Here's a really nice half-size marble/torpedo bottle I found yesterday on a quick dive near White's Island...on one side it is embossed The Niagara Bottle - Barnett & Foster - Makers - London. Great old bottle in a nice aqua colour !

Here are some more bottles that were found back in the 70s from the same person (see post below). Nice grouping and I like all the cobalt castor oil bottles.

Here is a really great picture sent to me by someone who used to live here in the 60s & 70s. He and his brother found these bottles...plus many more, either diving for them or digging in some of the old quarries which were often used as dump sites. There are some really nice 'case gin' bottles...free blown and blown in 2 part moulds, an early squat cylinder and a few medicine type bottles. I have often heard stories of the great bottles that were found back in the 70s and this picture is definitely proof of that!

Here is an incredibly nice 'free blown' coral encrusted black glass cylinder bottle I found laying wedged in  some reefs not far from shore, it dates to the very early 1800s, the porcelain cup was also laying nearby, it is not quite as old but has a nice anchor crest on it, the glass stoppers and marble were also found in the area

Here are some finds from yesterday while diving in Pruddens Bay. The wooden piece is an old 'dead eye' made from lignum vitae....a very dense hardwood that sinks in water ...it looks like it has been sitting on the bottom for a very long time. The two small jars are stoneware and the aqua coloured bottle is nicely embossed...'Baker's Flavoring Extract, Full Measure'. All have been cleaned and preserved.

Victorian era bottles...delicate and broken over time from countless storms over the past 120 years, but still managing to hold on to their names

Yesterday I went diving at one my favourite old time spots and found this beautiful old 'porter bottle' with some nice coral and shell attached. The bottle was laying on its side and half buried in the sand, the depth was 62' and it was easy to spot when I was about 20' away. The bottle dates to the 1780s

This is an amazing find....an incredible stoneware Rum jug found in Soncy Bay. The jug was almost completely buried in the hard sand at about 65' deep, I had been fanning quite a large hole  when I started finding lots of broken pottery and the black glass bottle...the jug wasn't immediately recognizable as the exposed top had lots of leafy growth on it...as I started uncovering the rest of the body I thought that it must be broken, but as I fanned the rest of the sand away I was excited to see that it was completely intact. 
A friend who has a website about - 19th Century Bottles of the British Military - says SRD stands for Supply Reserve Depot and these jugs were used during WW l to supply the troops on the front lines with daily rations of Rum. Other names for the initials among soldiers were: Seldom Reaches Destination and Soon Runs Dry.

Here is a really nice cobalt British Admiralty poison bottle I found a few days ago. The stopper is still in and  sealed in place with coral...which is how I 'll leave it for now, there was quite a bit of growth on the bottle but I cleaned some of it off so I could reveal the writing and broad arrow. A great find and quite rare! The other two pieces are glass bottle stoppers which I found at the same time.

Went diving today in St. Georges and found these four stoneware inkwells, a nice stoneware jar and an aqua coloured Northrop & Lyman Healing Oil bottle. I dug quite a large hole about 2 feet deep and found all of them buried within. The stoneware dates to the 1860s and the glass bottle 1880s. There was also quite a few broken plates and other pottery which I left in the water.

Despite all the bad weather we've been having lately, I went out diving and headed to one of my favorite spots. I found a nice old Minard's Linament bottle...it is multi sided and has lots of bubbles in the glass...very nice, the other finds were an unmarked medicine, some broken pottery and two musket balls!! I ran out of air...but will be heading back out tomorrow to continue where I left off...

Here is a nice old black glass bottle that I found awhile back, the bottle is completely encrusted in coral...very nice and quite rare to find like this!

I picked up this nice coral encrusted bottle today when I made a quick dive near White's Island. The bottle dates to around the 1880s and is a very dark almost black colour, with the coral still attached...makes it a very nice display item.

Here are a couple of intact marble bottles I just found in a small bay near Grey's Bridge. Both are embossed RN CLUB BERMUDA (Royal Navy). They were just laying on the bottom completely uncovered next to lots of other old bottles

Yesterday I tried out a new spot deep into the west end of Bermuda and came up with some nice bottles that were just laying on the bottom with a light covering of sand. The green jar is a first for me and has some nice bubbles in the glass, the green ridged poison bottle is of course a nice find as is the blob top beer bottle and the broken jug, the torpedo bottle c. 1870 is beautifully embossed 'To Her Majesty, Webb's Double Soda & Other Waters, Islington London'

I didn't notice this at first but the poison bottle has the 'broad arrow' marking on it, which means it would have been made for the British Admiralty...as all their items were marked with this symbol. This makes the bottle a better find than I first thought

