Fruit Jar Rambles Extra By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff
THE VACUUM SEAL JARS In April 1931, THE GLASS PACKER, a trade magazine, ran the photo in Figure A of two VACUUM SEAL jars. The VACUUM SEAL jar, the accompanying article explained, was an all-glass container with a glass lid that had proved its merit for many products over a period of years. Arrangements had recently been concluded between Owens-Illinois Glass and the Vacuum Seal Company of New York whereby Owens-Illinois became the sole manufacturer of the Vacuum Seal jars.” This family of base-embossed VACUUM SEAL jars, with roots dating back to the early 1900s, has always seemed a bit confusing to me. A number of VACUUM SEAL jar variations exist, in a number of sizes, but their history is hard to track. The jars are obviously named and embossed VACUUM SEAL, but “Vacuum Seal” is also a descriptive phrase identifying a jar that has the air expelled in the sterilization process, creating a vacuum in the head space below the sealed lid. Use of the term in this fashion makes it difficult to research the VACUUM SEAL fruit jars. Between 1911 and 1959 many fruit jars were described as “Vacuum Seal” jars, including the GOLDEN STATE (1911), the SCHRAM (1913), the EUREKA (1919), the IMPROVED EVERLASTING (1921), and various Ball, Kerr, and Presto fruit jars. Identifying these named jars is easy, but things get murky when the ads offer fruit jars for sale, listed only as “Vacuum Jar Quarts,” or pints or whatever. Dating by these references is meaningless. Gray Staunton, of Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, and Muskegon, Michigan, was issued numerous jar sealing patents
from 1906 through 1913, as noted in Dick Roller’s STANDARD FRUIT JAR REFERENCE. The Staunton Jar Corp., of Buffalo, New York, sold Vacuum Seal jars around 1917, and in 1925, the Vacuum Seal Co., Inc., of Alden (near Buffalo), New York, advertised Vacuum Seal jars; by 1926, the company had moved to New York City. Staunton’s Jan. 2, 1912 Patent #1,013,230, for a “Vacuum Packing Apparatus” is noted on the jar baseembossed VACUUM SEAL JAR COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK, PAT’D OCT.10.11 JAN.2.12 DEC.17.12 NOV.25.13 DEC.12.16 JAN.16.17. Photo 1 shows the typical style VACUUM SEAL base, bearing Staunton’s Jan. 16, 1917 patent number. In March 1928, MODERN PACKAGING reported that the “Vacuum Seal Co., Inc., 154 Nassau St., New York City calls attention to ‘Vacuum seal’ jars in an 8-page folder recently issued. These jars are all glass –– no metal cap nor fiber–– and offer the advantage that the complete package can be thoroughly sterilized and vacuumized to a high degree. The jars are made of clear flint glass, with flushfitting glass covers, and are obtainable in a variety of sizes ranging from 4 oz. to 32 oz. They are shipped complete with glass caps and rubber rings and packed in re-shipper, corrugated cartons.” It was likely these Vacuum Seal jars referred to in an article in the Sept. 5, 1932 ST. LOUIS (Missouri) STAR AND TIMES, which stated that “A new straight-sided glass container is now on the market for use in canning. This vacuum seal jar comes in 16- and 24-ounce sizes... The flat glass top is easily pressed down to close the jar. It has a double rim and a little U-shaped cut where a file or paring knife can be slipped in to raise the
FIGURE A: Two VACUUM SEAL jars from the 1932 GLASS PACKER.
PHOTO 1: One variation of VACUUM SEAL jar base.
lid...” When the same and similar articles were carried in several different newspapers across the country, it was common for some to capitalize “Vacuum Seal” and others to print it as “vacuum seal,” in lower case. The jar in Photo 2 is interesting in that its label is for “Mechling’s Oleate Coated Arsenate of Lead,” which “Kills Japanese Beetles.” From the Mechling Bros. Chemical Co., in Camden, New April 2020
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