Fruit Jar Collectors

Can't Keep a Lid on their Enthusiasm

The First Baptist Church of Rockville, Indiana, was clearing land for a building addition when the church's pastor, Philip Robinson, saw something shining in the dirt. He picked up a turn-of-the-century glass fruit jar lid, and his life hasn't been the same since.

That was in 1971, and a quarter-of-a-century later, Robinson has added to his collection thousands of times over.

It all comes together in his private museum in Muncie, Indiana, the town famous for Ball® jars. Robinson exhibits 2,860 jars in a specially constructed building on his property. The collection attracts visitors from around the world.

Jars aren't the only rewards of Robinson's unique hobby. While buying jars found in a garage in Greensburg, Indiana, he noticed a 1923 Dodge Brothers automobile parked inside. As it happens, the car was also for sale.

Not only did he buy a nice collection of new jars, he laughs, "I also bought something to drive them home in."

"If These Jars Could Talk..."

One of Doug Leybourn's favorite fruit jar finds came from an unlikely location - the bottom of a pit that was once located in a family outhouse.

"People used their privies to get rid of all their junk," Leybourn says. "So here was this little . . . pint jar that had been standing right side up at the bottom of a 12-foot hole for more than 100 years. It was impeccable . . . not a scratch on it."

Leybourn, a life insurance agent, got the collecting bug more than ten years ago. Today, his jars have their own special room in his family's Muskegon, Michigan, home.

His favorite Ball® jar is an apple green, porcelain-lined midget with the Ball Brothers' famous BBGMCo monogram (for Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company). The jar likely dates between 1884 and 1886.

Leybourn likes to think about the history represented by his collection of 3,000 jars. "If those jars could talk, they could tell us a great deal about all the families they fed," Leybourn says.

Classified Information

As a marine zoologist, Dick Roller applies a certain scientific zeal to his jar collection.

"I'm an organizer . . . so the wide variety of jars interests me," Roller says. "Plus, most fruit jars are marked, so it is often possible to determine exactly made them."

Roller has organized his knowledge into a monthly publication called Fruit Jar Newsletter. (If you're interested, write to FJN Publishers, Inc., 364 Gregory Ave., West Orange, New Jersey 07052-3743.) It's a place where fellow jar collectors, many of whom have become good friends, can keep in touch with the past and plan for the future of their collections.

That, says Roller, is what collecting is all about.

Collectible Color

Aqua, amber, cobalt...collectors prize these international, and not-so-international, efforts to make jars anything but clear.

The Ball® Perfect Mason jar alone can be found in amber, brown amber, cornflower blue, dark yellow, straw yellow, olive green, olive amber and blackish olive.

In many cases, color was added to protect food from light. Unfortunately, fresh-canned food viewed through brown or blue glass isn't exactly appetizing, so the colored jars were not long-lived. Their rarity makes them all the more precious.

It is thought that some of the rarest colors arose from limited runs, even experimental creations that never sold commercially. Or, they were accidents. A single run of pink jars occurred unintentionally at Ball Corporation's Asheville, North Carolina plant in the early 1970s.

Some jar collectors seek the various shades of lavender and purple. The chemical that once bleached green from glass turns purple over time when exposed to light.

Whether paying a little or a lot, most jar enthusiasts agree that colored jars add spice to their collection.

© 2003 Alltrista Consumer Products Company