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Yet another jar from the collection of the late Alex Kerr. This one is a normal "Mason's Patent Nov 30th, 1858" except for the glorious color. It's really a super deep greenish teal. I'm really hard pressed to describe the color accurately. This would be really super nice in quart but in a pint, it's pretty incredible (pints are much rarer than quarts in the jar world).

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Another rare pint - this time a Buckeye. I've always loved the Buckeyes, but they almost always come equipped with a clunky repro clamp so I've held out until I could get original clamps. So far I've got the half gallon and now, the pint.

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The profile Lafayette has always been a very desirable jar. The closure is crazy although reputedly providing a pretty good seal (I'm not even going to try to describe it here) and any figural jar is considered to be a bit nicer than a jar without a picture on it, all else being equal. Again, this one is a pint which makes it much rarer than the quart or half gallon. First pint I've ever seen, although there's a few of them out there.

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I've kind of ended up getting a lot of Lightnings over the years and this is probably the cream of the crop (okay, there's a cobalt out there which I'll probably never own and definitely ranks above the teal). I love, love, love this color! I have to point out that nobody has ever located a teal lightning lid. "So what's up with the lid on yours, Darrell?". Mine's a bit of a cheat - the lid is painted. I'm going to leave it on there unapologetically since it's obvious on close inspection that it's painted so I'm not trying to fool anybody, but it looks nicer from a distance. Okay, I'm a cheater - I admit it!

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Speaking of cheating, these jars are total reproductions made in the 1970s. This is my public service announcement. These colored midgets were made in the 70's and are easilty recognizable by the number 901 on their bottoms and three mold seams around the sides. They come in impossibly exotic colors as you see here. Yes, the one at the front is carnival glass. There are other repro jars out there. In particular, be wary of mason jars with a sloppily embossed cross on the back or wildly colored half gallons with the CFJCo monogram on the front.

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The public service announcement (and cheating) continues with this jar. This is definitely an original jar (and a kind of nice one at that with the reversed "N" in "Nov") but it was originally clear or perhaps slightly purple. The deep purple comes as a result of an artificial irradiation process. This sometimes ends up coloring jars colors other than deep purple (although purple is probably most common). Other colors are a kind of sick smokey amber and deep blue. Be really wary if somebody offers such a jar without mentioning irradiation. I believe that an extremely small number of naturally colored jars have achieved these deep purple colors, I can't state that unequivocally and even if I was convinced I wouldn't necessarily expect the next guy to be if I ever decided to sell the jar.

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This is an example of an extremely rare amber midget. I've got another honey amber midget below, but this one is much more interesting and rare. The darker color and the CFJCo monogram on front (which stands for Consolidated Fruit Jar Company) make it really stand out.

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Okay, this isn't a photo of my jars at all. It's a raytraced image I created in Studio 3D Max of a couple of jars on a tabletop. Studio 3D is a program which produces a lot of the fancy computer graphics you see in commercials and movies. I've been using Studio 3D for a long time now just as a sort of hobby. We also use it at my game company (Suckerpunch) to create the 3D models for our game. Anyway, I thought this turned out pretty nice so I wanted to show off a bit.

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This is one of the best jars around - maybe *the* best. It's an amber Van Vliet. There are only two known. The Van Vliet is a fairly rare jar by itself and one of the few jars which has a closure surrounding the entire jar. So why are there only two surviving amber jars? Hard to say for sure - my guess is that these jars were not normally produced but rather produced as a whimsey or an experiment in a glass house. Perhaps a glass house with a batch of leftover amber glass just had to fill out an order of Van Vliets. Who knows? Whatever the reason, we're left with some really nice jars as a result.

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This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful colored masons. All original cobalt masons currently known are quarts with P13 or P14 on the bottom. There aren't a lot of them. There are *lots* of reproduction colored masons out there, including cobalt ones. The most common are midgets with 3 seams and half gallons with either a sloppily drawn cross on the back or a CFJCo monogram on the front. Be really wary of any exotically colored masons somebody may try to sell you.

