Monday, September 6, 2010

Vintage Monday: Blue Ball Glass Jar


We took a little trip to the Austin Antique Mall yesterday and I spotted this lovely blue Ball jar at one of the booths.  I've always been curious about these jars and they're pretty common as over 41 million of these were produced in 67 years (1894-1961) according to this website.  The blue ones were discontinued in 1937 and according to this source, the markings on mine indicate that it was probably produced somewhere from between 1923 to 1933.  I believe the "Ideal" model included the wire bail type seal (instead of the screw on zinc lids).  I especially love the blue Ball glass as the color came from minerals in the Lake Michigan sand and from the amount of oxygen added to the furnaces in the production phase.  There are rarer colors such as amber and purple, and a whole system of dating them based on the labels.  Now I just have to figure out what I can fill my jar with...

1 comment:

  1. At this moment I have a Ball jar sitting on our kitchen table full of flowers. Funny.

    ReplyDelete