# MASON'S 1858 - XX Base - odd whittle?



## georgeoj (Nov 15, 2009)

This jar was brought to me by someone who thought that it looked odd. I had to agree. The marks that I thought to be cold mold whittling may be something quite different. The effect is very difficult to capture with limited photographic skills but it shows up in two of my tries. The marks are small, rectangular, regular in size and are in rings that circle the entire jar, one on top of the next, from top to bottom. My guess is that these are marks made in the manufacture of the mold that were not fully polished out. The crispness of the lettering suggests that this was a new mold.
 I would be interested in knowing if anyone else has a jar with this condition and if anyone has a different opinion please say so.   George


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## georgeoj (Nov 15, 2009)

second pic


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## georgeoj (Nov 15, 2009)

base


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## dave3950 (Nov 15, 2009)

Hi,

 I've seen this kind of whittle before but can't tell you the exact cause. As for the bottom embossing "XX", I don't see a listing of such a mark.  I can find a single "X" but no double.  You could have an uncommon variation that need further investigation.

 Dave


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## coreya (Nov 15, 2009)

The jar is a #1787 in the red book, there were thousands of variations of base embossing on this series of jars including dots, numbers and roman numerals. The jar is neat just from the standpoint of the crudeness of it. The whittle is caused by a tempeture differance in the mold and glass or some such thing like that. The thing that raises the value of these jars is the color and they can go for anywhere from 4.00 to 5 figures. Still a nice jar


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## glass man (Nov 16, 2009)

LOVE THE CRUDENESS! JAMIE


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## RED Matthews (Nov 16, 2009)

Hello georgeoj,  Well that is one nice fruit jar.  This type of jar is made on an automatic bottle machine that makes ( Press & Blow ) fruit jars.  The earliest ones made had the cut gob of molten glass, cut off from the molten glass feeder after it came through an orifice ring long enough, to give it the correct weight of glass to make the jar.  Your jar has obvious bubbles in the glass to tell me that the feeder and for-hearth temperature or flow was not correct for the job.
 Regarding the whittle you mentioned - looking square and running in plane levels around the jar; this would have not been from machining.  The body of the mold is bored on a lathe where the vertical slide carrying the boring bar would follow a template form and turn a really smooth cavity in the mold.  The letter cutting is done long after the cavity turning.
 The glass that formed in the first stage mold creates the parison form, for the jar.  This shapped glass is then inverted into the final blow mold, which closes around the parison, hanging it by the thread in this case, because there is no transfer bead that showed up on later jars for that hanging position.  There is a blowhead that covers the top of the jar and the air pressure for the final blow, takes the glass into contact with the mold wall form and lettering in the mold.
 If the mold metal is too cold for the glass to blow up tight against the cavity, it will chill and hold itself off of the iron cavity contact.  This cold mold creates a ripple effect that gives the jar or bottles what people call whittleed appearance.  There was no whittling done in the iron mold.  There wasn't in the early wooden or ceramic molds either.
 It would be interesting to me to get my hands on the jar to see how the glass parison  was hung in the mold.  If it were made on the Owens machine then there would have been a glass shear mark in a circle on the bottom glass.  There were four or five different early glass machines that left some tell tail marks; but they are evasive to evauate with any certainty.
 Thanks for bring it to us.  I will study  the pictures some more.  I think that the "/ XX " mark was covered correctly by coryea.  It is an interesting jar.  RED Matthews


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## miker (Feb 23, 2022)

georgeoj said:


> This jar was brought to me by someone who thought that it looked odd. I had to agree. The marks that I thought to be cold mold whittling may be something quite different. The effect is very difficult to capture with limited photographic skills but it shows up in two of my tries. The marks are small, rectangular, regular in size and are in rings that circle the entire jar, one on top of the next, from top to bottom. My guess is that these are marks made in the manufacture of the mold that were not fully polished out. The crispness of the lettering suggests that this was a new mold.
> I would be interested in knowing if anyone else has a jar with this condition and if anyone has a different opinion please say so.   George


HI I HAVE ONE HALF GALLON  LOOK IT THE BOTTOM OF THE JAR IT HAS A PONTIL MARK  XX  ARE THE OLDER MASONS JARS THAN YOU MIKE.


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## miker (Feb 23, 2022)

HI I HAVE ONE HALF GALLON JAR LOOK AT THE JAR IT HAS A PONTIL MARK BELOW THE  XX MARKS ARE THE OLDER MASONS JARS THANK YOU MIKER.


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## UncleBruce (Feb 23, 2022)

miker said:


> HI I HAVE ONE HALF GALLON JAR LOOK AT THE JAR IT HAS A PONTIL MARK BELOW THE  XX MARKS ARE THE OLDER MASONS JARS THANK YOU MIKER.


I don't recall what the round spot is called, but it is not a pontil.  Some type of a vacuum mark made by a machine that held the jar while it was being finished.  Unless ground or polished off a pontil will be very rough with extra glass attached to the spot or have a rust spot in the center of the base.  Hopefully someone will chime in a tell us both what that mark is called 'cause I don't remember.


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## Dogo (Feb 23, 2022)

Uncle Bruce called it, NO pontilled  Mason jars


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## miker (Mar 2, 2022)

dave3950 said:


> Hi,
> 
> I've seen this kind of whittle before but can't tell you the exact cause. As for the bottom embossing "XX", I don't see a listing of such a mark.  I can find a single "X" but no double.  You could have an uncommon variation that need further investigation.
> 
> Dave


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## miker (Mar 2, 2022)

georgeoj said:


> base


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## miker (Mar 2, 2022)

HII I HAVE A HALF GALLON  MASONS  X X ON BOTTOM OF JAR HOW OLD IS IT & HOW RARE ARE THEY IT HAS A STRONG EMBOSSING VERY THICK GLASS IT LOOKS LIKE A PONTIL MARK ON BOTTOM OF JAR BELOW  THE  X X IT IS VERY  NICE.


