That Jar Guy Again

I see clad.

This is the ebay that ebay wants.

Feedback from a previous jar that this seller sold last week says:


I'd be surprised if there wasn't a lot of filler in this jar too. The seller's description is very carefully written as to not guarantee that the entire contents are silver but still strongly imply to a naïve buyer that the coins are silver.

I would propose that the seller is targeting the lottery ticket gambler and the greedy.

No one is an easier mark than the greedy.

My opinion is not to invest more than $100 per lot on ebay.

Perhaps that risk level can be doubled with slabbed coins, but the risk is still there for a large number if different reasons.
With that level of investment you can still have a lot of fun.
It depends on your inner self as to how much risk you are willing to take.

A jar full of lottery for over $1,000 is not much fun to my way of thinking. I would have more fun burning a Grand in Vegas! Give me a machine that takes clad Ikes!

When he gets to ten sales may he morph into jar jar.



And on the buy side, he who dies with the most jars wins.

I want to know how it is "sealed" it is a bail type mason jar that is clear so it is not that old.

"All you ever never wanted to known about Mason jars" -- by me

Roundman, Mason jars were clear from the 1860s on; Ball was the first company to use the aqua glass in any great quantity, with the zinc-lid/porcelain insert shouldered jars. Atlas jars with the wire bail and glass lid were clear from the 1870s through the 1920s. The wire bail is called a "Lightning" closure and was actually patented as such. The fact that the glass is clear does not mean that the jar is "not that old." The truly old jars were very rarely seen in other colors such as honey amber, lead red, olive, and even cobalt blue.

If you want to know how old the jar is, look and see where the mold seam (case seam) on the side of the jar stops. If it stops at the shoulder, and the neck is a separate piece fitted to the rest of the jar...1860s-1880s. Mold seam goes up to top of jar: 1890-1900s. Seam goes over lip of jar: 1910s. No mold seam: Late 1910s & newer. Screw top glass lids were used until 1870s; then came the Lightning (wire bail) seals; then zinc lids with porcelain inserts in the early 1900s, finally regular screw-on lids made from steel or (after the 1960s) aluminum. The rubber gaskets that seal the lid to the bottle on some jars date those jars to the 60s or newer.

A very, very early jar will usually be a three-piece mold (seam stops at or below shoulder) with a very rough pontil scar on the bottom (where the punt rod was attached to the bottle.) Occasionally you'll find them with attached lips as well (the bottle was only made up to the shoulder, and then the lip above the shoulder was blown, hand tooled and attached to the rest of the bottle.) They're usually plain but sometimes had embossing done via "slug plate" or simply hand blown lettering attached to the outside of the jar. If you run across these, outside of glass collections, prices start at $100-$200 and top out north of $5k for rare early examples in rare colors that were produced in very limited quantities.

Most 19th c. fruit jars are round with tapering shoulders. The "Square Shoulder Mason" was patented by Ball in the early 1900s. Modern mass-produced jars often don't have a shoulder at all. (the lid is slightly larger in diameter than the bottom of the jar.) Also, many fruit jars from the 1860s to the 1920s will show some degree of imperfections (bubbles, seeds, rough spots) and "case wear" - evident friction on the outside of the jar, scratches, rub marks, etc. from the mold or from handling afterwards.

Now you know :) A little non-numismatic education from one of my "other" hobbies.