New member with SCA q's and lots of photos.

[bobclay]

Howdy EfEmDee and everybody else,

It's always fun finding a cache of jars...no telling what treasure you may end up with!

Gunther is right, very "generally" WWI is considered by many to be the 'cutoff' date for manganese use. But for many reasons, we sometimes see jars even into the 50s and 60s that turn purple instead of yellowish suggesting manganese in the glass.

Mainly it was impure cullet though that caused this. Cullet is broken glass that must be added to the raw material glass batch in order to make it melt properly. The cullet acts somewhat like a catalyst and gets everything going. Cullet sources could be almost anything glass (bottles, jars, window glass, etc) so it would be extremely difficult to control the purity or manganese content of the cullet itself.

Definitely a nice way to get into jar collecting! And personally, for home canning use, I trust the older jars moreso than their new counterparts. The glass is usually much thicker in the older jars, and so long as the lip is chip free, they'll seal just as well today as they did 100 years ago! []

Bob

 

[EfEmDee]

Hello Bob, and thanks for the all the comments!

It's always fun finding a cache of jars...no telling what treasure you may end up with!

I think my neighbor has another 550 (yes,you read that number correctly) crates for me. I think I'll ask if I can sift through them this time. []

for many reasons, we sometimes see jars even into the 50s and 60s that turn purple instead of yellowish suggesting manganese in the glass... Mainly it was impure cullet though that caused this.

So I'm NOT crazy (or at least, not due to this...).

Definitely a nice way to get into jar collecting! And personally, for home canning use, I trust the older jars moreso than their new counterparts. The glass is usually much thicker in the older jars, and so long as the lip is chip free, they'll seal just as well today as they did 100 years ago!

Has the thread pitch changed over the years? I got about a half-dozen or so zink lids in this batch of jars, and some seem to fit some bottles better than others. All are embossed with the 1933-60 style (Open-bottom B, undropped A, with underline) Ball logo.

Also, I finally got my ezboard login, and will be putting together an inventory/gallery to share at the Ball Jar CCC. Here's a link to a group that includes the puce-colored pint above:

http://209.200.109.169/fruitjars/1960/index1.htm

 

[bobclay]

Has the thread pitch changed over the years?

I don't think the actual thread pitch or dimension has changed much in almost 150 years. But what often causes lids to not fit well is two fold. One, sometimes older zinc caps that have been used several times distort a bit due to the heat and cooling. But the most common reason lids sometimes don't fit real well is quality control where the lids are made or when the jars themselves are produced.

Standard size lids (70mm or about 2 1/2 inches) and widemouth lids (100mm or about 3 inches) and the jars themselves are produced using a minimum and maximum thread diameter tolerance. A ± dimension using a 'go' or 'no go' gauge. So there is always a little bit of leeway and the lids will still fit. But occasionally equipment gets out of adjustment or a mould repairman would cut a ring thread a little too deep (making the thread oversized) and a lid would be real snug or not fit at all.

And, there may also be slight differences between manufacturing companies. CFJCo lids fit the CFJ jars better than other jars, etc. And many companies used third party after market lids for their jars, so dimensionally, there had to be some quality issues there.

My solution? If a lid doesn't fit easily on a jar, don't force it, just try other lids. It may be the lid, it may be the jar. But eventually, you'll be able to find one that fits well.

Bob

P.S. In THAT many crates of jars to look through, there simply HAS to be some sleepers! []