Canning Jars

[barleychown]

My step-mother gave me a whole car load of canning jars that were used by her, her mom, and her mom's mom. 

Going through them tonight, I've found a bunch I can identify as OLD, but then I came across a box that seem old old, yet have no brand names on them, really no markings at all.

My question is, does anyone know if they ever made canning jars with no name on them at all?

[Jim]

Here is an excerpt from a great article on jars:

Dating jars.

There are several ways to date an antique jar or bottle. Probably the most important is the presence or absence of a pontil scar. The pontil scar - a ring of glass or a black and red iron-like indention on the base of a bottle or jar - indicates that a glassblower held the item on a pontil rod (when the glass was hot) while the neck and/or lip was shaped and finished by hand. Typically, American pontil scarred bottles predate 1855 or so.

Another age determiner is the presence of mold seams. Many of the earliest bottles or jars were freeblown (that is, blown without the aid of a mold) therefore have no mold seam. Seams which stop short of the lip indicate that the bottle was blown into a mold then finished by hand by adding a top or tooling the lip into shape. Machine-made jars (dating after about 1915) have mold seams extending from the bottom up to and across the top of the jar.

Another way to tell the general age of a jar is to examine it from top to bottom. Is the top smooth to the touch or is it rough and ground off? Look at the base of your jar. If the base of your jar has a round ring in it and the lip is smooth, your jar was probably machine made sometime after the turn of the century but probably before the 1930s. If the jar has a large, rough and jagged ring on its base, it was probably made between 1900 and 1930 when the Owens machine was in popular use. Machine-made jars after the 1930s have a more modern look and frequently have small scars on the bottom indicating they were made on more modern, sophisticated machines.

Most jars with rough ground tops were made before 1900. The ground lip resulted when the glassmaker ground the top to eliminate the "blow-over." The blow-over was a gob of glass at the top of a jar that the glassblower used to attach a blow pipe when the jar was blown by hand into a mold. The blow-overs were removed and the top was then ground flat.

The entire article can be read here:  A Primer On Fruit Jars

[barleychown]

Now that is too cool! Thanks Jim. 

[landofoz]

Well, how old are your jars, Sarah?  I'm just itching to know.

[sunsoaker]

Me too.. so how old are they Sarah??

[barleychown]

Seems I have one that dates to the 1920's and 1930's, several that date to the 1940's, and a bunch that date from there to the 1970's.

The ones from 1940-1970's I plan to keep using, but not pressure can with them.

I still have one I'm not sure about...I'm still soaking many years worth of grime off it.

I just love the fact that I know where these jars have been, and who's hands have used them through the years. It makes for a really neat family tie.

[sunsoaker]

That is so cool Sarah..  I have bunch of crystal-ware I didn't know I had until I moved here. It was a box I got and never opened when my father died. It was like Christmas when I opened it. Lots of good lead crystal and silver that's been in the family for years. I remember seeing/using it when I was a little kid. It's great to get finds like that, and knowing its been part of the family forever makes it even better!