Fruit Jar Rambles: Kerr Mason Pie Filling Jars

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

KERR MASON PIE FILLING JARS

Sometimes I think there are just too many potentially collectible jars to keep track of, especially when we consider some of the more modern jars, which are appreciated by a good number of collectors.

The subject of this thought is a jar which has been in our collection for over twenty years. Recently, looking at this jar, I decided to look it up to see what had been recorded about it. The jar carries the name of a well-known fruit jar manufacturer, and it has a unique shape and embossed name.

This interesting clear, rounded-square pint product jar (Photo 1) has a recessed panel for labels around the entire center of jar. It is embossed KERR MASON on two opposing sides. Around the heel it’s embossed NOT FOR HOME CANNING USE. The base is unembossed. The embossing “KERR MASON,” standing alone, is a style not found on any of the many other Kerr variants that I can find.

The jar’s paper labels reads in part, “New Kerr Peach California Clingstone & Freestone Pie Filling Net Wt. 21 Oz. (1 Lb. 5oz.)” on the front (Photo 2), with “Kerr Pie Fillings Are Distributed By Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corp Consumer Products Division, P.O. Box 76961, Los Angeles, Ca 90076… © Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corp. 1989” on the reverse.

The one-piece metal screw cap is lettered in red, BUTTON POPS UP WHEN SEAL IS BROKEN KERR PIE FILLING STORE IN REFRIGERATOR AFTER OPENING on top, and the KERR name appears four times around the edge.

This jar was first reported in Dick Roller’s FRUIT JAR NEWSLETTER in March 1991 by collector Herb Karcher, of Bridgeport, Nebraska. Dick was unfamiliar with the jar and asked if any of his readers had seen one. This query was answered in the April newsletter by Muncie, Indiana’s Dick Cole, who reported having a style of the jar with KERR MASON embossed on one side only, giving us a second embossing variation. Dick Cole also provided a Kerr newspaper advertisement showing the Kerr Pie Filling available in several other flavors — blueberry, cherry, and apple cinnamon (Photo 3).

The Kerr Pie Filling jars were reportedly introduced in February 1990, in four flavors: peach, cherry, blueberry, and applecinnamon. It was Kerr’s first venture into the commercial food line, and apparently it wasn’t a complete success. They were apparently trying to join the nostalgia of home canning jars to the allure of homemade pies.

However, preceding this introduction date a bit, the first found advertising for the Kerr Pie Fillings had appeared a month earlier in the Jan. 1, 1990 GREEN BAY [Wisconsin] PRESS-GAZETTE. “New! Mom Would Approve,” it announced. “Introducing a new line of Kerr Pie Fillings in clear glass mason style jars. The kind of pie filling your mom used to make…” An accompanying coupon offered a $1 refund to anyone buying a jar of the new Kerr Pie Filling. Four of the Kerr Mason jars with labels for the four flavors of pie filling were shown.

On June 20, 1990, a column, “Quick Eats,” in the WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, of Madison, Wisconsin, in discussing the Kerr Pie Fillings, stated that Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were “Midwest test markets for Kerr Pie Filling.” Testing customer response in certain picked locales across the country was geared to show whether or not the product might be viable, and it also accounts for

PHOTO 1: KERR MASON embossed pint.

PHOTO 2: KERR MASON with Pie Filling label.

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

PHOTO 4: Side of Kerr Pie Fillings box.

PHOTO 5 (LEFT):

Red, white and black HOME CANNERS MASON CAPS box.

PHOTO 6 (RIGHT):

Side of HOME CANNERS box. the scarcity of items that were never offered from coast to coast.

In the January 1991, JACKSON HOLE [Wyoming] NEWS, Fred’s Super Market was advertising the Kerr Pie Filling at $1.69 a jar. Ten months later, on Nov. 6, 1991, a reviewer in the CLARION-LEDGER, of Jackson, Mississippi, talking about food items he’d covered, stated that “Favorites I have found over the years include Kerr Pie Filling…” A good review, but this is the last mention of the Kerr Pie Fillings in any of the many papers that we researched.

Photo 4 shows a white-cardboard side of one of the blueberry Kerr Pie Fillings boxes.

