September 2006 Newsletter

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Upcoming Meeting - September 17 th 2006

2:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. at Cedarmere in Roslyn Harbor

Directions:

LIE or NS Parkway to Glen Cove Rd North. Several (5-6?) miles to very large intersection with Northern Blvd. (Rt 25A); make LEFT (west).  Go about 1 mile, then make a right just after church on right and just before Roslyn Viaduct. Signs should indicate Bryant Avenue. At bottom of exit ramp, make RIGHT onto Bryant Avenue, then proceed 1-2 miles until Cedarmere appears on left.  Parking lot, also on left, is not very well marked and comes up fairly suddenly just before the main building, which has a fairly large sign. If passed, use great care in turning around, as the road is curvy. Cedarmere (one word) is located at 225 Bryant Ave., Roslyn Harbor, just north of Northern Blvd. & the Roslyn Viaduct, on the east side of Hempstead Harbor. The telephone # is 516-571-8130.

Program - Mark Smith on Pontils

And now few words from the President (or chief bottle nut notes)

To start things off, I want to first and foremost thank George Fisher for obtaining for the club the Wantagh Public Library, where our June meeting was held. Thanks to George's efforts, the club added a new member at that meeting, and received several contacts for further information.

Our next meeting will be held on Sunday, September 17 th , between 2pm and 5pm at Cedarmere, which was the estate of William Cullen Bryant. I want to thank Gary Hammond for making the arrangements for the club to use this historic structure for our next meeting. I also would like to thank George Fisher for his help in answering some of my many questions. The directions and contact information have been provided to the club by both George Fisher, and Gary Hammond.

Ok, now that we know where we will be meeting, how about a little background on William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). Mr. Bryant was one of the United States leading poets in the 19 th Century, a member of the Bar of the State of Massachusetts, and he worked as the Editor of the New York Evening Post from 1829, until his death in 1878. As Editor of the New York Evening Post, which was a leading liberal and literate paper of its time, he was strongly anti-slavery, strongly supported Lincoln in his 1860 election campaign, was politically active in the Free Soil Party, and was one of the founders of today's Republican Party in his later years. In 1860 he founded the New York Medical College. Cedarmere was his country estate. His home in NYC was located on 15 th St. between 5 th and 6 th Aves. It is owned by Xavier High School today. In his honor, and for his memory, NYC in 1884 renamed Reservoir Square, located at 42 nd St. and 6 th Ave, as, wait for it, Bryant Park! There, now we know a little about William Cullen Bryant. See the neat stuff you can learn by belonging to the bottle club?

Now as this meeting is on the North Shore of Nassau County, how about this idea: Let's bring items from that area for exhibit and discussion. I am counting on our milk bottle and blob top collectors to come through for the club on this one! I am hoping that by having some "local" bottles, this will continue to encourage interest and membership in the club. After all, how many of us, I know that I did, begin in the bottle hobby with "locals"? I bet quite a few of us. Not sure if your bottle is from the Roslyn area, not to worry, bring it anyway! I plan to bring two new amber Brooklyn strap flasks that I added to my collection and a paper item from the Charles Graham Chemical Pottery Co. in Brooklyn. Oh, I almost forgot, and I have a strap flask from Glen Cove, so that will have to do for my Roslyn area bottle. Laura picked it up in a shop several years ago.

In terms of a program, perhaps I will do something on pontils. While it would not be very long, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes, it maybe of great interest to the new members and first time attendees, as I will attest, when I first became active in the hobby, trying to figure out what a pontil mark was, and was not, was perhaps the most confusing part of my first years in the hobby. While we have had in the recent past the great pleasure to have seen some of the top collectors in their respective areas talk to us, and show us examples from their personal collections, I do think it would also be of benefit to do something aimed for the less advanced among us, which may help to continue their interest and bottle education. People have asked me, in terms of pontil marks, about the valve scar on the bottom of milk bottles, the center post kickups on the base of strap flasks, and other non pontil but potentially confusing base marks. I do have examples of iron pontils, open pontils, sand pontils, and the new style chip pontil used on contemporary glass, along with plenty of examples of what is not a pontil for comparison by any who may wish to examine them.