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This jar may be the only one of a kind jar that I currently own. As far as I know there are no others known or reported. It's a black half gallon "Mason's Patent Nov 30th 1858" with a reversed Hemingray style 7 on the base. The base also looks like other Hemingrays in other ways. Hemingray was known to make other black jars so my assumption is that this is like the black HGCo mason shown below only without the HGCo on the reverse. I've also supplied a picture of the base here.

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This is a "midget" jar - so called because it resembles a smaller version of the quart or half gallon jars. It has a CFJCo monogram on the back which stands for "Consolidated Fruit Jar Company". Midgets are fairly rare in general, but they are extremely rare in colors and the light cobalt/sapphire color of this one is really rare. I think it's one of only two such jars around so I'm really glad to be able to have this rare specimen.

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There are three of these black straight sided pints in existence as far as I know. I haven't seen the other two but this one is filled with bubbles and looks really great.

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Another Ebay jar, this beautiful wax sealer was bought in a recent farm sale in Ohio. The claim is that there are only four of these sapphire blue wax sealers known. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but they are definitely a rarity. This is probably one of the oldest glass jars I own. It was hand blown with a pontil mark on the bottom and a distinctive bell or milk bottle shape. The wax sealing channel is big and gloppy and the whole jar exudes "primitive" with a lot of "personality". These also come in a beautiful teal color as pints. I'd love to have one of those, but meanwhile I'll be happy with this rare quart.

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This is an unusual jar in several ways. First of all, the famous patent of Nov. 30th, 1858 listed on the jar is for a shoulder seal - i.e., a standard fruit jar zinc lid. The jar itself, however, has a ring which holds down a glass lid so doesn't have much to do with the patent date at all. Secondly, jar was made by the Ball Corporation probably prior to 1900. While Ball was eventually one of the most prolific of fruit jar manufacturers, ones prior to 1900 in unusual colors are pretty rare. Finally, instead of being a normal amber, this jar is kind of halfway between a citron and an amber with quite a bit of green in it.

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This jar has an unusual closure not duplicated on any other jar that I'm aware of. It's kind of hard to read the embossing in the image because there's a large script "K" on the back of the jar which interferes. It's "The Chief" and it's original closure has a stiff wire soldered to the bottom of a tin lid. The wire fit into the jar under some ramps formed internal to the neck. Turning the lid then forced this wire down the ramp pulling the lid onto the jar. This jar is a half gallon. A quart sold recently in a Heckler auction for a little over $1000.

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I have a particular fondness for old jars with lots of embossing on them and this jar falls into that category. It reads "A. Stone & Co./Philada/Manufactured by/Cunninghams & Co./Philadelphia,PA". It's got a really nice blue color to it. Not quite enough to call cornflower, but definitely different from your run of the mill aqua.

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This jar combines elements from two other odd closures - the clamp and the "pickle pusher". The clamp is amply illustrated by other jars on this page. The "pickle pusher" is the familiar name collectors have given to a device built into some lids which looks like of like a cannon jam attached to the underside of the lid. It's purpose was to combat the problems which arise when fruit sits above the syrup levels and dries out as a result. It does this by pushing the fruit lower into the jar. This device is only used on a few jars that I can think of and the combination pickle pusher/clamp is unique to the Gregory's Patent jars as far as I know. Another cool variation on this jar has "The Common Sense Jar" embossed on the back.

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This is a straight sided Potter & Bodine's Airtight jar. While the barrel form of this jar is a little more decorative, it's actually significantly more common so this jar is worth a bit more. The cool feature of this particular jar is the tin lid on the top. I've never seen one before owning this jar, but the people who know have described what an original lid for this jar should look like and this one fits the bill precisely. Most wax sealer lids like this were lost over the years since they were cheap and had nothing to hold them onto the jar. Somehow this one survived the years though.

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Yet another Kerr jar, this is a really killer closure. I've wanted this jar for as long as I can remember. I can't imagine a civil war housekeeper trying to handle boiling fruit in this jar and simultaneously trying to tighten down the three thumbscrews around the lid. There is only one complete closure for this jar and sadly, I don't have it - this is a repro closure. Still, it's a pretty damn good repro and really completes this jar.