HOME CANNERS MASON CAPS

Over the years we’ve noticed a good number of Home Canners Mason Caps at bottle shows, many still in their original red, white and black boxes (Photo 5). While too new to be of much great interest to most jar collectors, they form a part of fruit jar history during the mid-1900s.

Sides of the boxes (Photo 6) explain that the unlined steel, screw cap is modern, inexpensive, and “Most satisfactory… for preserving all kinds of fruits, vegetables and meats, and is recommended for either cold pack or steam pressure canning.” The cap depicted on the boxes is utilizing a rubber gasket, not included, to seal on the fruit jar’s neck bead, or presumably, on the jar’s shoulder for those hanging on to the old style canning jars.

If one only sees these caps occasionally it’s easy to miss a couple details that make them a tad more interesting. The rolled-edge, silver caps in Photo 7 appear, from the ones we’ve seen, to be the

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

more common, and even this is misleading, as one style has the underside enameled in white, while a second style of the same cap is gold lacquered underneath.

Both of the above caps are lettered in black on silver: FOR ALL METHODS OF CANNING HOME CANNERS CAP CORP. –– BRIDGEPORT –– CONN., with the center reading HOME-CANNERS (in script, diagonally) MASON CAPS FOR EASY REMOVAL OF CAP – PULL OUT RUBBER RING.

And to these two styles of cap, we can add a third, as pictured in Photo 8. This one is lettered just a bit differently, reading FOR ALL CANNING METHODS THE HOME CANNERS CAP CORP. – BRIDGEPORT – CONN., with the center reading HOMECANNERS (in straight line script) MASON CAP FOR EASY REMOVAL OF CAP – PULL OUT RUBBER RING. This style has a gold-lacquered underside.

Interestingly, all three styles of the Home Canners caps that we have were packed in identically printed boxes, even to the presumably newer HOMECANNERS MASON CAPS being packed in boxes with the older style hyphenated HOMECANNERS name.

The box shown in Photo 9 apparently followed the first example described above. This box held twelve of the later HOMECANNERS caps, which were depicted on the side of the box on a generic Mason jar, with the company given as “The Home Canners Cap Corporation,” of Bridgeport.

The first advertising we could find was for “Home Canners’ Mason Caps doz. 18¢” in the July 16, 1942 PALADIUM-ITEM newspaper, from Richmond, Indiana. Home Canners “One Piece Mason caps” were reduced to 10¢ a box, as offered in a Montgomery Ward’s ad of Sept. 25, 1945.

In 1946, THE HOME CANNERS CANNING BOOK featured one of the (we think) later HOMECANNERS caps on its cover, sealing with a rubber on the jar’s bead (Photo 10). The book’s publisher was The Home Canners Cap Corporation, of 80 White St., New York 13, N.Y.

Still around in Aug. 1954, the Home Canners Mason Caps were being advertised at 7¢ a dozen in the GREELEY (Colorado) DAILY TRIBUNE. Last trace of the Home Canning caps was found in the Nov. 17, 1966 STANDARD SPEAKER, of Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Not a bad run for screw caps that still required buying the rubber jar rings. And these same basic metal screw caps could still be found, with different advertising, on the mayonnaise and other product jars of the period.

There were also Home Canners Jar Rubbers from Jenkins Bros. Rubber Division, also of Bridgeport (Photo 11). I don’t know of the connection between these two companies, if any. They aren’t well known in jar collecting circles, but Jenkins Bros. was founded in 1864, and they were listed under “Rubber Gaskets” in the 1940 THOMAS’ REGISTER OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURERS. Jenkins Bros. was associated, however briefly, with the large-embossed-A zinc cap, the JENKINS zinc cap, and at least seven variations of their Blue Target, Pak-Tite, Ringleader, and Tite-Pac jar rubber boxes. The company manufactured their rubber jar rings at their Bridgeport, Connecticut factory

Thanks to Jean M. Pouliot, of West Glacier, Montana, for kindly sending us one of the boxes of Home Canners caps that led to this article.

PHOTO 9: Box with HOMECANNERS MASON CAPS depicted on side.

PHOTO 10: Box of Jenkins Bros. HOME-CANNERS Jar Rubbers.

PHOTO 11: The HOME CANNERS CANNING BOOK featuring the HOMECANNERS MASON CAP.

WANTED

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