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Catching time in a jar
Rosemary Noel collects glassware of all types. Her passion is canning jars. Often called simply 'fruit' jars, the history of canning jars reflects the nation's technological growth in food preservation.
Noel has lived in Vernon County for 46 years. Her husband was born here.
"We lived in Louisiana and Mississippi where he worked for international Harvester Company before moving back here," Noel said.
"We have three children. I taught at Bronaugh school four years; and at the Sheldon school, nine, where I became the school principal. I was principal at Independence, Kan., for six years. I then got my doctorate in education administration, in Iowa. I worked 10 years in Paola, Kan., as elementary principal, then retired in 2002." She has been collecting jars since 1975.
"I found a yellow jar and other old fruit jars that had belonged to my mother-in-law in the basement. The yellow jar just fascinated me. I found books showing jar labels and became interested in the history of glass making and jar making. I started going to auctions and it took off from there." Noel chuckled.
She found that jars can be cataloged by label, color, size, shape, etc. "Most are American made, but the Beaver jars were made in Canada." Noel explained.
"Labels are fun, but don't necessarily mean much. The Mason label was used long after the patent ran out in 1870. Mason, Mason Cross, Ball Perfect Mason, were all just labels." The Mason label was so often used that many people use the word "Mason" to define any canning jar.
Mason originally made jars for kerosene. When he started making canning jars his patent was a jar that could take a zinc lid and rubber seal. "He found if the jar was sterile and the food was hot enough, then bacteria wouldn't grow," Noel said.
"I'll have blue jars, green, aqua and amber jars to show at the presentation," she said.
While some jars are really expensive, copies and reproductions aren't very valuable on today's collectors' market.
She will discuss things to look for to distinguish reproductions from real antiques.
Fruit jars are made in molds, not blown like some glassware. Coloring, waves in the glass and other variations occur during the molding process and those differences can help date jars.
"There are all kinds of ways to identify the age of bottles," Noel explained.
"Some early jars have rough tops because they are hand ground. Jars can be dated by the type of lip a bottle has or the position of the rubber seal. Early Mason jars were sealed on the jar's shoulders and later Ball jars were sealed on an extra lip," she said.
Some other identifiers for jars are numbers on the bottom, writing on the back, differences in how the name on the front of the jar is written, some have extra curls on the names, etc. The shape of the bottle and the way the lid fastens are important items to date and identify the jars.
"It's just a challenge and a lot of fun." She pointed out that sometimes jars would get what appear to be wavy lines in them during processing; just another eccentricity of the old molding systems used before the 1920s. "The wavy lines means they cooled too fast," she explained.
Color is an important identifier as well. "Most jars people call 'blue' are actually aqua," Noel explained. "Real blue jars are more a powder blue color. Around 1900, the colors would vary because each batch of glass would be unique. A guy would just throw some coloring into the vat and the measurements were not very uniform." Since the 1920s, the jar coloring, shape and utility have been pretty standardized.
Noel said jars were made in Coffeeville, Kan., around starting in 1903. By 1905 the Ball Glass Company, Inc. in Muncie, Ind., bought out most of jar producers and held the monopoly for most of the 20th century on jar making.
"There were others though, including some local jar makers around this area that makes the history even more fascinating to me," she said. "There was the Kerr McGee Company in Oklahoma that started in 1905." She said that Mason jars can be worth $5 to $4,000, depending on the collector's interest. "Some collect just product jars, like coffee or Crisco jars. Some only collect a particular label. Matching the jar with the correct lid is another challenge," she added. "There are wire attaching lids, zinc lids with glass and zinc lids with detachable glass inserts, glass and frame lids and bottles. Some have actual holes in the glass for the wire closures to attach, too."
She has other glass objects she's proud of, such as a Good Housekeeping glass rolling pin from the 1930s and a glass water pitcher from before World War I.
"You can date the water pitcher by it's color," she explained. "Manganese was used in making the jars before the first world war. Manganese would make the glass turn purple in the sun. Manganese was needed for the war effort, so they stopped putting it in the jars. I like bottles and jars, but I've gotten very involved in the history of and collecting of fruit jars and the history of how food was preserved." Noel feels canning was at its most popular from the 1920s through the 1960s, before freezing foods became easier.
"Canning jars tie me to my grandmothers," she said. "I think how carefully they had to do their work in order for their family to be healthy. How they had to garden and plan to put food away to feed their families through the winter. They couldn't just run to the store for canned goods. I like speaking with other jar collectors and welcome calls about them," she said.
Noel will be appearing at the Tri-County Genealogy Society meeting May 10 in the meeting room of the Nevada public library at 10 a.m.
For more information, call Noel at (417) 922-3505.