120 year old bottles plus free music (Art Crawl)

coalminecanary · #1 Posted: **Jan 7, 2009, 4:02 PM**

Downtown Bike Hounds is happy (and lucky) to welcome local musician Cam Malcolm for a free hour long solo show for this Friday's art crawl.
http://www.myspace.com/cammalcolm

(photo found at http://www.ryanophoto.com/pictures.html)

We will also be displaying the 30-odd bottles that were dug up (by me, by hand) during renovation of the store. Most of these are about 120 years old, many were actually hand made in Hamilton at various local bottling facilities.

Karen Casey's amazing large-format colourful paintings will continue to be displayed for January as well:

Art Crawl 7pm-10pm
Cam plays 10pm-11pm

Downtown Bike Hounds
6 Cannon St. East (just East of James, next to Mixed Media)
http://www.bikehounds.ca
Tues-Fri 3pm-7pm
Sat 10am-5pm

emge · #2 Posted: **Jan 7, 2009, 5:07 PM**

Excellent. I had forgotten we're already back into that stuff with the new year - looking forward to it though

coalminecanary · #3 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 1:10 PM**

yep time flies - rain, shine or blizzard we're out there every month!

SteelTown · #4 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 2:56 PM**

Wow where was the bottles buried? And how did you first discover the bottles.

coalminecanary · #5 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 4:18 PM**

I had to pull up some bad floor boards. This led to my finding some joists that were rotting on the bottom cause they were sitting in dirt (no basement under this floor). So to fix the floor I had to get rid of some dirt. Found them all under there. A few were scattered on the surface, they are from the 40s-60s and probably left by workers doing maintenance over the years. Most of them though are dated 1880s or 1890s - those were below the surface. We think they were probably tossed over the side when the neighbouring building was being built - workers' lunch garbage.

SteelTown · #6 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 4:34 PM**

That's awesome. Love hearing stuff like that.

I think at one point Hamilton used to have a local pop company. Can't remember the name of the company.

MsMe · #7 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 4:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by coalminecanary

workers' lunch garbage.

But those bottles aren't garbage. Those are like gold.

adam · #8 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 4:56 PM**

It saddens me to think that if a company like LIUNA were to renovate the same building, those bottles would have probably just ended up in recycling.

coalminecanary · #9 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 4:57 PM**

There were a LOT of local pop companies. From the 1890s, the big name seems to be pilgrim bros

later though, in the 50s, i have seen a few majestic beverage company bottles fomr that era.

In the old days, a lot of this stuff was locally bottled. there were bottling companies in every town.

If anyone has info to share about any of these companies, i'd love to hear it!

SteelTown · #10 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 5:10 PM**

http://ca.geocities.com/paul.marchan...om/bottles.htm

MsMe · #11 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 5:30 PM**

Pop Shoppe had a place on Barton St. a while ago too. My mother's cousin was the manager of it. But this wasn't from way back though.

block43 · #12 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 6:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteelTown

That's awesome. Love hearing stuff like that.

I think at one point Hamilton used to have a local pop company. Can't remember the name of the company.

The Pop Shoppe...you can still get it at Denningers

MsMe · #13 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 6:15 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by block43

The Pop Shoppe...you can still get it at Denningers

You can still get pop shoppe around, but that bottling factory isn't there anymore. Not sure where it is now.

highwater · #14 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 7:01 PM**

I have a friend who used to collect old bottles from building sites. According to him, you almost invariably find a cache whenever you break ground. I don't think the numbers can be explained just by workers' lunches. I'll have to ask him his theory.

SteelTown · #15 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 7:22 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MsMe

You can still get pop shoppe around, but that bottling factory isn't there anymore. Not sure where it is now.

Burlington.

They sell Pop Shoppe at the Beach Road on Locke St as well.

adam · #16 Posted: **Jan 8, 2009, 8:35 PM**

Freeway Cafe has Pop Shoppe on their menu

coalminecanary · #17 Posted: **Jan 9, 2009, 7:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by highwater

I have a friend who used to collect old bottles from building sites. According to him, you almost invariably find a cache whenever you break ground. I don't think the numbers can be explained just by workers' lunches. I'll have to ask him his theory.

Before 1900 you'd have your own "dump" behind your house. they didn't truck garbage off to new york state!

rousseau · #18 Posted: **Jan 9, 2009, 8:50 PM**

Saw your shop across the street when we were in Hamilton last week, we were at the Japanese/Chinese all you can eat place across the street. It looks charming as all get out from outside, I hope to pay a visit next time we're in the Hammer.

Off-topic per se, but still kinda on-topic: got any neat road stuff new or used in stock? Things like:

Strada bend non-anatomic bars, 25.4 mm diameter 46 cm width outside-to-outside?
700c 32-hole silver rims?
Campy square-taper bottom brackets English-threaded?

Just curious. Best of luck with the shop!