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This is a great jar that is highly desireable in the jar community. It was made by the Ravenna Glass works in Ravenna, OH. It has the characteristic dark blue of jars made in that area and is a very early jar with an iron pontil on the bottom. It appears as though the glass makers broke the jar off the mold at the inner portion of the wax seal channel and didn't bother to grind it down leaving a very rough and jagged lip. This is common in the Ravenna jars.The ravenna barrel (at least in pint size) is a little more straight sided than the other barrel wax sealers such as the Potter & Bodine Airtight (see below).

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Another incredibly rare jar - there are only four of these cobalt Millville jars, two of which are in museums. While aqua jars of this sort are fairly common, the cobalts and ambers are some of the rarest jars collected today. The full text on the front reads "Millville Atmospheric Fruit Jar". The Millville has the clamp closure which was relatively common around 1860 - the Hamilton I list below also has a clamp closure. The cobalt blue is a rare color for any jar and I've been very lucky to obtain this jar from the collection of Alex Kerr.

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The slightly more common (*only* slightly) amber version of the Millville Atmospheric jar in a half gallon (as I believe all amber Millvilles are - there are only six or so).

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This jar is a rare pint sized version of the Potter & Bodine Airtight barrel. This is similar in shape and conception to the Ravenna shown above and shares the barrel motif with a few other jars. There's a more modern Cohansey example for instance. This is the second one of these I own. The first came from a local antique dealer who gave me a call and told me that he had "some kind of jar - pouter and bodin or something like that". I was pretty excited at this news. These jars come in several sizes so I asked him about that. "Pint" was the reply. I was really excited and rushed over. Unfortunately the jar was badly damaged and clouded. I bought it from him for a fair price since I didn't have any examples at the time. Eventually I bought this mint example from my friend, Jim Degrado, but I've still got that battered version sitting around since it was such an exciting find for me. I've also got versions of this in the half gallon and the somewhat rarer quart and a half size with a beautiful iron pontil on the bottom - one of my favorites but sadly, with a small crack in the channel.

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This jar has had some rough times or, as somebody on Ebay calls them, a "wounded warrior". It's got a few chips on the lip and worst of all, a half inch crack in the shoulder. Nonetheless, I love the color so much on it that I had to keep it around. It's an FCG wax sealer similar to the cobalt example I have elsewhere on this page but in an absolutely beautiful smokey olive amber color that's about as deep as I've ever seen on a wax sealer. I would *love* to find a mint example in this color but nothing has turned up so far. Sigh.

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This is one of the later jars in my collection, dating to probably 1910 or so. It's a Ball Mason and I had to include at least one Ball jar. Ball is undoubtedly the most prolific jar maker in the world (although I believe that jars only form a small part of their business today). Most of their jars are very common, rarely exceeding $10 in price. The current jar would be included in that price range but for the color which is a deep olive with amber streaks. There are other Ball jars which fetch very high prices (an amber BBGM Co jar recently fetched thousands in a Norman Heckler auction) and there are many collectors out there who specialize in Ball jars proving once again that you don't have to collect expensive jars to have a great collection and a great time collecting. This jar came from one of the foremost of these Ball specialists, Bob Clay.

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This is an amber Dandy which, although rare, is not normally an incredibly difficult jar to obtain. Nonetheless, I waited around for years before I found one of these for sale since this is a pint. I'm trying to get a set of amber lightnings, globes, safetys, leaders and dandys (the more common amber jars). This completes my set for Dandys. I only need half gallon Safety and Leader and quart Safety now. These shouldn't be difficult to obtain. Once again, Alex Kerr pretty much had at least one example of everything - this came from his collection. Interestingly, the lid on this jar is almost a citron rather than the amber of the jar itself. Now a citron Dandy in pint - that would really be something! Wonder if any exist? Hmmm...

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This cobalt Canton Domestic jar is one of the most killer colors that I think occurs in jars. It's so dark that it appears almost black without a light behind it and almost purple with a light behind it. One came up on Ebay recently that was drug out of a closet where it had sat for several years - the owner had no idea what a valuable property it was. Wow! This is another jar from the late Alex Kerr's incredible collection.