Here are two nice medicine bottles I found in Harrington Sound...always a great area for searching. The first is a Kickapoo Indian Oil c.1885, the second is unmarked but may have had a paper label at one time and appears to be from the same period. Harrington Sound has lots of areas where the sand is deep...and with a little fanning the treasures are revealed

Yesterday, my friend Charles and I went out looking for some new spots...we decided to dive some of the Bays in the western end of the island. The weather was perfect and the water still nice and warm. We found some great bottles, mostly from the mid to late 1800s, these are a few nice ones from Evans Bay; a nice olive oil bottle, a large milk bottle with lots of bubbles in the glass, an old chemists bottle, glass tops, a glass marble and a beautiful pottery shard

Here are two nice black glass bottles I found today, the first is a 3 part moulded bottle from the 1840s and the second is a free blown squat cylinder from the late 1700s, it's unfortunate about the hole in the side...but still a great early bottle

This beautifully embossed bottle was found in a small bay along the Harbour Rd area of Warwick by my friend Kristina. It was buried in about a foot of sand and is in very good condition, it is a bright aqua colour and has a very whittled look and feel to it. It dates to around the 1850s and has a rough glass pontil mark on the base. I later found this great little advertisement for the bottle online. It would have likely been on the packaging and is typical of a Victorian 'cure all bottle' advert proclaiming to fix just about everything. 

Here are a couple of bottles I found while working near Ports Island a few days ago. A very nice early 3 piece black glass bottle c. 1830s, a beautiful amethyst coloured perfume bottle with a sheared top c. 1850s and a stoneware fragment from an old jug...these were all found as I was heading back to my boat and were mostly covered in sand, however I did recognise the shapes

 

Here is a nice free blown squat cylinder bottle (c.1790s) I found  buried in the sand. I had been fanning a large trench about 20" deep and was finding lots of pottery shards and broken black glass bottles, after about two hours I found this nice intact one, it is in really great shape. I am sure there are more in the area...I found it in the same spot I had been digging when I found the large pottery pieces pictured in a previous post - July 4

Here are some more bottles and pottery that we found last weekend. There are two aqua medicines, a small burst top jar, an old ceramic pot with lots of old coral stuck to it, a very nice dark amber cone ink and an unusual bright green bottle with a sheared top - this looks like it could have been a perfume bottle, I have never seen one like this before. Overall, some pretty good finds last weekend!

Here are some super nice bottles we found in Harrington Sound today, three are a light amethyst colour...two medicines and the small one, a Hamilton Coffee & Spice bottle...one of my favourites, the forth bottle is a very nice medium sized cobalt blue castor oil bottle, also found were lots of pottery shards

Here's an interesting story from Tony Chliek, a past visitor to the Island from New York;

In 1981 I was on vacation in Bermuda with my wife. One day I was snorkeling in the waters next to Fort St. Catherine and spotted a small piece of ceramic sticking out of the sand. I dove down, dug the sand away and discovered this bottle. I had no idea what the bottle was, but the thrill of 'finding treasure' made my vacation.

Thirty years of searching off and on for some information on my find and I stumbled upon Steve's web site. I contacted him and finally today, I know something about my buried treasure. In his words, "That's a really nice bottle and must have been very exciting to find. It is from around the 1870s and was used mainly for beer or ginger beer, it is stoneware which would help keep the contents cooler a lot longer than glass bottles. These were very popular during the Victorian period. There was a large British Military presence in Bermuda during the 1800s, so it is very possible that it was tossed into the water by someone manning the Fort."

Finally, 30 years later a mystery has been solved.

Now here is a nice find...a very old black glass flat octagonal bottle that dates to around the 1730s. It is very irregular in shape and the pontil mark is so crude that it leans at an angle when standing. I found it today along the Warwick coastline about 50' offshore completely exposed laying on the sand. It is 8" tall and in perfect condition

I went diving this past weekend and found a few nice pieces in the Little Sound. In the top picture there is a small stoneware inkwell that was just sitting in the sand waiting for me, an old Lea & Perrins bottle, a beautiful multi sided olive oil bottle that has a mark on the base dating it to 1840 and a large pottery shard with a nice cobalt blue floral pattern.

In the second picture and found on the same dive was a large stoneware ginger beer bottle that is in perfect condition and two large pieces of pottery which although broken make awesome display pieces with the attached old coral growth. All date to around the 1840s - 1860s

Beautiful and colourful finds from in front of some very old properties in the Granaway Deep area of Warwick. Although the original houses are mostly long gone, the old glass bottles still remain as a reminder just sitting in the sand.

