Question about that old brick I found with a weird mark on it

I was tearing down a wall last week in an old house outside of Columbus, Ohio, and came across a brick with a small circle stamp on it. Turns out it's a maker's mark from a brickyard that closed down in the 1920s according to some research I did online. It got me wondering how many of you guys run into stuff like that and if there's any way to tell if it's worth saving or just junk.

2 comments

2 Comments

drew_chen1mo ago

A 1920s brickyard mark from Ohio, there were probably fifty of those within a hundred mile radius. Most of those bricks end up as fill dirt or garden edging, nothing rare about them. Unless that particular yard had some famous name connected to it, you're looking at a paperweight. Save it if you like the look, but it's not exactly antique roadshow material.

jamiekim1mo ago

Wait, hold up - you're saying there were FIFTY different brickyards in Ohio alone back then? That's wild, I had no idea there were that many. I've seen old bricks here and there but just assumed any mark from that era meant something special. So basically those bricks are like the plastic water bottles of the 1920s, just everywhere and nobody thought twice about them until now? Makes me wonder how many people have these sitting in their gardens thinking they're sitting on a vintage goldmine. Is there any way to tell if a brick is actually valuable or is it pretty much always gonna be a dud?