A few years ago my sister and I found a box of mason jars with the old-style glass seals and extra-wide silver rings at a garage sale. Enchanted by their vintage charm, we bought ‘em, and split ‘em.
Shortly after we had found our first jars, perusing my local grocery store’s canning section one day, I had noticed and bought a little box of rubber fruit jar rings. Mostly because the box looked cool, and partly because I knew one used them with glass sealers.
Give me modern metal sealers for REAL canning, but for storing dried foods where a good seal is less important, the glass lids are prettier. We both use them quite a bit in the kitchen.
Since then, we have added to our collections from time to time, and last spring we picked up some glass seals for a very good price at a vintage goods store. We soon found out why; the darned things didn’t fit any of the jars either of us had! I slipped one of them into my purse so it would be handy for trying on mason jars when I found them for sale.
Last weekend in Courtenay we found nine milk crates full of mason jars at the Sally Ann. A few even had glass seals. Then I remembered my odd sized seal, pulled it out and tried it on an old jar (1976) and IT FIT! One whole milk crate had these odd sized jars so we each grabbed enough to fit our lids.
Today I packed up my garlic scape powder into a couple of the vintage jars. I remembered the rubber rings, pulled them out and to my surprise, they perfectly fit those odd sized glass seals . So my 1976 jars from Courtenay, with their lids from Brentwood, and their rubber rings from Royal Oak, filled with garlic scape powder from this year’s garlic patch in Prospect Lake, are stowed away in my dry goods drawer in my kitchen. It’s funny how things can just all fall into place sometimes isn’t it.
