3 Balll Jars with lids

[NoThreat]

Hi all, and of course Bob Clay I hope.
We picked these up the past few days, looking for the 3-L jars and looking for ones that appealed to us. My wife liked also what Bob likes, the handwritten look to the 3-L ball. I noticed the first one, the small ball MASON, and we went to bobs sight and went looking for some more.
My question is on the bottom of these 1 has an A (smallballmason) , the big one has an H and the plain small ball has none I could find. From bob's sight I can guess the age. I saw in other posts how roman numerals were used and numebrs, but we have letters. odd? probably not. but we are curious.

Also in regards to the zinc lids, whats the best way to "clean" them up? soap and water? at one large antique shop there were easily a hundred or so. funny finding ball jars with atlas lids. (these we had for 3-10 bucks each)

is the plain ball older then the mason ones? did Ball not use the word mason till later?
ok here they are. we buy them for looks and age, not for treasure hunting......yet.

 

[NoThreat]

RE: 3 Balll Jars with lids pic 2

hmm one file per post..

 

[NoThreat]

RE: 3 Balll Jars with lids pic 2

the big one

 

[capsoda]

RE: 3 Balll Jars with lids pic 2

Hey John, Nice jars. Love the crudeness and bubbles. I put my lids in the dish washer and they come out great.

As far as numbers, letters and symbols on the bottom, you will find alot of different things and combinations. I don't know if they were ment to be like that or the third shift was playing around but I have seen some weard things on the bottoms like stars and crosses. I have also seen alot of blank bottoms.

 

[JGUIS]

RE: 3 Balll Jars with lids pic 2

"Almost all of the 3-L type jars made on the F.C. Ball machine used Roman numerals, jars made on the Ball Bingham machine used a letter and number, the offset embossed BPMs (1913-1914) used a letter and number, the centered embossing BPMs (1915 to mid 1930s) had a number from 0-15 (and transposed number 41 and 51 and a newly discovered 25) { quote from Bob Clay.

Made me wonder if there was a ghost number, or part of a series that just used letters. Figured if you had a lead on the machine, you might find your answer faster. I use the Brillo pads with the antioxident stuff in them, makes em look new, but you HAVE to keep them wet.

 

[diajoy33]

Look at this post today. All are the 3 lll have no. the quart that I have has an off set 7 and five raised dots. Is this the same. bought 3 jars like this. One clear, light blue quarts and a 2 quart. Are they rare?? Just wondering about the value.

 

[bobclay]

Hi NoThreat and everyone else.

Sorry to just get around to this, but I've been extremely busy the past month.

We don't really know why some jars have only letters on their base...it seemed just another way of identifying moulds. Perhaps different lines used differing identifyers. I have learned over the years that just about anything is possible within the 3-L genre of Ball jars. We know what the "norm" is, but there always seem to be examples that are "out of the norm" as well.

We also don't really know why just Balll is on some jars and not MASON as well, but they seem to run concurrently with the ones with MASON embossed, c1900-1910. And there is a 2-L shoulder seal example without MASON as well, which is pretty scarce.

Bob Clay