Now for some bottle club stuff, first up, how is the club doing? So far, the club is doing pretty well. You may recall that the objective of moving the meetings around was to try and generate membership and interest in the club. Here are the results so far with two meetings under our belts. We have signed up new members at each meeting, people who until this time had not heard about the club, or had heard of it, but been unable to attend a meeting, and while this does not a trend make, I believe that it shows the idea at the least has potential. The club also has had stronger renewal of memberships than in years past, right now; our paid membership is at the highest level in at least 3 years.

Also, to be accurate, here is the list of everyone who I have a record of having paid their dues. If I have made an error, which is very likely, please contact me and let me know, thanks! Edward Derby, Gary Hammond, Helen Brandt, George Becker, Sandra Radtke, Don Weinhardt, Mark & Laura Smith, David Fortuna, Charlie Clark, Frank Bennet, Mary Leto, Joe Timko, Tom & Helen Kaler, George Fisher, Mitch Kramer, Andrew Foy, Bill Evans, Charles Parker, John Feldman, Jack Slootweg, David Fortuna, Gary & Maureen Guest, and Walter & Joan Depken. That is 23 paid members. Along with the increase in the clubs membership, I have seen an increase in the number of people who have contacted the club for information on the club or the hobby in general. I used to get one or maybe two contacts a year, however, since the January meeting in Sayville, the club has had 6 or 7 contacts, the most recent was referred to the club by none other than John Feldman, way to go John! A family in Amityville looking for Amityville area milk bottles! I can not emphasize enough the importance of getting new people into the hobby, new members are the life and the future of the hobby, and to see the increase in memberships, and information contacts, is a positive sign.

The club also has heard from a long lost member, Martin Kahan. I received an email from him a couple weeks ago, and after sending him newsletters via email, he told me that he would like to purchase a book, as he was involved with the first volume, 100 Years of Long Island Bottles. By the time you read this, it should be in his hands, courtesy of the USPS. Martin is currently a member of the South East Bottle Club, in Raleigh, N. C.

For our next meeting, I am trying to get us into the South Country Library, which is located in Bellport. I have been talking with them about it, and they are receptive to the idea, now it is just a case of can all the pieces fit.. Enjoy, Mark

 

It's in the Can

A short article on Canning Jars, by Mark Smith

While people have been preserving food for thousands of years, it is only recently in our history that a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and meats have been available in forms other than dried, salted or pickled. This was possible due to the development of canning or as we know it today, vacuum packing, in the early 19 th Century. The basic technology and concept was developed over a 14 year period by a French businessman, Nicolas (Francois) Appert, who demonstrated the process to the French government of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1809, to claim a prize of 12,000 Francs. His process was workable, if somewhat involved. In short, by placing the foods into glass jars, sealing the jars with a cork, then boiling the jars (which would kill any harmful bacteria inside the jars, but he did not know that), and then covering the cork with tar, the food would stay safe to eat for months, even a year or longer. His work paved the way for the development of the commercial and home canning industry that still survives today.

At first, the canning jars were just wide mouth glass jars, sealed with a cork. They were rather generic in nature, and often made of dark glass. It was not until the mid and late 1850's, that we find the first jars designed to be used for the canning of foods. Perhaps the greatest time for innovations in canning jars was the time period 1860-1880. All manner of closures were investigated, clamps, springs, toggles, levers, vacuum pumps, even rubber bands! Some were very creative, some were very practical, others were dangerous, even deadly at best, yet today they have in their own right become highly collected.

Some of the first patented jars were wax sealing jars, called wax sealers by jar collectors. Robert Arthur and Joseph Borden of the glass manufacturing firm Potter & Bodine, both had patented wax sealing canning jars on the market in the late 1850's. Robert Arthur's patent was in 1855, and Joseph Borden's in 1858. Wax sealing jars were popular, if somewhat tricky to use, and remained in production but in diminishing numbers into the 1890's. Many variations were produced, but they all sealed in the same way. A glass, pottery or metal lid would be placed over the mouth, and its lower edge would be in a groove. The groove would then be filled with sealing wax, or wax coated string, to produce a seal. Opening the jars could be a chore, as the wax would be hard, and a chip of the groove would render the jar useless for further use, as the liquid wax would just run out the chip! The heyday for this style jar was the 1850-1870 time period.

