Here's an interesting story told by Findlay Bottle Club member Jeff Klingler in his recent post on The Ball Jar Collectors Community site. He tells of finding a treasure he didn't even realize he had, just by going through his own stuff.
He writes " It was like the JAR FAIRY had just put it there!! ... I about fell off my chair! I ran downstairs (with the jar) and ... "
Be sure to read his story to get, as Paul Harvey says, "The rest of the story. " And it's a story that will interest everyone, not just fruit jar collectors.
Spoiler Alert -- I can't resist posting this photo:
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Jar Hunting at Home
Yesterday was a very interesting fruit jar kind of day...... It all started a few days ago with a request from our local library to provide a display at their main entrance. We have done various displays in the past and Marianne suggested we do fruit jars this time around. So I began to think about which jars to display and how to arrange them in the most educational fashion. The big trick for me is to pick jars that I can get my hands on.......
You see, alot of the jars are packed away in boxes that haven't seen the light of day since the early 90's when we moved to Ohio from California. I do keep a very accurate spreadsheet inventory that I started back in the days of MS DOS 3.3 with my Lotus 123 program..... (yes, I have migrated to MS Excel), so I consulted the spreadsheet and discovered that a good place to begin would be the big showcase in the bedroom. Now I will say that the big showcase is COMPLETELY BURIED behind piles of banana boxes full of hidden treasure that we will tap someday. So I never get a chance to play in the showcase... and it had been several years. It appeared to be a good day to excavate the showcase.
I was like a kid in a candy store. All kinds of fruit jars I hadn't seen in a long time. I found the set of Clarke's Fruit Jar Co., compared some examples of new colors I had acquired over time of the Atlas E-Z Seals, even looked thru all my various midget pints.
I was about to close it up and bury the showcase once more, when I noticed some BALL 274 pints that were right up front on the top shelf. There was a green, an olive, a nice SCA, and a clear one. This is when something clicked about the recent post here about clear 274's and
the ones I had recently seen at Mason Bright's. So I fetched the SCA and the clear one and headed upstairs to the office and the "master spreadsheet". Now remember, I have always kept VERY accurate records on each jar in the collection.... date and price of purchase, notes on where it came from... the works. The SCA pint was on the list, but I had no record of the CLEAR one!
It was like the JAR FAIRY had just put it there!! It was possible it was one of the many jars from Grandma's basement that I had stored in the barn... who knows, maybe I had pulled it out just because it was different and set it in the showcase years ago.....
Or the JAR FAIRY PUT IN ON THE SHELF................
So I begin to examine the jar, like any of you would. I looked at the base and noticed an M and a number 2, then I took the zinc lid off...........
OMG !!!!!!!!!!!! DOUBLE OMG-OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRIPLE OMG-OMG-OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
a Pint Ball Perfect Mason PERFECTION LEDGE jar in clear!!
I about fell off my chair! I ran downstairs (with the jar) and told Marianne what I had just discovered. She said "whatever... that's nice dear...". So I immediately called Brucie as he certainly could appreciate this discovery. All he could say is "what a find!!" We spent the next half hour talking about it like a couple of 7th graders gossiping about the hot new girl in class. I even got out a Perfection pint to compare (totally different sized closure). I just could NOT believe I had found this jar on my own shelf!
INCREDIBLE..... I hung up with Brucie, ran back downstairs (with the jar) to tell Marianne all about it............
AND PROMPTLY BROKE THE JAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know how it really happened, it is all kinda a blur, a jar in each hand and they clunked together. Something like that. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! Some thoughts on this cosmic event....
1- The Jar Fairy was just teasing me.
2- Grandma was looking down and telling me not to sell ANY of her jars... EVER!
3- It is just a piece of glass
4- I am not a Ball Jar collector
5- Don't run with jars
Now I will say that I have NEVER broken a single jar in all my years of collecting jars. NEVER. Not so much as a crack or a chip!! So now I am in mourning. I woke up this morning and thought it just may have been a bad dream. No luck, it still is broken. So the Findlay Bottle Club meeting is tonight, and you all can guess what my show and tell will be about. And Joe, it is just too weird that you said that about broken jars in the other thread.... This will probably be the only jar I ever break.
At least it wasn't an expensive one!!
But you know, hope springs eternal. I still have piles of jars in the barn, and all those boxes from Grandma's basement that I haven't looked at in decades. Maybe I will find another one like it! And who knows what else will turn up as I hunt for jars on my own shelves.
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A little more for you jar nuts:
The Great BALL Wall of Montana
Larry Munson sent some pix for show'n'tell.
He writes " I'm sending pictures of the wall in my jar house that I am working on--it is a little over 11' high.
Just finished putting up the big BALL cutout of the BALL MASON jar and the 5 pictures on the left side of it."
