r/mudlarking

Hi everyone! I am looking for help identifying this unique piece. I found it 34 years ago as a child in our garden on 700 East in Northern Rush County (near the Henry County border / Lewisville address).
My dad tilled it up where a farmhouse and several outbuildings used to stand. Nobody in my family has ever been able to figure out what it is.

Google Lens suggests it might be an antique toy car with a driver or a stylized horse torso. However, the style of the "pants and boots" makes me think it predates cars entirely. The leg positioning is also completely sideways.

Crucially, it is entirely solid inside and quite heavy for its size. It features a sharp mold seam line down the center and two perfectly clean, narrow pinholes on the side.

Given the old house location and the heavy clay composition, I suspect it might be some kind of custom figurine or a unique toy from an old farm dump. I would love to hear your thoughts on its age, origin, or what the complete object originally looked like!

I’m getting mixed results from my personal research. Some say as late as 1880s-90s and others are saying early as 1840s. The tiny “DUPRE.” Is what’s tripping me up. Found in Saratoga Springs NY

Staring right back at me! Great eye and eyebrow detail on this Bellarmine jug sherd.

Found this little chap face down in the mud on a Friday night.

He's my first, very rare, complete Witches Jug / Bartmann face and a beauty at that!

The current favoured suggestion from multiple mudlarks is that it belongs to a Bellarmine jug that was made by an apprentice working in this country? Not all witches jars are imported...

Therefore this discounts the Wooltus-Killigrew link on the basis of their expertise?

The quote on the attached image is lifted from a report about an archaeological dig at the old Fulham Pottery and that sort of high jinks might also mean they would make silly faces like this?

Apparently some of reports from the site have a lot of pictures of the finds? Maybe there'll be a match in the book?

The research journey is going to be thoroughly enjoyable on this one and I wonder what shape the output will take?

The piece has been reported to https://www.bartmanngoesglobal.org/

… And he found this ‘cool spiral’. Does anyone know what it is? It was at Effra Quay next to Vauxhall.

He’s quite curious about his spiral and thought I’d see if the beautiful people of the internet could tell him what it is.

Thank you! Xx

Hello! U.S. mudlarker here! I have thousands upon thousands of mudlarked pottery shards, all sorted and bagged by color, etc.

Long story short, my life situation no longer permits me time to create art and jewelry from these as I did before, which makes me sad, but I am curious if I list these bags of shards on ebay individually, would there be a market for them? Does anyone else here use pottery shards to create with?

Also, ive included a photo where you can see my leftover inventory of pottery shard necklaces and pendants. I have these listed on ebay as well;

Some finds from today. I decided to check out one of my favourite streams. As usual, there were hundreds of pottery pieces around, as well as so many other things. I took some pieces and some pipe stems for a friend.

We've had a lot dry weather, and the trees are going through a false autumn and losing a lot of leaves. It meant some areas were a bit more covered and needed a closer look, you could spend days there trying to spot everything. The stream was much more accessible too with the drier weather.

Holderness, East Yorkshire (UK). Not seen one like this before! It’s very small (pound coin and the more usual find for scale) which makes me think it’s early, but also unusually ornate. I can’t work out the design, possibly a claw on the bowl and some sort of scales/bones on the stem and heel? Has anyone else found one similar or any ideas as to the period?

It was a very quick look today. Part of the riverbank is part of an old landfill, which always produces some surface finds.

Half of it is perfectly rounded. Looks like it used to be a full sphere, about the size of a marble. Any idea on material? Granite? It’s definitely more rock like than glass. Is it just a rock? It seems too perfect. In georgia, USA in a creek off the chattahoochee river

After getting my permit from the PLA last week and checking tide times, today was my first adventure out on to the foreshore. I was there fairly early, just myself and one other person, but it got pretty busy.

I had my permit checked twice by two different groups with PLA lanyards on, to be fair the second group said that I didn’t need to show my permit if I had already been checked but I showed them anyway. It took two years to get it, I’m showing it off to everyone!

Lots of finds today; plenty of pottery, clay pipe stems and bowls, lots of tiles, many many nails, bits of glass, so many bones and teeth, and I found a coin! It was a pound coin, but I can still proudly brag that I found a coin on my first adventure. I left the bones and teeth behind.

The geese were extremely nosy and were peering over my shoulder at every opportunity. A great day out!

I have found these digging in the mud but on a mountain area and I wasn't knee-deep usually in the mud so I don't know if this counts to be on this sub or not.

Photos 1-4 and the last one (the 10th) are the first bottle and photos 5-9 are the second bottle. This is because originally I forgot to show the first bottle's bottom. When I posted this on R/bottledigging commentors said that the first bottle might be either have contained wine or grape juice. Does anyone else have any ideas?

Thanks for reading this post, even if you can not help identify

East Yorkshire, UK. Found in the garden of a Georgian house built c.1800. She looks a bit too pretty to be a Charlotte-type, I think? Plus the leg was found very near the head and is wearing a stocking and was movable unlike the unclothed dolls. I’ve been trying to date it via the hairstyle and am thinking second half of the 19thc but can anyone give me a better idea of the period she dates from?

Could be nothing, but any ideas?

Accidentally uncovered an intense passion for mudlarking after finding these at the creek on complete accident 2 days ago. Haven’t been able to shut up about it or stop planning my next trip. Sooooo excited to join this community to enjoy what you all have found and share what I find!!

This was all found within a few feet of each other!

I included a few extra pics - the one brown glass seems to have an imperial crown on it, it also looks almost yellowish green when light goes through it rather than the bottle neck which is standard brown/amberish when light passes through

The glazed red clay has almost a tigers eye effect to it when I shine light on it but it doesn’t pick up the best on camera so that’s the best it would show.

Also - for that super lovely blue phoenix, I used google lens and it seems like someone else was able to find a similar piece and identify where it came from!! How fortunate I am to have found a piece like that!!!