I'd discussed the 1884 house we ran into. As we spent hours breaking down walls (see other thread once Rog posts), it ocurred to me that I'm not prepared to be an honorary indoor dumper.

First, I'd like to say that I think indoor dumping is going to be my gig. I like the potential rewards better, and I like trying to think like a homeowner or carpenter from that era.

But it seems to me there is a book to be written on the subject that I haven't yet seen. Such as:

1) Houses built after 1960 are rarely going to have 1935 beer cans in their walls or attic. We can safely exclude these from indoor dumping.

2) Houses built before 1935 are not going to have 1935 beer cans in the walls from carpenters.

3) Additions after 1935 might have cans in the walls, but it seems to me that the homeowner is more likely to be around the work, and therefore there is less chance of the the contractor drinking on the job and the can being built into the house.

4) Older than 1935 houses are more likely to have the cans found as a result of the homeowner, not the builder. So cisterns, nooks, and crannies are the places to look in the oldest houses. Walls are futile as can's didn't exist except where there was remodelling done

5) There are some architectural things to look for that I don't well understand yet. But it seems to me that we should be trying to date the period of the work, whether it is the original home or the addition. By looking at the insides, we should be able to tell pretty well what era, shouldn't we? Lathe and plaster was pretty well done by 1950, I'd guess. Sheetrock was mostly after that. The 2x4's were 2x4 back then. But when did they become smaller, and with rounded edges?

Were there other techiques we can find in a home that tell us what era we're dealing with? I'd think that would help us know which wall to be knocking down, and which to ignore!

6) I'm guessing that urban areas are not going to be as productive as rural. But that might well be all wrong. When a house was "prestigious", like an old Victorian, I'd think there is less chance that they threw their trash in the attic. But farmers might have done anything over the years, as they were generally scraping by financially and didn't seem as concerned with getting the trash off their property. But I would think old farmhouses that are being torn down are harder to find (not a visible, and fewer around us to run into). So that makes the probability of these potential goldmines harder to fall into.

Just my initial thoughts. A man thinks about these things while smashing walls out of an 1884 home.

Hey Dave I like your thinking, But to Many LINIES Tonight to comment. But I did grow up with a Grandfather And Dad that were into demolition.
Will post some thoughts tommorow. Chuck

Dave as for your #6 , urban much better because just that much more places

also cans in rafters or in walls were from the carpenters having some cold ones after a days work and then sealed up in walls

good luck

dan

One thing you are all missing, is that in the 1930's 40's and into the 50's a large majority of Carpenters, plumbers and electricians were imigants from Germany, Ireland, Scotland etc. It was and still is a commonly condoned practice in those countries to have a beer or two during lunch. They still do it today. I spent 5 years oversea's and observed the German contractors drinking their lunch beer many times.

They didn't knock back the cold ones after work, they did it during work! But to hide how many they had during the day, they would board the cans up between the walls, so the American Supervior wouldn't know.

This practice went on until the American Federal Labor Unions outlawed drinking on the job, and made it a fireable offense. This was primarily done for safety reasons, as it never hurt the quality of the work.

Candog

Uh Candong, I worked construction for a few years and I can say this from experiance. THE GERMANS AREN'T THE ONLY ONES DRINKING ON THE JOB! I won't say "ALL" but it's safe to say that many, many, many of todays carpenters and craft workers still enjoy an afternoon beer break. Cans are now returnable so we used to save them but the practice of having a cool one on the job on a hot summer day is still alive and well.

ShineMeister, I was talking about the 30's and 40's. Trying to explain HOW the cans got into the walls, and who put them there. It was just an add on to the first post. Oh by the way, you spelled Candog wrong, you must be drinking on the job again!

CanDog.

I think CANDONG is the nickname of somebody in another hobby/industry.

Dave! I'm an indoor dumper too. A close freind owns a Real Estate company that does rehabs and tear downs, I go thru every house of his I can. I've even gone thru a couple Frank Lloyd Wright's (verry carefully).
When hitting garage sales, look up in the garage rafters, I've scored a couple of vintage boxes that way.
Get into the basement of every old bar you can, I purposely get to know the owner of those bars over the course of several visits, and then ask.
---
Now, for the Chicago guys, we all know Cook County Hospital is shut and will probably come down. Who's got an "in"?!?!? There's several buildings involved, we could put a lot of dumpers to "work"!
TRUE STORY:
A freind since highschools dad (I see the dad more than his son nowadays) is an avid antique fan, especially Model A and Model T Fords. Hmmmm, he might be an "in" at Cook County Hospital, as he's in the States Attorneys office. Anyhoo, back in the 1960s they were razing Cook County buildings to build the site of the University of Chicago campus. Mr. Schejbal (skayball) gets a call, there's a two car brick garage onsite that hasn't been opened for years - and there's two 1920's vintage trucks in there. He checks it out, no one has a key, burglar bars on all windows blah blah blah. Said the place was a timecapsule, gets to working on getting in there. The guy still gets goosebumps telling this story 40 years later. Two or three days later they bulldozed the building with everything in it - there was a schedule to be kept. And Mr. Schejbal is the type of guy who would never have broken in there to save that stuff, must've rubbed off on his 4 sons, 3 are cops and the fourth served in the Marine Corps.

