Canning Jar Score

I'm not a shopper by any stretch of the imagination except when it comes to food and kitchen goodies.  Once excellent source for unique yet inexpensive kitchen ware is thrift or resale stores.  I tend to stop at one every chance I get.  These are the best places to find the older baking dishes made with borosilicate tempered glass that is less prone to thermal shock.  Newer glass bakeware is made using soda lime that has problems with exploding because it has greater thermal expansion when heated.  For that reason, I prefer using older glass bakeware that I can easily find at the thrift stores for usually under $1 a piece.

I stopped at a new thrift store the other day, not looking for anything imparticular but as always hoping to find a treasure.  I found three 1 L (quart) Consumer's Glass of Toronto, Ontario but like so many Canadian glass factories, it is no more.  Consumer's Glass closed in 1997.  They were one of the biggest suppliers of canning jars for Consumer's Distributing (a defunct catalogue store) and Home Hardware (St. Jacob's, Ontario, still in business).  By right I really should not use the Consumer's Glass jars not because they can't be used but because they can't be replaced.  They are gorgeous!  They were made in 1980 so in comparison to a lot of the mason jars I have, they really aren't all that old.  At any rate they use the wide mouth lids currently available - metal two piece snap lids and Tattler re-usable lids.

I also found a 2 L Ball (made in the USA) brand standard mouth jar.  I honestly have well over 1,500 mason jars and yet have only about a dozen Ball jars.  Not that Ball jars are any better than Bernardin, Consumer's, Canadian Mason, Kerr, Golden Harvest, Home Discovery or a few other brands, it's the novelty of Ball for me.  Good gosh, we are in the US often enough that I could easily buy a few cases of Ball canning jars but so far I've restrained from doing so.

If you want to build your canning jar supply without breaking the bank, check out the thrift stores.  I paid 25¢ each for the jars which really is a bit on the high side.  New jars on sale cost about 60¢ each so the price I paid was still a nice little savings.  Normally the jars go for about 10¢ at thrift stores. It is very important to know the going prices for jars so you don't pay more than what you would new jars.  Of course the best price for jars is free and believe me, I am not above getting jars free.  All of my family and friends know I want all the jars I can get so they tend to trickle in through them.