At about the same time as the wax sealing jars were being introduced, stopper type jars were being developed. Some of the most popular were the Willoughby and Kline stoppers, both developed in the late 1850 early 1860 time period. The Willoughby stopper consisted of two metal plates, with a thick rubber gasket between. By tightening the wing nut on the top, the plates would compress the rubber gasket, and form a seal. The Kline stopper was a glass stopper, with a rubber ring on the outside. Just stick it in the neck, but the trick was to get it out! Some versions of the Kline stopper are marked "Use Pin To Open" which should give us a clue as to the trouble of getting the thing out! Both stoppers were used on a number of different jars sold in the 1860's. Other stoppers were patented along the way, however, you are most likely to encounter one of these unless you really become a jar collector. The Kline stoppers can be easily dug, while the metal Willoughby stoppers can cost a bundle if you can even find one to buy. As with the wax sealing jars mentioned before, these jars were most commonly employed in the 1860-1880 time period.

Not to be left behind, clamping jars were also brought onto the market in the 1860's, and would remain popular into the 1890's. Of all the clamping style jars you might encounter, the Millville Atmospheric Fruit Jar is likely to be the one! Perhaps the first clamping jar, and the most popular, enough were produced so that even today, 140 years later, you can obtain examples with the correct, original closure, for around $40 at a bottle show, in undamaged condition. Another one that turns up in our area from time to time is the Sun jar. This was perhaps the last of the clamping jars patented and produced, in the 1890's. Clamping jars were not with out their drawbacks, the clamp could seize due to rust, you could over tighten the clamp and break the lid, the lids could be nearly impossible to replace, or even the jar. Nearly all required a special gasket, which was often hard to replace, to produce a seal. These jars as such tended to on the expensive side for the homeowner to purchase, and to use, due to the cast metal clamps, pressed laid on rings for sealing surfaces, and finding the correct gaskets. With the clamp jars, the metal clamps tend to be worth more than the glass jar itself, as you can dig up the jar, but you can not dig up the clamps, which will corrode in the ground. For example, a Millville Atmospheric Fruit Jar, with NO clamp, is worth at most about $10, if it is nice and clean, no chips, and a nice lid. Just the metal clamp in good shape will cost you $25 or $30. As you get to the rarer clamping jars, the same is true, but the difference is even greater.

Other jars used a locking or toggle closure, such as the Lightning jars, which are the most common example of this group. Patented in January of 1875 by Charles de Quillfeldt (his home stood about where Rt.110 and Sunrise Highway cross in Amityville) and would be in production into the 1960's. Lightning jars can be had for under 5 dollars each, unless you want them in colors! While clear and aqua abound, they do come in a rainbow of colors, shades of amber and greens among others, and prices can run into the upper hundreds for choice colors. The Lightning closure was also used extensively on beer bottles, and we collectors know the closure as a blob top! Charles de Quillfeldt sold the wide mouth (canning jar) rights to Henry Putnam, and the bottle rights to Karl Hutter. All three men were residents of New York City. The tie wire holding the closure onto the jar was replaced in the early 1900's with the glass dimples on the neck of the jar, which had proven to be nearly impossible to produce with hand blowing technology, but worked well with automatic bottle blowing machines. This closure is still used today on beer bottles, would anyone like a Grolsh?

There were many other jars produced and patented in the 19 th Century, and many are quite rare today. The vast majority were produced in aqua or later clear glass, however, a rare few were produced in other colors such as amber, green, and the king of jar colors, cobalt blue.

