintage glass
i love my vintage italian glass ruffle bowls
I’ve had a couple people ask where/how I found the tumbled bits of glass and pottery in this post so I thought I’d take a few in situ photos of some pieces I found after the most recent flood for reference.
This creek runs through my property as well as many miles of surrounding farmland and more recently developed areas. In years past (and still to this day in some places unfortunately) people would just dump their garbage into local creeks and let it wash away. Or bury it/dump it in a low spot or sinkhole and if those areas are close enough, floods will eventually pull that trash into the creek too. Over time, glass and pottery break apart and get tumbled smooth by the water, rocks, and sand in the creek.
Every time a lot of rain comes through, the creek floods, washing in and uncovering new “treasures” as the gravel bars shift.
Most of the pieces I find are fairly modern (1950s and on) but I do find some early to pre-1900s pieces sometimes, mainly old Coca Cola bottle fragments. I find bits of uranium glass occasionally. Lots and lots of lovely little nuggets of bonfire glass (the green ones are my favs—they look like little emeralds). No whole bottles, glassware, or even sturdier crockery survive rolling around for decades in the gravel bars but I still love getting to find these tumbled bits of history.
If you have access to a creek or stream (or a beach too of course, for the even more tumbled sea glass!), especially one with decent gravel bars, check it out! Might find some cool treasures of your own! I highly recommend taking an extra bag with you to pick up any plastic or other garbage you find. I always like to think of it as thanking the creek for the treasures by helping clean it up while I’m there. <3
Bonus: Here’s a broken dish with some sweet little flowers I spied hiding in the water
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Found a few neat bottles on the bank of a ravine on a friend’s farm the other day. Not super old—1950s-1960s cork tops mostly, but still a fun change from the tumbled fragments I usually find in the creek (which I love too of course!!) so I was excited, haha!
There’s a couple of Pepsi-Colas, a hobble skirt Coca Cola, cute little Anheuser-Busch beer bottle, Dad’s Root Beer, and a pretty blue milk of magnesia bottle. Also found a cute candy dish which has some pretty iridescence to it and two nature-made terrarium bottles! I’ll post more pictures of those in a bit.
Hoping to go back and look for more soon!
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Some words and neat textures and colors on tumbled glass and pottery from the creek. A couple of these are over 100 years old, like the “Cola” piece from a brown straight-sided Coca Cola bottle.
The brown pottery fragment would have said “Royal Canadian Pottery” and was most likely the bottom of a teapot like this one on eBay. Not very old but still neat!
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