___ Footnote: it's really slooooow today______

Uh oh, did I say CanDONG?? Pay no attention, just a Freudian slip.

OK, so a couple more indoor dumping questions:

1) Is a metal detector of any value indoors?

2) If an old bar is being demolished, where to look?

3) If an old bar is not being demolished, where to look (its a little harder to explain why you're sledgehammering the walls)

4) If you contact demo companies, how do you get them to give you info on the properties they're going to hit, and then let you in? They'd have liability, so what's in it for them? If you mention the potential value of your hunt, you've just woken up the greed-gene. So-- how do you word the request to get in?


You guys rock. Someday I'll hit a big indoor find, and post the pix.

Dave,

I think a detector couldnt hurt? You would have to run the sensitivity very low, or you will pick up every nail in the place.

We have had a bunch of indoor scores, we didnt actually find the cans but we have others that work in demo, construction and plumbers. Another one we just hit is a company called "Got Junk?" You see there trucks driving around the Chicago area,these guys clean out garages, basements or whatever.I am not sure if they are national yet?

We have some Barbarossa cones coming from a contractor in Kentucky who found them in a wall, they should be here this week. Also we have a women who runs a demo company and she just called us and found 3 Berghoff cones, Not in a hurry to get those (unless flat bottom?) In the past we have gotten a bunch of Meister Brau fiestas from a plumber, a Rarhs "strong" conetop from a contractor. Get some cards made up and pass them out. You will be suprised at the results.

Dan B

Just an idea for collectors in the northwest burbs of Chicago. I used to work in a small building in Elgin, it is fenced in along with a larger building. This property is owned by real indians from Wisconsin. It is the Simpson Electric building in Elgin Illinois, rumor has it, that it will be sold, demolished, and condos put up. There are catacombs below the building, I was never in the catacombs, but I have toured the almost vacant building years back, A lot of history there.

I agree that there are certain buildings that will have more probability of having cans in the walls, rafters, etc., but obviously, we shouldn't rule out the low probabilty places either.

For example, a friend of mine is currently building a new house and supplies the trades people a 12 pack of beer at the end of the day a few days a week. I've even seen a few of these cans and bottles on cross braces of someof the unfinished walls (and I believe the contractor that just laid the drywall, sealed in some of the cans!) I bet this sort of thing went on "back in the day" as well. Not so much as a drinking on the job but a reward at the end of the day for a job well done...and to keep the carrot dangling for the crew as inspiration for the days to come.

An electrician I know found a bunch of 60's tabs in the wall of a High School. It was ironic because I told her the day before that if her company was ever renovating a building, keep any cans, bottles or beer/soda signs she finds in the walls. She said the High School they were working on wouldn't have anything in it...but called the next day with news to the contrary.

A carpenter I know rarely finds anything in the walls of places he renovates but the only times he found cans was in the walls of an addition to house.

Indoor dumping is a great idea. My problem is finding someone with the, shall we say clockweights, to accompany me into exploring the thousands of abandoned buildings in Detroit. The very word Detroit strikes fear into most. (I wonder why? LOL)
Back in college and grad school at Wayne State I and several friends engaged in some urban archeology in the infamous Cass Corridor and found plenty of Stroh's and Pfeiffer flats.Not to mention empty Popov Vodka and Canadaian Club Whiskey bottles in numbers too great to count.
Unfortunately, it never occured to me back then that the true gems might be in the walls.

There was this area in California that me and a buddy hit extensively in the 1970s for cisterns. This area was homesteaded about 1900 to about 1920. These people built homes with cistern. The altitude was too high for well drilling. So they all had cisterns.

Well, as the homesteaders gave up and abandoned their property, their neighbors often filled their cister with trash. Theses cisterns were in the yard, not under the house. Dan Andrews and I dug a couple out together. Though, often we got common brands by the case. I did manage to get some nice brands. Stuff like Buffalo from LA, King Cole, All American, Red Leaf 102 with gold back ground, 16oz Eastside gold label, Acme Bock, Imperial and more.

In the east, I know cisterns got filled in even in Michigan. There have been a couple of finds. When electric power came. Many farms ditched the cistern, installed plumbing, remoleled their kitchens. This often happened just before and just after WWII.

Here's my suggestion. Put and ad in the paper that reads.

LOOK!
Do you have a cistern
full of trash. Let me
help you turn that trash
to cash $$$
Call Joe at
1-234-567-8910

Then, when you contact the owner, make a deal with him. You keep the beer cans and sell the other tins on ebaY. You just may get some calls from farmers who have such a thing. Or homes that were on the outter edges of town.

