# New Mason Jar Collection



## xonor1 (Oct 24, 2017)

I'm not sure if i picked the right place to talk about this, but i guess it isn't a big deal. Anyways, i have been digging in this bottle dump/trash pit i stumbled upon for awhile. I have found thousands of bottles ranging from all colors, shapes, and sizes. I have not been able to put a date range on this bottle dump with my knowledge about the bottles. I only know a little bit on how to date bottles, but i feel like i'm pretty good at telling if something is old and unique.

I have found about 35-40 fully intact milk bottles, one still full of milk too, and i have just recently started digging out mason jars i haven't seen yet in this one section of the dump. I'm just curious to how good these finds are and how old they could be. I have a love for blue bottles and most of these mason jars caught my attention because they were a beautiful blue color. If you know anything about the bottles feel free to say some facts about them. I'm very interested in the history of these bottles.

Here are some pictures, and the jars are sorted by the companies that made them.















Just for fun here are some pics of some of the milk bottles that i have found. This is an old picture and i found at least 20 more since then.


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## nhpharm (Oct 25, 2017)

Looks like a fun dig!  The Ball Perfect Mason jars are 1920's-1930's. Same for the Atlas jars.  The Mason jar on the left is ~1890 and the Mason jar on the right looks to be machine made so about 1910 or so.  The milks look to be all 1940's...

None of the jars are rare ones but always fun to find.  People tended to keep jars for a long time so even if the dump is 1940's you can find earlier jars in it.  I dug a lot of dumps like this in New Hampshire when I was a kid.


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## botlguy (Oct 25, 2017)

nhpharm said:


> Looks like a fun dig!  The Ball Perfect Mason jars are 1920's-1930's. Same for the Atlas jars.  The Mason jar on the left is ~1890 and the Mason jar on the right looks to be machine made so about 1910 or so.  The milks look to be all 1940's...
> 
> None of the jars are rare ones but always fun to find.  People tended to keep jars for a long time so even if the dump is 1940's you can find earlier jars in it.  I dug a lot of dumps like this in New Hampshire when I was a kid.


Welcome. All of the information above is spot on, I'm just confirming it for your confidence.
Jim S


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## xonor1 (Oct 25, 2017)

nhpharm said:


> Looks like a fun dig!  The Ball Perfect Mason jars are 1920's-1930's. Same for the Atlas jars.  The Mason jar on the left is ~1890 and the Mason jar on the right looks to be machine made so about 1910 or so.  The milks look to be all 1940's...
> 
> None of the jars are rare ones but always fun to find.  People tended to keep jars for a long time so even if the dump is 1940's you can find earlier jars in it.  I dug a lot of dumps like this in New Hampshire when I was a kid.



Thanks for all of the information! What are some of the rare mason jars that are from these companies? I've read that Atlas E-Z locks are pretty rare and i do have one or two that i've found back at the dig site, but what are some other ones? Hopefully, there are a few that i come across in the future because this bottle dump is gigantic and i've dug about a 4 foot deep and 6 foot diameter hole in the ground and i'm still finding more old bottles.

Here's the hole that i dug so far:






Also i stumbled across a gallon milk jug, but it broke sometime while i was taking it home. Is a gallon milk jug like this rare or valuable at all? Here is a picture of what it looked like before it sadly broke:


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## sandchip (Oct 26, 2017)

Looks like good spot with possibilities of late throws, too.  No telling what you may pull out of there.  Shame about the Otto's.


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## nhpharm (Oct 26, 2017)

There are a lot of variations in fruit jars with some variations being hard to find.  In the ones that you pictured, the most commonly encountered "rarities" would be strange colors (colors other than clear or aqua) or very small sizes (like half pints).  It's too much to go into here but if you have interest, you should get one of Doug Leybourne's  "Red Book", which lists all known US (and many foreign) fruit jars with prices (though I use the prices only as a basis for rarity as they tend to be a little out there sometimes when it comes to some of the simple variations).  The Otto's Dairy bottle sadly was probably the best bottle you have pictured.


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## GLASSHOPPER55 (Oct 29, 2017)

Nice creamtops in that one picture. Creamtops usually bring more $ than the regular tops (at least in my area).


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## xonor1 (Oct 29, 2017)

I've recently gone back to the bottle dump and have organized my finds so it is slightly easier to see. I also gained a few members to my new mason jar collection and a new little half pint milk bottle. I have also counted 42 total milks bottles that i have found. Some interesting ones as a half pint, a gallon bottle, and an unopened bottle with all of the "milk" still in it. The gallon milk jug has no markings on it, so i can't say it is officially a milk jug, but i found another one with the exact same shape, but it was embossed with the otto's markings.














I cant take all of them home because i don't have the space or will to clean all of them.


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