Sunday, January 16, 2011

Living History

Yesterday a friend of the MiL's dropped off a bunch of old canning jars she had no use for. I, obviously, ALWAYS have a use for canning jars. Those tomatoes all need a nice home come September.

So she left about a dozen and a half jars, mostly quart jars, some pint jars. As I was putting them on a tray to take them down cellar, I saw that a couple of the pint jars had "Lamb Mason" on the side. Appropriate for us, no? Curious, I did a quick search online to see what those jars are.

Turns out, there's quite a passionate community of jar collectors online. I shouldn't be surprised. There are passionate collectors of every kind online. But from the websites for these jar people, I learned that those Lamb Mason jars were produced by the Lamb Glass Co. in Ohio between 1930 and 1945. They're kind of collectible. Not, like, $5,000 collectible, but not exactly common.

I also learned that jars labeled "Perfect Mason," of which we have several, were produced in the 1930s and 1940s. Which means that I use canning jars on a regular basis that are 70 or 80 years old.

That's just cool.

8 comments:

Tami Bami Wami said...

I just bet if you asked around you might be able to find jars even older than the ones you are using that are collectible. That ought to make some collectors jealous of you.

Anonymous said...

Have some of those Perfect Masons here also. Made those babies to last , they did. I am sure technology is better now, but those jars seem about twice as thick as the new ones.
Too bad it is such a throw away society today.Beth

word verficiation-resses

dresses with cut outs

Alicia said...

Very cool!

Anonymous said...

The oldest one I have that I am aware of is a Mason's patent Nov 30th, 1858. Makes ID easier when they put the date on like that. (Sorry, I can't remember what we were calling me when you indicated that you preferred not to see anonymous.) The word verification is missing only one letter from my given name, so there's that weirdness.

Drew @ How To Cook Like Your Grandmother said...

How 'bout that. I've got several Perfect Masons, had no idea they were so old.


Word verification: miscar -- What a bad demolition derby driver does.

sheila said...

now that's recycling

Daisy said...

That's very cool. If you ever use these for gifts, you could include the jars' history.

FinnyKnits said...

AND I'm sure they're of better quality than the shifty business Ball jars I've seen recently.

I had TWO go through the whole hot water process only to drop their bottoms on my kitchen floor when I had the gall to pick them up and head toward the cabinet with them for storage.

So rude. And such a waste. And you know I hate waste.

Too bad we don't have any heirloom canning jars around...