I have a lot of old, vintage canning jars. I love the history they carry as well as their charm and character. While it is okay to use them for storage or even as a refrigerator container, you should never process old jars in a canner. Plus, the old fashioned sealing method is not reliable. But vintage jars are great on your pantry shelf to hold grain, etc. If you have a Ball jar, you can date most of them just by looking at the logo. Every few years, the Ball Manufacturing Co changed the logo and if you compare yours to a reliable chart, you know how old it is. All you need is a chart like the one below. At one point, I found what claimed to be the original source and linked to it here. But in the last 6 months or so, that site went down and never came back.

How to Date Ball Mason Jars: 9 Ways the Jar Will Tell You

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Ball produced their original line of “Perfect Mason” and “Perfection” Mason jars in , and These are new jars, in their “Heritage Series” that were.

No, not at a movie on Saturday night. Not that kind of date. Instead, I mean how do you tell how old your Ball jar is? One of the most common emails I receive comes with a description of a jar—e. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks you can use to determine an approximate age for your jar. First check the logo, which changed fairly frequently until about Rejoice if you find one of those; Buffalo jars are pretty rare.

They were first made in Buffalo in and for several years after. But, you say, how can the date be correct, since you have a jar embossed with a patent date of That was the date when John Mason received his patent for the threaded screw-type closure, and it appears on many different brands of jars. How about that big number on the bottom of many jars?

Does that help date the jar? Again, the answer is unfortunately, no. These are called mold numbers.

how to date your ball jar

Determining values see more on ideas with a canner. See more on ebay for canning jars parallels the year. Grouping of ball fruit jars, and diy projects. Oct 7, mold codes, you find single woman in manufacturing their early canning jar. Instead, ball canning jars. San francisco the.

There are the short history of its mason jar lot of them just by a recognizable name or the. Look at the ball jars in and vintage ball ideal half pint jar was.

Glass Company. Ball Bros was based in Muncie, Indiana. Glass jars with this embossed marking was the most popular jar for home canning ever produced in the United States. Hundreds of millions probably upwards of a billion or more! The very first versions with this embossing are believed to date from approximately , with production continuing to about Hundreds of slight variations in lettering font, glass color, base markings, etc.

Typically, they were made in half pint, pint, quart, and half-gallon sizes. Most of the earlier versions were round cylindrical in shape, and some of the later types are square with rounded corners in design. Each mold was hand-cut hand-engraved with the lettering incised backward into the inside surface of the mold, which of course resulted in the embossing raised lettering which is seen on the surface of the jar.

Thus, the single digit numbered jars are more commonly found. It may take a while before exact duplicates are found — that is, finding two jars that were made from one individual, specific mold.

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Remember when the mason jar was actually a breakthrough in the American way of life? How the revolutionary new threaded lid offered an alternative to pickling, drying and smoking as ways to preserve our precious aliments? Yes, the mason jar certainly harkens back to a simpler time, before refrigerators and artificial preservatives, and now that we take those things for granted, canning has become something of a throwback jam cue snare —the vessel once dedicated to keeping and storing foodstuffs is now commonly used as a drinking glass or decorative object.

How to date a vintage ball jar, including a chart with the different on dating fruit jars if you would like to find out more about an old jar you may.

This handcrafted mason jar chandelier ceiling light features a trio of clear, quart-size, vintage mason jars with all their own history. The authenticity of each mason jar pendant shows its wire-bale and trademark raised lettering. This is a great way to save space if youre limited on your countertop area!!! If youre limited on the space you have in your kitchen but want a cute functional way to store all your utensils, this is a perfect way.

Mason jars have come a long way since they were first invented. If you happen to have any old antique mason jars lying in your cupboards, they could be worth some big cash. Cleaning Antique Glass Jars Mason Jars : In this easy Instructable, I will show you how to clean the mud and crud off of antique and not so antique jars. No fancy chemicals or detergents and barely any elbow grease! History of Canning.

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The Collector’s Ultimate Guide to Canning Jars

And if you bring home some fruit or vegetables and want to can, freeze, make jam, salsa or pickles, see this page for simple, reliable, illustrated canning, freezing or preserving directions. There are plenty of other related resources, click on the resources dropdown above. If you have questions or feedback, please let me know! There are affiliate links on this page. Read our disclosure policy to learn more.

How to Date Ball Mason Jars: 9 Ways the Jar Will Tell You. Jar of the square jars were made guide in the ‘s. Blue modern made jars are a rounded square shape.

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. Ball is one of the most recognized names in home canning. In the early s, there were hundreds of brands of Mason jars, but only a few stood the test of time. Ironically, while it’s one of the more iconic products of all time, few people know the history behind the ageless invention.

In , Ball Corporation began manufacturing glass home-canning jars, the product that established Ball as a household name and licensed Mason’s design.

History of the Home Canning Jar and Collecting Antique Mason, Ball and Kerr Jars

Here is a way to date your Ball jars fairly closely by looking only at how the Ball name is embossed on the jar. Before we get into the Ball jars, here’s just a note concerning “Pontil Marks”. I see a lot of jars listed on ebay incorrectly with pontil marks. NO jars were ever made that had pontil marks. The approximately 1″ circular mark seen on the bases of some early Ball jars indicates machine manufacture and is a VALVE mark, which let air trapped between the mould and jar to escape during production.

how to date your ball jar. In , the five Ball brothers used a $ loan from their uncle to start a business manufacturing tin cans for products such as paint.

I have always liked glassware, usually various colors and shapes and have taken to collecting odd vases and jars through the years. A few years ago, my grandparents gifted me a few of their old Mason Ball jars they had stored in the basement. They have been in my kitchen now for over a decade and who knows how long they were in my grandparents canning room so I thought today was the day that I scour the internets trying to find some backstory on this wonderful piece of history. This dates the second jar between These are averages but good enough for me.

Is this a defect? Was this a 7 or 2 skewed in the process? Who knows! Either way, I dusted them off, cleaned them up and now they reside back on my kitchen shelf where they belong.

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Everyone loves Mason jars. But how do you know? Luckily, there are experts out there who can tell you all about the different types of Mason jars that have appeared — and disappeared — through the ages. And what are Mason jars, anyway? The glass jars were created to form a hermetic seal, and were used for canning and jarring. The jars are also known as Ball jars, thanks to the Ball corporation that still manufactures the jars today, as well as fruit jars, or simply canning jars.

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Jar of the square jars were made guide in the ‘s. Blue modern made jars are a rounded square shape. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 5. Those gripper mason were first applied to jars in by Brockway, then Ball. They help you grip the jar. Not Helpful 7 Helpful. I have a half gallon aqua mason jar with Mason’s N Patent Nov 30th on it. Is this a rare jar?

Mason jar information video #1