Antique–and Not So Antique–Canning Jars

Those who collect canning jars, and even those who don’t will often find a jar at the local flea market, which has the embossing on it, proclaiming it 1858.. and be thrilled with their find.

Likewise, we’ve seen literally dozens of fruit jars for sale at yard sales which bear that embossing, that are absolutely more modern than this be highly overpriced because someone thinks they have something special.. In reality they may, but its just as likely that they don’t.

Manufacturers in America produced glass jars using the 1858 embossment  as lately as 1920, which is still, in reality, quite old, but its not 150 years old.

Historians who have studied these think that Crowleytown’s Atlantic Glass Works,which was locted in New Jersey made the first of this incredibly lengthy series of mason jars.

According to the experts, there are multiple ways to date your antique bottle or jar.
Quite possibly the best way to do so is finding… or not finding.. a pontil scar.
A pontil scar is a noticable ring of glass or a black and red sort of an indentation that will tell you that a glassblower held your jar on a rod while it was hot, while the neck of the jar was placed on it and hand finished. Usually jars or bottles with pontil scars were made before 1855, although that isn’t a hard and fast rule.

Another method to determine the age of a jar is checking out the mold seams on it. Some of the earlier bottles and jars were blown without a mold, and won’t have one, while those with a mold seam that goes just to the lip will tell you that  your bottle was blown into a mold and then was completed by hand, meaning that a top or neck was added.

Jars that were made by machine, which is usually most of them made after 1915, will have a mold seam that goes all the way up to the top.
Some of the very avidly produced reproductions of fruit jars were those made in 1858.
The mid seventies saw multiple and avid attempts to forge those jars with some of the production taking place in Kentucky or Tennessee reportedly.

Much of the time, the collector would note immediately that there was something wrong, with either color, ground off tops or some other anomaly.
 Some of these you can know by the mold number which is often  851 on the base of your item.
The forgeries were made in multiple colors including cobalt blue, green, black and even olive green.
NOt all of them of course will have the 851 number.
The forgeries have some very bright colors and the glass has a unique shine to it. that will tell you its not an original, but in spite of that, some of these forgeries are selling quite well and you may see a few of them getting prices like 50-75 dollars, amazingly enough..primarily, perhaps because of the colors.

A great book on the subject of canning jars is available on Amazon and you can even find them used for keeping the price lower.

Alice M. Creswick. The Fruit Jar Works. Volumes I and II. D.M. Leybourne, publisher.  Not a price guide.  P.O. Box 5417, North Muskegon, MI 49445.