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  The Belle jar is particularly notable for it's three "feet" which are plainly visible in the full size picture. Supposedly the feet kept the glass from shattering on contact with a colder surface while canning. This particular jar is in great condition but has a repro closure on it. The original closures are pretty tough but I'll keep looking. Appropriately enough, I got this in a collection from a guy in South Carolina.

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This is a cobalt blue FCG Co wax sealer. "FCG Co" is embossed on the jar base and stands for Fall City Glass Company. I believe that the Fall City in question is near Louisville, KY (thanks Greg Spurgeon for pointing this out). Wax Sealers were common from the 1850s until the turn of the century. The lip of the jar has a channel built into it. The corresponding metal lid has a sort of "skirt" around the edge which fit into the channel. Sealing wax was poured into the channel to keep the lid in place. The effort to remove that wax by somewhat less than fastidious homemakers often left unsightly chips on the channels of these jars. Fortunately, this particular jar made it through mostly unscathed although there are a couple of minor nicks in the channel. The FCG jars were one of the most common wax sealers and came in a variety of beautiful colors. Cobalt blue is probably the most desireable and is an incredibly rare color for most jars.

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This is another blue wax sealer like the previous one. This is a more steely sapphire blue rather than the straight cobalt of the FCG (although many collectors would probably refer to this as light or medium cobalt). Originally these jars were embossed with a script L & W on the sides for "Lorenz & Wightman". Eventually, it was just Wightman by himself and the "L &" portion of the embossing was chipped out of molds. Although it doesn't really show up in the photo, this process leaves a faint impression of the original embossing in what jar and bottle collectors refer to as "ghosting". I have some further examples of ghosting below.

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This is another rare pint - in this case a pint Gilberd's jar. This is a second example of a jar with a closure which extends around the entire body of the jar. The quarts for this jar are rare but not impossible to find. The pints are extremely rare.

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Petal jars were one of the earliest form of glass canning jars. They were sealed with a large cork with sealing wax poured around the side. Most of them were made in the 1850s and many have an iron pontil on their base (as this one does). The iron pontil was left when the glassmaker broke the jar away from the iron rod he used to hold the jar with during its creation. In general, only the earliest jars (generally from the 1850s to perhaps 1865) have pontil marks. Again, the cobalt color of the petal jar is incredibly rare. There are only a handful of these jars around. I believe that this one is notable for it's relatively deep coloration.

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Crowleytown masons aren't particularly aesthetically beautiful but they hold a special place in the hearts of collectors. These are the early forerunners of the modern mason jar. The embossing reads "Mason's Patent Nov. 30th, 1858". This is probably the most common embossing on any jar and though the patent date was in 1858, these jars were made well into the 20th century. The crowleytowns were the first of these jars. They have a distinctive shape with relatively square sides, a wide flat shoulder and very flat bottoms. The original lids had no glass lining (as became popular later) and sometimes had "lugs" extending vertically from the lid to give the canner something to put a wrench into so that the lids would come off easier (you can see the lugs in the large image). Shortly after jars took on a much more standardized "bullet" shape tapering up to narrower shoulders and zinc lids with glass inserts (see my teal mason below for an example). This standardization held for fifty or sixty years and the zinc lids of 140 years ago can still be used on modern canning jars today.

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Leader jars have a patent date on (some of) their lids of 1892 and were probably produced up til the turn of the century. These jars normally come in aqua, clear and amber and are relatively easy to obtain in those colors. In general, anybody who wants one can generally purchase one from John Hathaway (see my "Maine Idea" link) any day they like. Of course, easily obtainable for a jar collector does not mean common - I've never seen a Leader jar outside of other collections. The citron or yellowish green color of the jar here is another matter. This is an extremely rare color for this jar and this is the only one I've ever seen (although certainly others exist). This jar came from the collection of Alex Kerr, a California collector with a legendary reputation and even more legendary collection.