Vince

Brian,

LOL! When I joined the metal detector club in Michigan I met a couple bans of urban relic hunters.

They'd do their hunting early Saturday or Sunday morning when the natives were sleeping off the night before's partying.

One guy and his friends did it at night. They went to old buildings used mountainclimbing gear and grabbed gargoils off abandone buildings.

Others hit all sorts of old building for antiques. They didn't have problems with natives, but stray packs of dogs. That was their biggest fear.

Vince

Vince,
I hear you about the packs of dogs. Almost as bad are those infamous Detroit rats. They eat rat poison for fun. Some are so big they could probably kick the crap out of the dogs.

OK-- so a friend and I just found a cistern. Its filled with dirt. WTF. How do we clear it out. Are there tricks or tools to get the dirt out? Is there anything you'd do before you even started with the dirt? (poke a stick down, metal detector, etc)?

A tactic I've recently added to my arsenal is...
posting a "Wanted" "Reward" poster that I printed up. It explains to the demo guys where the cans may be found
I staple them on houses that are being torn down.
I just started this and will of course post any result. Heres the wording but the layout looks more old west wanted style. Sean
WANTED!
OLD BEER CANS
REWARD!
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
OLD BEER CANS ARE FOUND IN THE WALLS OF OLD HOUSES,BUILDINGS & BARNS
I AM A LOCAL COLLECTOR WHO IS INTERESTED IN ANY OLD CAN EVEN IF ITS RUSTY ,TARNISHED OR DENTED.
PLEASE CONTACT SEAN@**********

Dave,

In the 70s when me and my buddy were digging cisterns, we found them full of dirt too. What we did is got 6 foot long probing rod and poked it in the dirt. If we hit stuff there was trash under the dirt. If the rod went way down, we moved on. A metal detector may work if there isn't too much rebarb in the cement.

Also trash settles and mice and roaches eat. So, if you find new stuff on top, dig through it. It might get older fast.

Vince

Vince. So, you find a cistern full of dirt. The opening is 30" X 30". You think there is trash in there. The pile you'd pull out would be 8ft high. How do you get the dirt out?

When my buddy Curt, Dale Foster and I dug cisterns we'd use buckets and trash cans. We'd put a rope on the handle of the bucket and use that to get the dirt out. Also, we'd use the trash can to hual the trash out.

You may want to buy a respirator. That dust is nasty. Why damage your lungs. Go to Sears and buy one for about $40.

Why don't you see if anything is in under the dirt. Did you prob? You can go to Lowes or Home Depot and get piece of rod to use for prob.

Vince

Good idea about the respirator. A mask isn't good enough?

I can't imagine emptying a cistern bucket by bucket full. Can't you hire a high school kid to do it while we sit back with a beer and watch?

I'm not sure that alot of carpenter's still drink on the job, I've been one for 26 years, you bet after work we may tap into a couple at the job site, or maybe a few for the ride home, I'm sure it still happens, probably not alot. Right now were doing a remodel job for these very rich people in Northern Wisconsin, the guy never got married, he's in his late 50's, was a pack rat, saved everything, so were moving somethings around and I find a mint Miller flat top/drink cup, unfortunately it the 60's flat, but I will ask him if I could have it and any others he has, he's a cool guy, we've worked for others in that family before, they all live off a "trust" seems one of the family was part owner of the Boston Red Soxs many years ago. They all live on one of the lakes up here, have hugh tracks of land and water frontage, nice people. I've never really found any indoor cans, but co-workers have brought me a few over the years, some good one's too. Someday I'll luck out, we work all over the Northwoods, its just a matter of time.

Scott

Here are some cans the were just pulled from the rafters of a house a month or so ago. These were all found in the same house, These are from a carpenter down in Kentucky, I sent along 10 business cards for him and his buddies. Once your in their good graces, they will always call you back if they find anything. The one woman who found us the Berghoff cones calls us before she starts any demo, she just called today and told us she is demoloshing a old store, who knows what may lurk in the attics or basements? All I can say is the more effort you put in the greater the rewards.

Dan B


LOVE THE SCHLITZ LID

DAN B

indoor or outdoor this prooves dan is one of the best

Sweet. Now, wouldn't it be fun to create and view a global beer can locating device. Something that emitted red dots on a electronic map of the world for each place that beer cans reside but aren't in a collection (since I'm dreaming, lets say in grade 2 or better, over 50 years old). I'll bet we'd see a country that has dots all over the place. Its just a matter of finding them. Might also be fun to see where those dots would be located around the world.

I guess the problem would still be getting them out of their residence. It might be hard to convince someone that I need to tear their house apart because I have proof there are old beer cans hidden somewhere inside.... I must be tired---- later.