A new site for learning about Ball jars!

A NEW SITE FOR PEOPLE TO LEARN ABOUT BALL JARS!

A few months ago, a friend of mine had a vision. A vision of a comprehensive website that would show a photograph of every Ball jar listing in the Redbook. Several people, myself included, told him it couldn't be done, it was too complex, there are too many known variants, etc, etc.

Well, this friend (Michael Rutledge) is persistent. And, thankfully, dedicated to making the hobby more enjoyable for everyone. Once he came up with the foundation; a working groundwork, it was easy to see that this WAS going to work. He began recruiting several well known collectors of Ball jars for their input, and the site began to grow and take on substance and meaning. This new site is not meant to take away from any participation here, or on any other site, but to complement what we currently know about Ball jars and to eventually show an actual photo of every Ball jar we know about.

This site is not "owned" by anyone, but rather by everyone, as it will take a community effort to see it to total completion. The Redbook author, Doug Leybourne, Jr., will also be working closely with us in this endeavor. He has given us permission to use his copyrighted Redbook numbering system on the site for cross referencing. By allowing this, a person can look up any Redbook Ball jar listing and eventually see a picture of this jar for that listing. And that is where the "community" comes into play. We have already posted several hundred images to the site by their Redbook number. If you have a jar that is not yet pictured, please feel free to post a picture of that jar. If you don't know how to do it (we have included several tutorials on the site) you can send the picture to any of us and we will do it for you and give credit to the jar owner.

All that being said, here is the link to the "Ball Jar Collector's Community Center":

http://p067.ezboard.com/bballjarcollectorscommunitycenter

Please feel free to register and become a part of our growing community. We can all learn more about our hobby by sharing information together. Many of us that have helped put this site together have well over 30 years experience in collecting Ball jars and we are happy to share our knowledge with others. So sign up, look around, spend some time getting to know the site and the people there, and let us know what you think of the site so far. It is just a start...eventually as we find the time we will include more company history and other categories/segments as the need arises.

In addition to Michael Rutledge, many thanks to Bruce Schank and Jeff Harper for all their hard work and many hours spent uploading pictures. Also thanks to Doug Leybourne, Jr. for allowing us to cross reference jars by the Redbook numbering system. Doug also plans to be a participant when he can. Also thanks to the several collectors/dealers we asked to look over the site and comment on it in the past few months while working on it. And finally, thanks to YOU, the people that will eventually see this site to completion and make it a site anyone and everyone can use to learn more about the hobby of collecting Ball jars.

I encourage all of you to check out the site and then go to "THE SHOWROOM FLOOR" and let us know what you think.

Thanks! []

Bob Clay

I love it. Thanks Bob and thanks to everyone else who helped.

Hi Warren,

Thanks! Many collectors' first jars are Ball jars because most are so plentiful. But because of that, collecting Ball jars can also be VERY confusing at times. There are simply SO MANY variants to be found.

A lot of us that have specialized in Ball jars for many years have cussed and discussed writing a book, or doing something that would make it easier for a new collector to get enthused about the hobby and make it easier for them to know which Ball jars are truly good ones. But for one reason or another, we never got around to doing anything about it.

It was Michael's idea, dedication to the hobby and persistence that finally made this site come to fruition. All I can say is that I sure wish there was something like this around when I first started collecting!

Bob

Looks like an interesting concept. Definately would be useful.

Bob That is great When I get some time I will register and I can help fill in some of those empty spots.

One more thing...it may take you quite a bit of 'clicking' to get around on the site, but we discovered a good reason for doing it this way. If you had one thread that had 15 or 20 images in it, it would take a long time for it to load for some folks still on dialup. I think you can use the preferences to VIEW ALL topics in a thread if you're on a high speed connection which will allow you to view more without so many clicks.

We are trying to maintain a 50K limit on pic sizes, because we anticipate so many pics to be used before completion. Right now, we estimate we have 44% of the images in place in the companion Redbook # section. We have tutorials for both Photoshop and Windows users that will help them with both their photos and file sizes.

There may be a few bugs we haven't yet run across, but for the most part, the site seems to work well for anyone, regardless of what browser you use. If anyone encounters a problem of any kind, either let me know here or on at the site in THE SHOWROOM FLOOR, and we'll try to get it corrected.

Bob

Bob:

I just looked briefly at this new site and really liked what I saw so far. My wife and I both enjoy canning jars and I will check to see if we have any that currently do not have photos. Good luck with your response from other collectors and thank you for all the hard work that is being put into this project!

Denny

Bob,
Thank you for posting this. Very informative! Already added to My Favorites.
I'll be sending people from eBay's PGP Discussion Board.

Bob-You've done a tremendous job on this new site-I may be speaking a little out of line -but on behalf of all fruit jar collectors ....thanks for all your time, effort and passion you've put into this and all the help you've gladly given me-and other fruit jar enthusiasts -John

Hi John,

Thanks for the kind words, but the amount of work I have put into this site is minimal compared to what others have done. I was among the more vocal naysayers at first, simply because I knew the complexity of the task and didn't have a clue how to organize it into a decent website. This is truly a cumulative effort on the behalf of many people for the sole betterment of the hobby.

It was only after Michael Rutledge began putting the site together based upon a chronological order I'd given him that I began to see this actually might work. And as we got a few more people involved and pictures posted and the mundane stuff of legalities, site performance and consistency, then we could all see that it was going to be a great benefit to everyone when completed.

And since no one Ball collector could ever "have them all," we just thought it would be nice if we could at least SEE them all in one place. This will also eliminate many of the suspect listings in the Redbook and also will allow future editions of the Redbook to be as complete and accurate as is possible.

It's a win - win situation for everybody!

Bob