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There are several wholly unrelated jars which share the "Empire" name. The one I'm picturing here is probably the rarest of the lot. Interestingly enough, the point to focus on here is the stopple, not the jar. The stopple is worth approximately three times what the jar is worth. While the jar is not common, it's not incredibly rare. There are only a few known original stopples around and this is one of them. It's in pretty good condition too with some of the black paint still adhering, the original gutta percha insert and readable embossing. This particular Empire jar is notable for an error and some ghosted text on back. Often jarmakers would take over old molds and for the sake of economy, chip out the old names on the molds and chip in a new name. The place where the old names appeared can often be seen on the jar (sometimes you can even make out the text) and this is known as ghosted lettering. Normally it raises the price of the jar to have some ghosted lettering on it since this gives the jar a bit more "history". The Empire I have has "Keystone" ghosted out on the back and the middle bar of the last "E" of "Empire" is missing (although my photographic skills don't make this apparent in the images). This jar came from another legendary collector, Don Burkett.

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This is a stunningly gorgeous forest green quart mason. This jar shares many traits with other masons of similar color - enough to be pretty sure that they were all made by the same company. They all have smooth lips (relatively rare for masons - most have ground lips - those with smooth lips were machine made, typically after 1900), they all have very thin small lettering, they all have dots on the base, the half gallons have a characteristic "beehive" shape, etc.. Who made them and whether they were intentional or a mistake is a mystery (at least it is to me!). Interestingly enough, these jars seem to be rarer in the quart size than in the half gallon which is the reverse of the normal situation. This particular jar is a quart and has hundreds of beautiful pinhead sized bubbles running throughout the glass. The swirled amber mason below shares similar traits and was probably also made by the same company - I would assume under similar circumstances.

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I've already gone into some detail about petal jars above with the cobalt example. This is a similar jar, again with an iron pontil on the base. This jar is in a deep forest green. If there's not some light behind it, it appears black. It's incredibly thick and gloppy where the cobalt one is much thinner. I've jokingly told people I don't think you could break this jar with a hammer (although I'll probably never actually test this theory out). The half gallon petal jars are much rarer than the quarts and are pretty nice jars in the forest green (which, although expensive and beautiful, is not that incredibly rare in quart petals).

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While I concentrate on early American fruit jars there are many fruit jars from elsewhere which are just as interesting. Most notably in this regard are Canadian and Australian jars. The Hamilton, shown here, is one of the earliest Canadian jars (ca 1860-1870). It has an interesting clamp closure which was fairly popular back in the 1860s. Many other jars from the same period share this interesting closure. The Hamilton came in four sizes which, unlike most jars, were plainly marked on the jars - Hamilton Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4. This one is a Hamilton No. 3 jar which is a little shy of a half gallon. It is particularly notable for it's deep color. You can see the distinction between the lid (a plain aqua lid) and the jar in the larger image. I'm not sure whether to call this a deep aqua or a light teal. It's definitely a distinctive and beautiful color.

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Another jar from the legendary Alex Kerr. This one reads simply "H & S/Phila" on the front. Like the Empire, the closure is everything in this jar. It's easy to see why such a jar never became popular - the design called for a bar across the top of the jar - precisely where you want to pack your food into. This is probably one of the most contrived and unusable excuses for a closure on a jar I've seen - which is why, of course, it's so incredibly rare and sought after. I'm incredibly happy to have this jar.

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This is the extremely rare pint version of the previous jar.

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This is yet another H&S jar (I do love that closure!). This one has the H&S in fancy script on the front of the jar and is nicely whittled but more interesting is the closure which is unlike the normal H&S closure - this one is much flatter and represents the only example I've ever seen of an H&S closure like this.

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Oops! I may have spoke too soon in naming the H&S closure the most inane. I think the Squire four post closure gives it a run for its money. The idea here is that the canner was expected to carefully thread a rubber band (yes, a plain rubber band - they made them back in 1860) between the four posts on the lid and the four protruding lugs on the jar. I've done this a few times now and as awkward as it sounds, its actually more awkward in practice. Not only that, but Squire jars were usually made of fairly thin glass which made it extremely easy to accidentally knock off a lug and consequently mint Squire jars like this one are very hard to come by. Another sigificant point about the squire jars is the feet, similar to the Belle, but not nearly as big and much more delicate - another place many Squire jars ended up with broken. One last interesting point was the hole in the center of the lid which the canner was supposed to leave uncorked during the heating and then cork up while the jars cooled to ensure a vacuum.

