Life in the wrong lane: Old stuff

I've always been a nerd when it comes to old things. I have a collection of antiques downstairs including telephone batteries, original Palmolive shampoo (still in bottle) and other odd stuff accumulated over years of picking things up where I can. So an opportunity to visit a virtual gold-mine of antique stuff, all heaped up in piles and there for the picking, and you can count me in!!!

Site as it looks today.

I went down to the new Quinte Consolidated Courthouse in Belleville, Ontario, to talk to the workers excavating there. The foreman and I walked around looking at all the old stuff coming out of the ground. There is broken pottery everywhere, and some of it very interesting.

There were homes on most of the property until only a few decades ago, and half of the excavation was once a lock factory. Archeologists have already gone through with their sifting screens and brushes, with lines all over, photographing the footings, and cataloging pieces of interest, but there are lots of great things yet to be discovered. Of course there were many keys and the rotting, rusting inner workings of many old locks, but what is surprising is all the everyday objects.

There were china shards everywhere.

Also, I should mention the contamination. There were piles of dirt that I didn't go through (and nor should you!) as a result of all the chemicals and heavy metals that were found on site. I was lucky enough to have someone to tell me where I could and couldn't dig around. He also came up with some gems that he and the others had found, and the pieces were so numerous that they gave them to me.

Believe it or not, even though a lock factory existed on site, the most numerous item would have been the door handles. There were hundreds, if not thousands of red-orange clay door handles, enamelled in black or white, and some still attached to the metal posts.

A couple of the door handles, and a top from a sealer jar.

This was a great item. Dave had put aside a Webb Stubby soda bottle, and a Vick`s vaporub bottle. I gave them to my Dad, who has an old bottle collection.

This could have been bought at Jenn's great grandfather's store on Murney St.

So, well, I don't have much more to say, but here are more photos. Sorry if they`re not the greatest quality, but they were taken on my Blackberry and I hate the camera on it. :)