surfaceone
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quote:
Did they produce only lids or did they produce jars?
Hey Mark,
The short answer is; they did both.
"In 1859, Mason sold five of his early patents, including the mason jar, to Lewis R. Boyd and Boyd’s company - The Sheet Metal Screw Company. Boyd is most famous for patenting a white "milk-glass" insert for zinc screw lids to theoretically lessen the chances that food would come in contact with metal. In 1871, for a brief period of time, Mason became a partner with Boyd in the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company. Consolidated hired other glass makers to blow their jars, including the Clyde Glass Works, Clyde, New York, the Whitney Glass Works of Glassboro, New Jersey, and the A. & D. H. Chambers Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Even after Mason’s patents expired, the manufacture of these jars continued for well over half a century. The companies that produced the Mason jar between 1859 and 1910 are too numerous to mention." From FOHBC Primer.
There's an interesting geneological site with much information on Lewis R. Boyd over here.
"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!" From LIABA.
 This CFJ Mason shown as an example of a jar produced by Consolidated Fruit Jar Co.
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Consolidated Fruit Jar Co - 
Wolf, of course...
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