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While I've collected for about 25 years, I took a hiatus during college and thereafter lasting about 10 years. This "Ladies Favorite" was one of the first expensive "post-hiatus" jars I bought when I got back into the hobby. I'm *really* glad I did (thanks Doug Leybourne for some fatherly advice in this matter). It's always been one of my favorites and is (I believe) the earliest figural jar. "Figural" just refers to the fact that it has an actual image on it. And what better image could you ask for than a hoop skirted, bustled ca 1860 woman holding up what apparently is another "Ladies Favorite" in her hand (I love the self reference here) and apparently ecstatic at the change in lifestyle it's made for her. Probably lightened her load from here usual 14 hours/day to a more manageable 13. As if that weren't enough, they've got "Wm. L Haller/Carlisle, Pa" in fancy script on the other side of the jar (incidentally, this Wm. L Haller is the "H" in the "H & S" jar above). Add in a really nice (and rare) Willoughby stopple with the original rubber and a mint jar with a lot of whittling and you've got an incredible example of one of the rarest and earliest of the American fruit jars.

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This is another favorite of mine. It has to be one of the most heavily embossed jars ever made. The moldmakers apparently worked with the motto in mind that no portion of the jar would remain unembossed. The full text on the jar reads "THE NE PLUS ULTRA AIR TIGHT FRUIT JAR/MADE BY BODINE & BROS., WMs TOWN, N.J./FOR THEIR PATENTED GLASS LID". This takes up three lines, each line completely encircling the jar and they switch to about four different fonts. Unfortunately this still left small patches of unembossed glass between the lines so the moldmakers filled them up with alternating rows of circular and square indentations. Jerry McCann (one of the premiere collectors in the country) tells me that he believes that these were in imitation of the preceding metal cans which were used before glass jars and had similar marks. Whatever the reason, they sure fill up the jar. The lid was a glass lid with a protruding knob to help in its removal which fit into the top of the jar with some sort of metal cage and (I assume) sealing wax over the whole thing (you can see the lid in the large photo - lid supplied by Al Vignon - thanks Al!). Anyway, this is a sparkling half gallon which I've been told was once owned by Frank Peters (another legend, now out of the hobby) and sold to me by the same Jerry McCann mentioned previously.

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This is another rare pint version of a previous jar.

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Many jars in the early days simply placed the patent date on the jar and left it at that. This "Patent Sep 18, 1860" is an example. It was made by the Hemingray company (who also made many of the popular collectible insulators) as were many other popular fruit jars. These jars were wax sealers similar to the cobalt FCG shown above, but instead of molding a wax channel into the lip, the glassmakers pushed the shoulder of the jar down while it was still hot forming the wax sealing channel. This is a much more primitive way of producing these jars which was abandoned as time went by. The "Pat sep 18, 1860" jars apparently come in a fairly wide spectrum of colors although I must admit, most of the ones I've seen were plain aqua. The one in the image is an exception and is a beautiful cornflower blue. I purchased this one in the 1976 national bottle & jar show and it's remained with me during my hiatus. Sure glad I held onto this one! This color is unlisted in the 1/2 gallon size.

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This jar, like the forest green mason listed above, is interesting solely because of it's color. It has a ground lip and I'm guessing (wildly) that it's ca 1880. The color is a dark teal. Very few jars of any sort were made in this color. Right now the only ones that come to mind are a few masons, a few Lightnings and some extremely early and rare jars. I know that there are a few more out there but only a few. I was lucky enough to pick this up at the 1976 national show and held onto it during my hiatus. This was definitely the best jar I carried over from my "earlier period". It has an incredibly tiny hard to see seed crack on the back which was probably there when they made the jar. In a jar of this rarity, such minor blemishes are pretty easy to tolerate.