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## jarsnstuff (Mar 3, 2022)

miker said:


> HII I HAVE A HALF GALLON  MASONS  X X ON BOTTOM OF JAR HOW OLD IS IT & HOW RARE ARE THEY IT HAS A STRONG EMBOSSING VERY THICK GLASS IT LOOKS LIKE A PONTIL MARK ON BOTTOM OF JAR BELOW  THE  X X IT IS VERY  NICE.


As mentioned above, there are NO pontiled mason jars.  Early mason jars were blown into a mold, then the top of the jar was broken off the blowpipe and the lip ground down to make an even edge.  No need for a pontil.  Some OTHER early jars such as wax sealers were held on the pontil while the channel was formed, hence a pontil scar.


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## jarsnstuff (Mar 3, 2022)

Additionally, the XX on the base could and should be reported to Douglas Leybourne so that it can be included in the next edition of the Redbook.  Since there are several listings for roman numerals on the base, I see no reason not to include your XX as well.


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## miker (Mar 10, 2022)

georgeoj said:


> This jar was brought to me by someone who thought that it looked odd. I had to agree. The marks that I thought to be cold mold whittling may be something quite different. The effect is very difficult to capture with limited photographic skills but it shows up in two of my tries. The marks are small, rectangular, regular in size and are in rings that circle the entire jar, one on top of the next, from top to bottom. My guess is that these are marks made in the manufacture of the mold that were not fully polished out. The crispness of the lettering suggests that this was a new mold.
> I would be interested in knowing if anyone else has a jar with this condition and if anyone has a different opinion please say so.   George


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## miker (Mar 10, 2022)

jarsnstuff said:


> Additionally, the XX on the base could and should be reported to Douglas Leybourne so that it can be included in the next edition of the Redbook.  Since there are several listings for roman numerals on the base, I see no reason not to include your XX as well.


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## miker (Mar 10, 2022)

HI IT IS MIKER HOW OLD IS MY HALF GALLON MASONS JAR MY JAR HAS A GROUND TOP THERE ARE BUBBLES AND RIPPLES AND VERY STRONG EMBOSSING & XX ON BOTTOM OF JAR THANK YOU MIKER.


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## jarsnstuff (Mar 12, 2022)

miker said:


> HI IT IS MIKER HOW OLD IS MY HALF GALLON MASONS JAR MY JAR HAS A GROUND TOP THERE ARE BUBBLES AND RIPPLES AND VERY STRONG EMBOSSING & XX ON BOTTOM OF JAR THANK YOU MIKER.


Somewhere between the late 1860s to about 1900.  The earliest Mason's Patent jars have squared shoulders and are called "Crowleytown" jars.  Then, they transitioned to jars with a fairly flat somewhat sharp cornered base.  After around 1900, most glass houses had invested in machines & smooth lip Mason's Patent jars were made up until about WWI.


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## DavidW (Mar 13, 2022)

Hi group, I am just a teeny bit perplexed by this thread. The thread started back on November 15, 2009 with an older-looking crude 1858-type Mason's Patent jar with an "XX" on the base. It looks very crude, whittled and the lip is ground.  In the reply by "Red Matthews" from November 16,  2009, he said it was a jar made on an Automatic Bottle Machine.  Did he know something that we missed?  It looks like Red last posted on this site in 2016 so I am guessing maybe he has since passed away?

In any case, now a second jar (by "miker") has been posted on this thread, and it looks similar, maybe not as crude. But both jars shown appear to be old, handmade, crude-looking jars with ground lips that were not made on a machine (even a semi-automatic machine)  I don't think, anyway (???)

Can someone who is an expert on these jars enlighten us?   I'm assuming the "XX" is  a mold identifier number, and has no meaning in itself other than identifying a mold used at the factory. 

The other weird mark on the bottom just looks like a random swirl or "oyster" mark in the glass as it was filling the inside of the mold, not any kind of machine-made "Valve mark" (Bruce was that the phrase you were trying to remember?), definitely not a pontil mark. 

The jar looks like it would date from the 1870s or 1880s to me.  Feedback???


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## jarsnstuff (Mar 14, 2022)

There are threads that start years ago and get revived for one reason or another.  I think that's what happened here.  2. Agreed, the jar has a ground lip & is crude - not machine made as Red's comment suggests.  No one ever took him to task for that apparently b/c Red was pretty knowledgeable regarding the bottle making process.  3. Agree, the XX is most likely a mold identifier as in Redbook 1900-1, X on base.  It does state that other Roman Numerals exist and that should cover the XX as well.  TBH, I'm not a big Mason's Patent collector, so I probably added to the confusion b/c I took someone else's word about "other roman numeral bases" and didn't actually look it up until just now.  4. Agree the weird mark on the bottom is just a weird mark - not a pontil and not a valve mark.  5. Your 1870s - 1880s dates are reasonable, I don't think anyone posted anything to the contrary there.

The other question, which no one has really addressed is the "weird" whittle.  I'm thinking it could just be horizontal striations in the mold that forced the whittle into somewhat even horizontal lines instead of the random patterns we are accustomed to.  Just conjecture on my part that has nothing to do with being an authority on the subject.


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## DavidW (Mar 14, 2022)

jarsnstuff,  I totally agree.   About the odd whittle, I can just barely make out what the OP was referring to, but I would just call it an effect from when the mold was originally fabricated/machined.  I don't understand the process of manufacturing molds enough, especially in the "olden days", to make a meaningful comment on that!


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## miker (Mar 19, 2022)

THANK YOU JARSNSTUFF FROM MIKER.


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