Now, of all the canning jars, there is one that nearly everyone can name, and it is the Mason Jar. The humble mason jar has its beginnings in 1858, with John L. Mason. His first patent was granted on November 23, 1858 (ha, bet you were thinking of the other date!), and covered the details of a mold to make glass canning jars and for improvements in the same glass jar. What is strange is that he was also granted a patent on November 30 th , 1858, for basically the same things as on November 23, but this date is the one he chose to put on his jars. Now, John Mason did not patent the screw lid, threads in glass, but rather changes and improvements in both. His early jars and lids were pretty much flops, but they did have several things going for them. One was that he was very, very specific in his patents, so this left plenty of wiggle room for others to make improvements or modifications in his design, and the other was that his jar was perhaps the cheapest to produce and market in the industry. As such, improvements and changes quickly followed! The first jars were very square, and square glass breaks easily, so the sharp angles were rounded. Then a tab was placed on the gaskets, to make breaking the vacuum seal easy. Then a glass liner was placed inside the metal lids, as the unlined lids could impart a metallic taste to foods (ever notice the embossing "Boyd's Genuine Porcelain Lined' on the inside of mason jar lids?). Then an all glass closure was developed, and this was called Mason's Improved. The lids were cheap to produce, and dozens of firms quickly entered their caps into the market, along with the rubber gaskets. In the mid 1870's, when John Masons patents expired, just about every glass house in the United States started to produce Mason jars! By this point in time, the lids and gaskets were so easy to find that companies could sell their jars to the consumer with out lids! And I bet you thought that was a new trick, well, it is not. Two companies would come to dominate the canning jar market in the 1860-1890 time periods; the first to do so was the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company, located in New York City, also known simply as CFJ. Close on their heels, and overtaking them in the 1880s, was the Hero Fruit Jar Company of Philadelphia, represented by the Hero Cross. The Hero Cross looks similar to the Iron Cross, but careful examination will revel that the Hero Cross is unique, and if the jar is well embossed, you will see in the arms of the cross a H, F, J, and Co, one in each of the four arms.

With the domination of the canning jar industry by the mason jar, and the Lightning jar, by the 1880's innovation was on the decline in the canning jar industry. While patents did continue to be granted, fewer and fewer resulted in jars being produced, but rather the patents covered improvements in sealing the jars. This is seen in the modern jars of today, with the two piece metal closure, that seals on the top of the lip of the jar. While this idea was patented in various forms in the late 19 th and early 20 th century, it was not until after WWII that the technology behind it was perfected, and it gained wide usage in households.

The Mason Patent Nov. 30 th 1858 jars are collected as group all by themselves. With so many glasshouses making them, there are hundreds of variations available. It is possible to get the entire alphabet on jars, although some of the letters are expensive, they are embossed like this: Mason's/B/Patent/Nov. 30 th /1858. There are also numbered Masons, which are embossed like this: Mason's/23/Patent/Nov. 30 th /1858 The numbers run into the triple digits! As with the lettered mason jars, some of the numbers are very rare, and thus expensive. Also, with so many producers of these jars, errors abound, as some of the mold work was sloppy, so you have reversed or missing letters, misspelled words, and missing or reversed numbers to search for. Along with the numbers and letters, you have the monograms of the various manufacturers, for example, jars embossed: Mason's/ (intertwined CFJ Co.)/ Patent Nov. 30 th /1858 were produced by the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company. There are dozens of different monograms! Also, and perhaps unique to mason jars, you have what collectors call midget jars. These are pint size jars, but instead of the regular size cap, they take a much smaller cap, about ½ the size of a regular cap. This is a special area of jar collecting all by itself, as these jars are very attractive!

And, not to be outdone, again with so many manufacturers making these jars, they come in about every color that glass was made in during the 19 th Century. While in the Mason Patent Nov. 30 th 1858 jars, aqua dominates, and one can acquire the most common examples for around 5 dollars in aqua glass, some of the colors, such as cobalt blue, can cost 4 or even 5 figures, if you can find one!

Here are some websites to visit: http://www.hoosierjar.com/ and

http://members.intertek.net/~pmurfe/fruitjars/main.html and this one has plenty of links: http://www.antiquebottles.com/fruitjar/. Oh, and do not for get to search on eBay for canning jar and fruit jar!