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This is one of the most sought after aqua jars in all of fruit jar collecting. There are only six in existence. I believe that someone found a cache of seven Pogue jars. As you can guess, since there are only six left, one was dropped and shattered. One of them is colored cornflower blue but has had the bottom broken out and reglued back in. Mine is a quart as are all of them. The Pogue jar was a wax sealer a bit in the vein of the "Patent Sep 18, 1860" above in that the channel for it was formed by pressing down on the glass while it was still hot. Pogue, however, is much "boxier" and straightsided, similar to the early Crowleytown masons (listed above). These jars were made in South Jersey for Wm Pogue who canned and sold tomatoes in them, intending them to be used afterwards, as written on the back of the jar, "FOR PRESERVING FRUIT". This jar carries an iron pontil typical of jars from the late 1850s. In addition, quite honestly, there's just a kind of an aura associated with the Pogue in jar collecting which makes it a truly exceptional jar.

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This mason has amber striations throughout the body of the jar. Small splotches of amber and other colors are somewhat common in jars (although they usually demand a premium) but such striations throughout the body and in such a pronounced manner are rare in most jars. However, as mentioned above with regard to the forest green mason, this particular set of mason jars seems to have been made by one maker and while not common, are not one of a kind either. Again, in a reversal of the norm, the half gallon size seems (to me anyway) to be much more common than a quart - in fact I don't recall ever seeing a quart jar. In any event, the swirls are really lovely and these jars normally sell around $300 to $350 in the half gallon size shown here.

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The Reservoir jar holds a special place in my heart. When I was starting collecting I spent what amounted at the time to a *huge* amount of money ($80) on a jar called the G.E. Haller which is identical to the Reservoir with no embossing on the side (G.E. Haller is embossed on the stopper). I thought it was about the most amazing jar I had ever seen and dreamed of one day owning it's big brother, the Reservoir. Well, I've got one now and I love it. A common problem with canning is that food sometimes stays above the level of the liquid (called syrup) in the jar and dries out causing some pretty unsavory experiences at the dinner table. The idea of the Reservoir was to avoid this by using a hollow stopper and filling it full of syrup which would be pulled out through a hole at the bottom keeping the syrup level high and (hopefully) the dinners savory. It seems kind of unlikely to me that this ever worked terribly well in experience since I'm not sure how one was supposed to place the stopper on the jar without emptying the syrup out all over the kitchen floor. Still, the design survived somewhat well and was used on a couple of other jars as well. It runs in my memory that there exist tiny G.E. Haller jars which were given away filled with oysters at the 1876 national centennial celebration (the patent date on the Haller is 1873). I don't see any such thing listed so maybe this is just my wild imagination.

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The Van Vliet is another jar I had long lusted after before I eventually acquired one. This one is a half gallon with a repro closure. I also have a quart with an original closure. The interesting point about the Van Vliet is fairly obvious - it has a wire surrounding the body of the jar. Only one other jar shares this property with the Van Vliet - the Gilberds. Of the two, the Van Vliet is more desireable - probably because it has the additional thumbscrew whereas the Gilberds just as a stiff wire with a ramp on the lid which fastens the lid on. I especially like the half gallon Van Vliet for it's incredible taper. It has a shape that I don't think is really duplicated in any other jar. The full text of the jar is "THE VAN VLIET JAR OF 1881". I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess when these jars were made.

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I'm afraid I don't have an incredible amount of info on the Peerless. This one is aqua but there is also an amber version (which I've never seen but would *dearly* love to see/own). It has a patent date of 1863 on the lid so was probably used during the civil war period. Peerless jars aren't that hard to come by although ones with undamaged lids and original yokes are kind of scarce. The closure is unique as far as I know and kind of awkward to manipulate because you're really screwing "up" into the yoke rather than down onto the jar (notice the threaded post projecting into the yoke in the picture). Simultaneously you have to be holding the yoke steady so it catches under the lip of the jar. Not really a great closure for the canner, but a nice find for a collector. It's hard to guess what caused people to come up with such harebrained ideas except the possibility that somehow such a thing might catch hold in spite of its shortcomings and make the inventor rich. It would appear that just about every possible way to close a jar was eventually tried by somebody with such dreams.

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The Whitmore is another jar without a tremendous amount of history to back it up (that I'm aware of). The full text on the jar reads "WHITMORE'S/PATENT/ROCHESTER/NY". It has a patent date of Jan 14, 1868 embossed on the lid and so dates back a good 130 years or so. Original wires are very difficult to come by for this jar because they didn't stay attached to the jar when loose. When tight they fit into a couple of ears on the side of the jar. Although it looks perfectly original to me, I was told by the seller that the wire on this one is a repro so I guess it must be. Sigh. One final note about this jar is that it has a compass and ruler embossed on the bottom, the sign of the Masons. I'm not really sure why and never had it explained to me.

