HOW TO FIND TREASURE ON YOUR HOMESTEAD
(Page 3 of 5)
COLOR: Sunlight turns old glass a
beautiful amethyst, adding to its value. Minerals in the
ground may cause rainbow coloring called opalization. This
can be beautiful, but may detract from the value and is
nearly impossible to remove.
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IMPERFECTIONS: Old glass often shows
bubbles, crooked necks, uneven thickness of bottoms or neck
edges and so on. Value increases with the number of
imperfections.
RAISED LETTERING AND DESIGNS: These
increase the value and the appeal of old bottles.
INSULATORS
Telephone and telegraph wires have been strung from glass
insulators—to prevent current leakage—almost
from the time the wires were invented (telegraph insulators
date back to 1844 or 1845, and telephone insulators to
1876).
Like bottles, glass insulators come in a variety of colors
and shapes. You may find them in blue, deep green, or
aqua-green glass, sun-colored amethyst, white milk glass
and—if you're lucky—even in carnival or
cranberry glass.
The bell-shaped glasses were molded in a variety of sizes
and shapes. Some have inner "skirts", while others have
just the outer bell. Some feature sharp or rounded
drop-points on the bottom—meant to cause moisture to
drip to the ground instead of seeping inside the
glass—and others have smooth bottoms.
The value of insulators—like bottles—depends on
age, scarcity, color and beauty. Values range from $2 or $3
for the more common insulators to the rare types that bring
$25, $35 or more.
You're not likely to find these insulators in dumps because
they were usually dropped along the lines when they were
replaced. In many cases, the entire wire was abandoned and
the insulators are still on the old unused lines along
poles or buildings.
BARBED WIRE
Joseph Glidden, an Illinois settler, first saw the need for
lightweight fencing and—with his wife's
help—used a farm kitchen coffee mill to fasten bits
of twisted metal to a long strand of wire.
The use of barbed wire then grew rapidly and the fencing
played a bloody role in the cattleman-farmer range wars
which raged throughout the late 1800's. Today, the history
and many variations of the fencing fascinate collectors who
buy 18-inch "sticks" of the old wire.
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