Fruit Jar Rambles: A Solid-Pour Safety Lid

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

SOLID, MAN!

A solid-pour Safety Lid is cool

The April 2019 GLASS CHATTER, the newsletter of the Midwest Antique Fruit Jar & Bottle Club, included the top item in Photo 1, showing a previously unreported “solid-pour” made in a SAFETY fruit jar lid mould. The jar lid’s embossing, partially visible in the aqua glass solid-pour, reads PATENT APPLIED FOR. This little prize was acquired by Midwest club member Dave Rittenhouse.

Full and partial solid-pour fruit jars have been reported for years. These solid-pour jars and partial jars were thought to be the result of filling the glass moulds with hot glass to heat them at the beginning of a run and were probably also the result of accidents with the automatic glass blowing machines. Most of these solid pieces would have been tossed back into the cullet bins, but some did survive, possibly taken to be used as paperweights or door stoppers.

Solid-pour jars reported over the years came from moulds that include the -ATLAS- MASON’S PATENT, the BALL (3-L) MASON, the BALL PERFECT MASON, various MASON’S PATENT NOV. 30th 1858 examples, the MODEL MASON, the PREMIUM COFFEYVILLE, KAS., the SCHRAM AUTOMATIC SEALER, a WOODBURY WGW half-pint, and others.

But there’s only been one other solid-pour lid reported, a green example made in a Hartell’s PATENTED OCTOBER 19, 1858 glass screw-cap mold. Photo 2 shows a solid-pour of the bottom couple inches of a Canadian CROWN jar.

The Nelson Glass Co. was incorporated on Oct. 22, 1891, in Muncie, Ind., for the purpose of “manufacturing and selling glass fruit jars, bottles, and any and all articles of things made of glass, iron or wood, or partly of any or all of them.”

On Dec. 30, 1891, Irenaeus P. Nelson applied for a patent for his idea of a “Jar Sealing Device” for “fruit-jars and the like.” The idea, which was applied to the SAFETY jar (Photo 3), called for “inclined grooves” to be blown into the jar’s neck to receive the ends of the locking wire (Figure A). Nelson received patent 471,756, on May 10, 1892. Then, after five years, on Nov. 11, 1896, CHINA, GLASS AND LAMPS reported that “the idle flint bottle works” of the Nelson Glass Co. had been purchased for $20,000 by the Muncie Flint Glass Co. The Nelson Glass Co., it added, had “abandoned fruit jar mfg. 3 years ago ...”

Figure B shows an ad from the DAYTON (Ohio) HERALD newspaper of Jan. 8, 1894, which offers pint, quart, and half-gallon “Safety Fruit Jars” in “White and Amber. ”

And while we’re on the subject, Photo 4 shows a heavy, 7 inch long, 3 inch wide, sun colored amethyst, solid-pour glass lid to a battleship covered dish, complete with four gun turrets and two smoke stacks! This was likely saved for use as a paperweight or even a doorstop. Its bottom shows fairly heavy wear.

I don’t recognize the particular battleship. It’s not one of the several covered dish tops that I know of that were used by E.C. Flaccus, Flaccus Bros., Exley Watkins, and other mustard packers in the Wheeling, W.Va., area.

Photo 5 shows one of the clear glass battleships for which George A. Flaccus, president of Wheeling’s Flaccus Bros Co., held the Oct. 4, 1898 design patent. This design-patented covered dish, in both clear and milkglass, was used by the company for its Prepared Mustard, and it could well be that the battleship covered dish, whose mould our solid-pour lid came from, held some other circa-1900 food packer’s mustard, jelly, or whatever.

PHOTO 1: Solid-pour (top) and regular SAFETY fruit jar lids.

PHOTO 2: Canadian CROWN jar solid-pour.

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

PHOTO 3: Pint aqua SAFETY fruit jar. FIGURE B: Ad from the January 8, 1894 DAYTON (Ohio) HERALD.

PHOTO 4: Solid-pour battleship covered dish lid.

GILL’S TEA JELLY GLASS

Commercial jelly glasses obviously evolved from the plain tumblers used by early American housewives to pack their own special jellies in. The store-bought jellies gave the thrifty housewives a free jelly or drinking glass to use after they’d been emptied, and while this might have brought only a slight advantage to the sellers, it’s still no wonder that packers of a few other products availed themselves to this advantage.

Photo 6 shows one such container, used to market tea. This 5 1/8 inch tall, slightly tapered tumbler has a white, unmarked, metal snap-on lid, has its full original contents, and its label, which reads: “Gill’s Hotel Special Orange Pekoe & Pekoe Tea 1/4 Pound Net Wt. Packed By The James G. Gill Co., Inc., Norfolk, Va.” The attractive jar is enhanced by five horizontal bands around the glass in red, white, green, yellow and orange, from top to bottom.

The James G. Gill Co. was founded in 1902 on Water Street, in downtown Norfolk. According to an October, 1953, BROADCASTING TELECASTING magazine, the Tea & Coffee company had been offering their “Gill’s Hotel Special Coffee” since its inception. Photo 7 shows a squat, key-wind tin of “Gill’s Hotel Special Coffee And Chicory Roasted And Packed By The James G. Gill Co.” Gill’s Hotel Special Tea was likely added to the line early on, and in 1950, it was being offered for sale over 230 miles away in Fredericks, Maryland, as per an ad in the FREDERICK NEWS.

In the 1970s the company added First Colony Coffee & Tea as a gourmet division to sell to specialty shops, restaurants and department stores, and in 1992, First Colony’s retail coffee shops became a large

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

part of its business. In 1995 the company, now First Colony, family owned since its inception, was bought by an investment group. About 2001, the retail sites changed ownership and were closed, and in 2011, First Colony Coffee & Tea itself was reported closed after 109 years of business in Norfolk.

Another of Gill’s glasses is shown in Photo 8. This one would be about the same size, with the same style snap-on lid, and a label reading “1/4 Pound Net Wt. Gill’s Hotel Special Orange Pekoe & Pekoe Tea Packed By The James G. Gill Co., Inc. Norfolk, Va.” This is just a plain glass, without the colorful pyroglazed bands.

And just to show that Gill’s wasn’t the only jelly-tumbler tea packer, Photo 9 shows two more 4 3/4 inch tall, clear glasses: the one on the left with a label for 2 Oz. of Forbes Green & Black Blend Tea, from the Jas. H. Forbes Tea & Coffee Co. of St. Louis, Mo., and the right-hand example still full of 2 1/2 Oz. of the original Janco Brand Orange Pekoe & Pekoe Tea, from Janney-Marshall Co., Inc., of Fredericksburg, Va. The Forbes glass has a blue and white sailboat and palm tree motif, while the Janco glass has floral designs in red and white. Both glasses have the same unmarked snap-on lids.

It’s also possible that any or all of these jelly-style glasses can be found with labels for jelly, mustard or whatever. The primary goal of the glass makers was to sell their product, no matter what material was packed in them.

D

PHOTO 6: Gill's Hotel Special Tea packed in a jelly-style tumbler.

PHOTO 7: Gill's squat key-wind Hotel Special Coffee and Chicory tin. PHOTO 8: A plain Gill's jelly-style Tea jar without horizontal bands.

PHOTO 9: Jelly tumbler-style jars with Tea labels.

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