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Mason jars have two basic forms of pints. The normal or "straight sided" pint is essentiall a perfect cylinder with very straight sides which is markedly different in shape from the tapering quarts and half gallons. The second form is the "midget" - so called because the pints look like "midget" versions of the quart and half gallons, complete with tapering sides. Of the two, midgets are much more rare. Odd colored midgets are extremely rare and fetch high prices. In a recent auction a green midget brought an unheard of $5500. Personally, I find this incredibly steep for that particular jar, but it shows the lengths some people will go to to get a colored midget. The jar pictured here is a honey amber midget. Several of these were sold out of a set recently, but they've maintained their high prices throughout, again testifying to the popularity of these "little" jars. The small "lug" you see on the side of the lid was pretty common on the early mason lids and was used to engage a sort of fruit jar "wrench" used for unscrewing the lid.

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Amber magic jars have always held a special fascination for me also. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps because one of my jar collecting buddies back in the 70s owned one and I was able to pine over it for long periods of time. Whatever the reason, I love the one I own now. Normally the amber Magics come in a sort of light amber. Much rarer is the so called "black amber" magics which are so dark they are really difficult to look through. Even when you manage to locate a black amber Magic jar the lid is often still light amber. I'm lucky to own one that's incredibly deep black amber through and through. It has to be held to a pretty strong light to see through it. The rarity of this jar (even in aqua) coupled with it's odd closure make it a highly desireable jar. Plus, I just like to say "Black Magic Jar". Makes me sound like I'm into voodoo or something.

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Most people my age and up have seen jars with a "lightning closure" although they probably called it a "bail" closure. The term "lightning" for this particularly successful closure came from the earliest jars to use them - the lightnings. Lightning jars come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Aqua is very common and doesn't draw much in terms of price. Amber, apple green and citron green are next most common with the amber quarts running $50-60 up to the citrons running $300. There are many exotically colored lightnings also - cobalt blue, teal blue, bright yellow green and the deep olive shown here. I happen to have (mostly by happenstance) a series of colored lightnings and thought this olive would round it out. I'm exceptionally thrilled to own this jar, one of the extreme examples of one of the most famous jars of all time.

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Okay, okay - I said that Pogue was a really nice jar - that's true but this is a *REALLY* nice jar. This is an amber Airtight Fruit Jar and like many of my nicest jars, comes from the collection of Alex Kerr. It simply reads "Airtight Fruit Jar" between the staves and has a nice iron pontil on the bottom. I think it was made by the Ravenna Glass Works. This jar is considered extremely nice in aqua and the amber versions such as this one are incredible. As far as I know, there are only three of these jars around. Interestingly enough, in spite of the Red Book's claim that this channel is formed like most of the Potter & Bodine wax channels by pushing down on the lip while the glass was still hot, it just aint so on this jar. It has what was obviously a channel that was applied after the main body of the jar was made. This corresponds with the other Ravenna wax sealers.

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This one is hard to make out much detail on - that's because it's a rare example of a black glass mason. In rare cases, jar makers made their jars in black (actually a very, very deep olive amber). This mason (with HGCo for "Hemingray Glass Co" on the rear) is one of those rare cases. Black glass was a relatively common color for wine and spirit bottles before the 1850s or so. It was much less popular afterwards which, I suppose, accounts for the scarcity of these jars. As far as why they were made, I assume that jarmakers felt like if amber were good, black glass was better. Whatever the reason, they make extremely rare and desirable collectibles in our time.

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This jar definitely falls under the heading of "unusual closures". Unfortunately for me, this particular example doesn't fall under the heading of "original closures", but this repro closure is almost a work of art in itself. I think it's easy enough to see how the closure works - a bar was passed under an eyelet attached to a ring around the neck of the jar, passed over a round cap and under another eyelet attached to the other side of the jar. The jar itself reads "Websters/Patent February 18, 1864" and probably dates back to about that time.