Lot 8

Price Realized:  $715
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CD 1000 {Unembossed};  <span style="color:red">UPDATE:</span>  incredible "creek tumbled" glass block
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Lot 8: CD 1000 {Unembossed}  Color: Light Aqua  Description: This amazing "creek tumbled" glass block has a rough texture from tumbling over 12 miles in a sandy creek or having sand in the water flow over it and roughen it for perhaps 100 years or more! View 4 shows where it was found. Some of the typical flakes, but they also have the rough texture indicating they were tumbled as well for many decades. Some flakes have more texture than others, possibly some flaking occurred during its trip down the creek and those flakes have since been tumbled as well but not for as long and thus being less pronounced. There was significant interest and discussion of a "sea glass" tumbled CD 735 Tillotson at the 2019 National. Imagine the exciting discussion this would cause! This could be the only "creek tumbled" glass block known! An incredible historical artifact!
Estimate: $500 - $1,000   Open: $10
The consignor writes:

I found it on November 21, 2018 at Loess Bluff, Mississippi in a creek near the Natchez Trace Parkway which is 12.4 miles from the beginning of the Natchez Trace. Sandy is an understatement, if you are familiar with what the name Loess stands for. Take notice of the large bluff in the photo and know that the creek where it was found runs along the bottom of it. This is one of the areas where travel is funneled into a narrower pass of about a couple hundred yards vs. most of the Trace that is a mile or more wide. Here the dense forests hide forgotten trails that could be over 8,000 years old. I am always searching the old sunken trails and narrow passageways for a wide variety of treasures. It was just dumb luck that I found the glass block and even luckier I didn’t leave it there because I didn’t have a clue what it was. It took me 3 days of Googling, to figure it out!

It was fully exposed laying on the sand bank (see view 4), but when it rains these creeks will flow with a few feet of water so it would have been tumbling down the creek during the rains. This is a smaller creek that runs alongside of the trail and actually crosses under the modern-day road at the end of the Bluff. As for its date, I believe it is dated circa 1848, They were using a certain tar and cloth before the glass block was introduced. Not entirely sure when or where it began but it was the breakthrough the telegraph line needed in order to quit grounding out the lines during heavy rains.


An early account of this line reads:

It was in June 1845, the route of this Louisville-New Orleans section was to be the railroad to Lexington, Ky., then down the old “Natchez trail” to Nashville, thence to Memphis and Tuscumbia and from that place to New Orleans via Jackson.

The telegraph reached Pittsburg on the 29th of December 1846, by the 7th of August communication was open to Wheeling and by the middle of September 1847, to Louisville. Over the more southern sections progress was slower, and Nashville was not reached until the 6th of March 1848 and Tuscumbia, the 7th of April.
Estimate: $500 - $1,000  Open: $10
Price Realized:  $715

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