# Is this a wax sealer lid?



## riverdiver (Feb 2, 2010)

You Jar Collectors told me to take pics, I found this one while photographing my collection.

 Is anyone looking for this one?


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## riverdiver (Feb 2, 2010)

Top view...sorry I did not pay attention to the embossing, although I remember that it has a couple of "c's" in the design.


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## sweetrelease (Feb 2, 2010)

whats the lid measure?? inside and out? thanks ~matt


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## GuntherHess (Feb 2, 2010)

I believe wax sealers had tin lids.


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## cobaltbot (Feb 3, 2010)

Plus the center hole looks like it went to some kind of clamping device.


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## surfaceone (Feb 3, 2010)

Hey Matt,

 This looks like an all "Matt" thread so far, except for Steve & me. Here's a picture courtesy of Bill Lindsey & Greg Spurgeon:






  "Wax Seal Cap or Lid
  This closure method was reportedly first used for local home based food processing in Europe by 1814 and in the U.S. by the 1820's, though did not really catch on until the late 1830s or early 1840s (Bender 1986).  This simple round metal cap closure is associated with the wax seal finish which is typically found as an applied (or "pressed on" in fruit jar terminology) finish and seems to be found primarily and commonly on earlier fruit jars usually dating from the early 1850s until about 1890.   An exception to this dating is that several different varieties of groove-ring wax seal "Ball Standard " jars were actually some of the first semi-automatic machine made jars, being first produced in 1896 to about 1912 (Toulouse 1969a; Creswick 1987).  These latter jars exhibit machine-made diagnostic characteristics; see the machine-made bottles portion of the dating key.

 The wax seal finish appears, looking down from the top, to be two round - but parallel - ridges with a groove separating them.  The rounded outside edge of the finish slopes down and towards the upper neck of the jar.  The finish is easier to visualize than describe - click on the picture below.  This design allowed wax, wax-dipped string, or other sealing compound to be placed into the groove.  While canning, a properly sized round metal cap (usually tin) with a turned down edge or "skirt" was then pressed into the warm wax to seal the jar (picture to left).  Alternatively, the cap was first placed into the finish, then hot wax poured into the groove to seal.  Wax seal jars were sometimes sealed using a glass lid or large cork instead of the tin lid, though tin was much more common and likely cheaper (Toulouse 1969a; Jones & Sullivan 1989).

 The jar pictured above is a ca. 1870-1880 Standard fruit jar with a pressed laid-on ring finish with the tin cap in place (photo courtesy of Greg Spurgeon Antiques)." From here.

 If you could figure out the monogram, it might be easier to identify. It's not CFCJ, is it?






 These lids are currrently on e-bay.


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