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Thread Owner
Bottle Vitals
| Embossing | Date | Color | Shape | Size (Height x Diameter) | Value* |
| Mason's Patent Nov 30th 1858 | 1890 | Aqua | Round jar | 7" x 3.5" | $20.00 |
Bottle Views (click to enlarge):
| Front | Back | Side | Side | Bottom |
 |  |  |  |  |
| Mason's Patent Nov 30th 1858 | Pat Nov 26 67 239 |
If you've ever been to a flea market, garage sale, farm supply store, or bottle dump, you've probably seen this bottle or something like it. In the 1850's John Landis Mason was trying to solve the problem of home canning without using wax sealers. Home canning typically involved putting a cork in a bottle and sealing it with wax, then boiling. It was messy and error prone. But Mason came up with a screw top design that had a threaded glass top that could be sealed with a rubber ring and threaded metal cap. This was a huge step up in canning, but he forgot to patent the process of sealing with a rubber ring until it was too late, and competitors copied that and eventually outpaced him, but in the 1860s, Mason's jars were all the rage. The name has stuck until today, because pretty much every home canning jar is generically called a Mason Jar. If you ever visit any of the Tennessee moonshine distilleries, I think it's legally required to be sold in Mason jars.
Some advertising from the 1860's (click to enlarge):
The particular jar pictured was actually recovered broken, but all the pieces were together and the jar was reassembled. It bears the familiar Mason's patent embossing on the front, but also has a second patent date on the bottom. The secondary patent date indicates that this jar was made by the Hero Glass Company, in Philadelphia, in mold number 239. Many of the jars made at Hero Glass works have a Mason's Cross embossed on the front either above or below the word "Mason's", but some do not. This is one of the ones without the cross. It has a ground top, which you can see if you look closely at the photos.
Here is the before and after. Just soap and water cleanup, then reassembly. I don't think it would be well suited to more aggressive cleaning, so this will be preserved "as is".
* Value is all over the map for these jars, varying greatly with color, size, whether or not it has the hero cross, and so forth. This is an estimate of what this jar would be if it were intact and further cleaned.
