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Article: History in the pits
- Article from:
- Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Article date:
- January 17, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2007 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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A lowly trash heap in McKeesport transformed Tim Tokosh into an
obsessed urban archaeologist driven to collect rare, antique bottles
brimming with 150 years of the region's history.
Rain had carved ravines into the piles of dirt and trash, exposing
hand-blown glass bottles of strange shapes, hues and brands that
inspired Tokosh in 1987 to begin a quest for rare bottles that tell
the histories of medicines, liquors, poisons and even famous products
such as those made by H.J. Heinz Co.
To grow his cache of bottles beyond those of armchair collectors,
Tokosh, 40, turned to one of the only places to discover old bottles:
long-buried outhouse pits -- or privy holes, as collectors call them.
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