Some recent finds from the harbour include some nicely embossed medicines, an early pontilled small wine bottle, beer bottles, clay pipe bowls, a nice silver tea spoon and lots of bottle and pottery shards

 Lots of broken marble bottles and and two intact ones found while working in Red Hole. These were found in the swing of moving heavy mooring chain. The intact ones are a rare Gosling's marble bottle and a super rare J. E. Lightbourn & Co. torpedo marble bottle. Back in the early days playing marbles was quite fun for young kids... so many of these bottles were broken to get the marbles out

A few nice pieces found off the old Glencoe Guest House in Salt Kettle

I first posted this bottle on April 24th but after having a closer look I found it to be quite stunning...it is 6 sided, a little lopsided and a deep aqua colour...it was blown in a mould and the lip was applied...very irregular in shape and I presume it was a food bottle from around the 1850s...a beautiful addition to my collection and will remember that I found it in the Flatts Bridge current heading in strong...

Here is a really nice Gosling's marblebottle I found in Hamilton Harbour...with the sun shining through...it shows the  beautiful embossing and marble sitting nicely in place after over 100 years

Beautiful Victorian 'cure all' bottle that I found today...Pond's Extract...dated on the bottom of the bottle '1846' and a typical label that would have been on the box. Very nice!

Made two short dives today, both in Harrington Sound. Each dive lasted about 30 minutes and I just cruised along the shoreline near Palmetto Bay. Some pretty good finds and I didn't do any digging just picked them from the sand as I swam over, I particularily like the shape of the old teapot, all will clean up nicely. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Yes,  the water is cold...very cold, however, while diving in Soncy Bay the other day I found this beautiful piece of an old jug, there is a nice crest on it with lions wearing crowns, a cross and some other markings...it was in 3 pieces but was only able to put 2 together. It had some marine growth on it which came off easily and was laying exposed on the eastern slope, close to where I have found other objects. It is more than likely from the late 1700s and German in origin. Hopefully I will find some more pieces in future dives

> I have recently been told from someone who lives nearby that the crest with the lions is the Crest of Amsterdam   

                                                                                                          

Haven't been able to get out and do any diving lately but wanted to show a nice grouping of black glass bottles. They are mostly all free blown bottles but there are a few early blown in mould bottles as well. They range in date from 1750 - 1840

Here is another bottle I found embedded in the hardened layers of sand, a nice squat cylinder from about 1790. I have cleaned it up a bit and  coated it with clear polyurethane spray to help preserve it. This was found about 2' below the loose sand, the bottle has at least 2 cracks in the glass and would have certainly broken apart if I had tried to dig it out...instead I cut into the hardened sand and removed it so that it would remain in one piece...besides minimizing the risk of breaking the bottle it also looks great on display

Wow! Here is a superb fragment of a very old English onion bottle, I found it buried under 20" of loose sand and firmly embedded in the hardened layers. The remaining glass was very fragile and rather than risk breaking it, I cut it out. The onion bottle dates from approx. 1690s. There is a lot more from this period to be found in this spot...but it takes time to recover

It is January and the water is very cold...stinging to any exposed skin. Today I went to a spot I have been wanting to explore for awhile. The bottom was very silty and would cloud up at the slightest touch... so I decided to just look for bottles that were exposed...I came up with a few nice ones: a rare Gosling marble bottle embossed with both Hamilton & St. Georges, Bermuda, a nice medium sized stoneware ink bottle and a perfect  Victorian lid to a sugar bowl...I also came across lots of very old fragments...so when the water is warmer I will be going back to this area to do some more searching.  I was only in the water for about 45 minutes...so this is definately a good spot

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

It's been a dark & stormy December...

                                                                                                       

Here is a nice coral encrusted storage jar and three nice medicine bottles, all found on a recent dive in a small bay in Warwick. We went from land on a stormy day last week and found the jar just lying on the bottom and the bottles were buried a few inches under the sand. Looks like a good spot and will be going back again over the Christmas holidays. The water depth was about 30 feet and we saw quite a few hog fish

in the area.

Here is a very nice free blown bottle from the early 1800s. The bottle has a very slim neck and great patina and was probably used for wine, it has a very rough glass pontil scar. It was found wedged amongst a pile of limestone rocks that look like they had been pushed overboard

Here are some bottles found last weekend...all are from the1800s, except the case gin bottle neck which is quite early...1750s. I actually found more but was unable to bring it all out of the water...so will try to get the rest this weekend...one piece is quite big...

The base of a '3 part mould' black glass bottle, embossed H. Ricketts & Co. Glassworks Bristol.  Glassmaker Henry Ricketts invented the 3 part mould in 1821, his invention completely revolutionized the bottle industry and his glasshouse was the first to produce bottles on a large scale that were consistent in shape and capacity...which had not been possible with free-blown bottles.