Ravinna Air-Tight fruit jar

[surfaceone]

Hey Steven,

Let me add my hosannas to the chorus.

Thought you might like to hear the words of Julian Harrison Toulouse, from his book; Fruit Jars, A Collectors Manual:

"RAVENNA GLASSWORKS

Circa 1850
Tooled groove-ring wax sealer
Handmade round barrel, showing hoops
but not staves, with tooled rather than
pressed laid-on-ring, with red-black
bottom discoloration showing the use
of a bare iron pontil, in dark blue-green
Front: three lines: 'RAVENNA,' 'GLASS-
WORKS,' and 'OHIO'
Back: 'AIR TIGHT' above 'FRUIT JAR'
Ravenna Glassworks, Ravenna, Ohio.
possibly circa 1850-57 or 64.
McKearin,p. 232, and Kittle, p. 383,
discuss this company as the Ravenna
Glass Company, as well as the question
of an earlier operation than the known
known dates of 1850-57. This might have been
as the Ravenna Glass Works.
This might be the oldest identified fruit
jar herein listed, although other un-
lettered and unidentified cork and wax
sealers may be older." pp- 259-60.

 

[Wangan]

EXCELLENT!

 

[Plumbata]

Dude, awesome find! Beautiful jar and to not have the outer rim chipped or cracked is a blessing! I think you need to go back to that spot and carefully probe through every inch of muck in the area, because more may well be waiting for you.

Woohoo! []

 

[mrbottles]

Hi Plumbata and Surfaceonce,

I got that loud and clear. My two dive buddies are both away this weekend. I went yesterday… Took the day off to do it and did seven tanks hard labor. YES seven. This morning I got up at 4:30 and did five more. I had two more tanks with me but hands and forearms cramping and utter exhaustion had me done at five. I worked like a human backhoe! There has to be more. Maybe not a fruit jar but something else of that vintage. The town I am diving has a open pontiled medicine. Only one broken example known… I found it privy digging seven years ago. Alas where I am diving it is difficult to find the same thing twice yet I am fairly certain I spent seven tanks in the right place/area yesterday. I found some crude bottles but no pontiles… Well one it sort of and nothing tell tale that old. I did find a half dozen oyster tins. The stuff I have been finding is pretty incredible really… Maybe I will start another post just about the other stuff. I am going to take a few better pictures of the jar in the sun today and will post them if they turn out good. Your info is awesome and I am very grateful. Mine does not say Ohio. Tom who posted earlier here speculated the Ohio was added to the latter version. That is what happened to a number of the earlier sodas from Wisconsin. Man the money makes me think sell but it is growing on me. I would have thought there are embossed fruit jars that go back another hundred years.

Excellent and Woohoo are a good start to describing the excitement over this one.

It does have a few super tiny flea bites on the outer lip but I would say they are nothing to even consider. If I was buying it I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at them… I’m a picky buyer.

One question… The description says red iron in the pontil. Mine does not have iron but I did nothing to clean it at all other them rinse the mud out in the lake I found it in. I have some pontiles soda bottles that have no iron either. Does anyone know? Was it there initially and wore off or do they sometimes not have iron in them? I assumed with the one I have at sometime someone unknowingly removed the iron or something. It is a house bottle. This jar is exactly as found with no cleaning. Another weird thing is it smells like privy glass in a way dive found bottles never do BUT it is virtually mint with no need to even tumble. What gives there?

 

[mrbottles]

First of new sunlight pictures. this shows how crude the application at the top is.

 

[mrbottles]

Air-tight side in sun

 

[mrbottles]

The llne in through teh lip is a string of little bubbles... The bottle has some huge ones right in the middle too!

Steven

 

[mrbottles]

Can anyone tell me why this pontil has no iron in it? This is as found. I have done nothing to clean it. Was two feet under mud in lake bottom but the bottle is nearly mint... No oxidization hardly at all. You can still see some lake bottom inside of it. i will clean that out soon. There are 130 tin oyster cans in decent shape. I don't think this bottle ever had iron in the pontil. So how was it made?

 

[Baydog51]

You bring up an interesting question and of course I don't have an answer. But I just wonder if it's possible that over time in the water if the iron particles just rusted away? Is the water acidic or salty? Gary

 

[mrbottles]

Hi gary no... This water is an inland freshawater lake. A small one and for the most part everything is coming out in excpetional condition. Underwater i stuck i felt the pontil but thought it might be nothing because it wasn't rough and i found a lot of bottles with serious kickups in the area tha were nothing 1900ish bottles... Some sort of long necked unembossed clear glass junker bottle. This bottle is pristine and i am finding 1870's tin in good shape. There has to be something more to it.