The Tin Cup Dig

[Doc Bach]

5 hours ago, Dig It said:

Nice find's, especially on the opium bottle, I have only dug up pc's, hoping my time will come yet.... The Dillon Montana museum has a couple of them on display, then at the Winnemucca Nevada museum they have a couple of the opium tin's that are extremely hard to find because they just rust away, Very Nice Find's Doc Bach !!!!

Hey thanks Dig it!

Yes that is correct opium back in the day opium was largely packed in tins.They turn up in the gold rush camps over in the sierras on occassion but are rare.There has been has been an ongoing diffirence of opinion as to what the opium bottles actually contained perhaps a liquid form or possibly even morphine. 

[Dig It]

Hey Doc, here are the 2 Opium Bottles on display at the Dillon Montana Museum, might have to zoom in to get a better look...

[Doc Bach]

2 hours ago, Dig It said:

Hey Doc, here are the 2 Opium Bottles on display at the Dillon Montana Museum, might have to zoom in to get a better look...

I never get bored looking at the oriental stuff and on the even more rare occasion digging it.

[Hunterjunk]

The opium bottle is a good find . A fair few turn up on the Chinese diggings here in in Tasmania , mostly broken . I was lucky enough to dig an unbroken one while digging a Chinese coin a few years ago . I have seen them in two colors .  I know about them self destructing too !  Two that I had recovered by sieving were sitting inside on my window shelf . A hard frost one morning saw both of them shatter into little bits like the old tempered wind screens used to.

Opium tins here were made from very thin brass and measured roughly 2 x 4 inches and half inch thick . They had a small area of Chinese writing on them that I still find occasionally on some fragments . There was a brass band that slipped over the two halves which was made of thicker material so surviving better in the ground . The fragments of these tins can make for many extra digs during a hunt . Last year I dug a part of one of these tins and when I unfolded the brass sheet there was the remains of a white paper label with a red dragon on it . A few days later when I went to photo my hunt finds I was horrified to see that the red ink had almost totally disappeared !  A few days exposed to light and air had undone the 140 years preservation under the ground  . Lesson learned , the hard way !

[JCR]

I think the pro bottle diggers quickly submerge dug bottles in water to help stabilize them. Not sure how they dry them. 

[Cal_Cobra]

That's my kind of site!  Nice digs Doc 👍

Looks like your on a Chinese village, and a good one! 

[Dig It]

In the 2nd picture you can see a Brass Box, which I read somewhere that is what the Opium was shipped in then broken down into the smaller tins then mixed up in the bottles for sale and use. If you zoom in on photo, you can read the information written where it was found. Will be in Winnemucca NV. area in a month will stop in at museum and take and post couple photo's of their Tin's on display.... This stuff is just plain Cool !!!

[Doc Bach]

4 hours ago, Dig It said:

In the 2nd picture you can see a Brass Box, which I read somewhere that is what the Opium was shipped in then broken down into the smaller tins then mixed up in the bottles for sale and use. If you zoom in on photo, you can read the information written where it was found. Will be in Winnemucca NV. area in a month will stop in at museum and take and post couple photo's of their Tin's on display.... This stuff is just plain Cool !!!

Yeah it's cool alright Dig it.I realize that this is a D F way to send a link but it's the best that I can do until I learn how to insert links properly.I'm self taught on my Mac but now using YouTube as a learning tool.When you get to the Point Cabrillo site make sure to click on the ships history from the origin in Baltimore, it's days as an opium runner to the final voyage to California.

Being that I grew up in Mendocino County and basically got involved with treasure and antique bottle collecting on the ground floor so to speak I have a kind of personal connection and love affair with this.But that is a long and probably somewhat pretentious sounding story that's better left untold.

[Doc Bach]

19 hours ago, Hunterjunk said:

The opium bottle is a good find . A fair few turn up on the Chinese diggings here in in Tasmania , mostly broken . I was lucky enough to dig an unbroken one while digging a Chinese coin a few years ago . I have seen them in two colors .  I know about them self destructing too !  Two that I had recovered by sieving were sitting inside on my window shelf . A hard frost one morning saw both of them shatter into little bits like the old tempered wind screens used to.

Opium tins here were made from very thin brass and measured roughly 2 x 4 inches and half inch thick . They had a small area of Chinese writing on them that I still find occasionally on some fragments . There was a brass band that slipped over the two halves which was made of thicker material so surviving better in the ground . The fragments of these tins can make for many extra digs during a hunt . Last year I dug a part of one of these tins and when I unfolded the brass sheet there was the remains of a white paper label with a red dragon on it . A few days later when I went to photo my hunt finds I was horrified to see that the red ink had almost totally disappeared !  A few days exposed to light and air had undone the 140 years preservation under the ground  . Lesson learned , the hard way !

Great story telling Hunterjunk and I agree with everything that you said.From my own past experiences I can visualize all of those things happening right before my very eyes....Great post and thanks!

[Doc Bach]

11 hours ago, Cal_Cobra said:

That's my kind of site!  Nice digs Doc 👍

Looks like your on a Chinese village, and a good one! 

That's basically correct CC.What's left of it!