New slant to prospecting

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 9

New slant to prospecting

By

BRAD TATTERSFIELD

Whata makes someone spend countless hours digging holes in the ground looking for antique bottles? Mr John Tasker, aged 49, a builder, cf Hastings, is an expert on bottle collecting who is in Christchurch for this week-end’s national antique bottle show at Pioneer Stadium, and he is a student of what motivates those amateur archaeologists. He divides them into four categories. There are those who collect bottles for their intrinsic beauty, to compete with others, to make money, and to unlock secrets of the past. Mr Tasker places himself in the last category. “Bottle-collecting is a genuinely new avenue for finding original historic fact,” he said yesterday.

Although in the minority among bottle buffs, Mr Tasker says “scientific” collectors are using clues from letters, motifs, and designs embossed on bottles to discover facts about the pioneers of different localities. “Most collectors love the competitive aspect, and I am not against that; we need them all,” he said. Mr Tasker has recently written a book about antique bottle-collecting in New Zealand which discusses among other things where to find bottles, how to categorise and treat them, and how much they are worth. He said he wrote the book to fill a need for information among New Zealand’s bottle enthusiasts. “I believe that every

hobby and leisure activity should have a literature behind it,” he said. “It tends to give interest and standing in the community to the activity.” Bottle-collecting can bring considerable financial rewards to add to the satisfaction of a good find. Mr Tasker has himself found an old stone ginger beer bottle worth more than $250 among other items, and he has seen a collector pay $l5OO for a circa-1840 whisky decanter which he later resold for $2OOO. However the monetary aspect does not interest Mr Tasker as much as the scholarly side of his hobby.

“We have to have a scale of values for the items we handle, although we suppress that side of it as much as we can,” he said. The amateur collector must undergo considerable physical toil to unearth his or her glass and ceramic treasures. Any known site of human congregation in days gone by is a potential target for an avid bottle-digger, and this might include old houses, a picnic area on a streambed, an old musterer’s hut, or an ancient dump. One of the most profitable sources of bottles is disused farm “long-drops,” Mr Tasker said. “Being seen with a bottle of liquor was frowned on in the old days. People used to go into the privy with a bottle and dispose of it when they were finished. I’m told that after 80 to 100 years there is no risk of disease,” he said.

Mr Tasker’s eight years of bottle collecting may not have left many potential antique bottle sites unturned. Clues from his finds, as well as investigative legwork among newspaper archives and talking to old residents of different communities, have led to his building up biographies of pioneers. “I recently found a centennial bottle which I am displaying at the Hastings centenary this year. It was issued in 1884 by the second Mayor of Hastings,” he said. There are 19 bottle clubs in New Zealand at present, with 1000 financial mem-

bers. Mr Tasker said there were 10 times that number of collectors not affiliated to a club. These people were unaware of the value or research possibilities of their bottles. All 19 clubs are represented at this weekend’s bottle show, which Mr Tasker said gave collectors an annual opportunity to trade and compete among themselves as well as show their bottles to the public. Mr Tasker’s book will go on sale early next month. He hopes it will help stabilise and unite the endeavours of bottle collectors in New Zealand.