Monday, June 27, 2011

Garage Sale Treasures

Along with work, I have kept busy with canning and baking, and yes, I am extremely behind on posting my successes and failures. Hmmm..perhaps its the latest failure of "over-set" jam that has slowed my urge to type.  Actually, I need to experiment with my latest "pectin" research soon. But until then I thought I'd share with you the treasures I stumbled upon.

Ok, so its Monday...garage/yard sales are usually relegated to the weekends. I was driving down main street to purchase a soda and noticed a sign for a garage sale at some old cabins near the south end of town. I stopped after the mini-mart run as I was desparate for that caramel colored chemical fizz they refer to as Diet Coke. Yeah, I know, not healthy, not good for a person, but I didn't care...I wanted some in a bad way.

So this garage sale...it was a large one room cabin that was LOADED with stuff....treasures of all kinds. All I can say is that it's a good thing I live in a one bedroom flat or I woulda been "hauling", if you know what I mean. I don't know what it is with me and old things, but I love 'em. These items belonged to the towns' librarian of years ago, Mr. Bob Moran.


The first thing I came across was the wide mouth zinc lids...five of them along with a clear glass regular mouth bail top lid. Its not very often that a person even runs across zinc lids, much less wide mouth.  Yes, there were lots of neat things, but again, I have to limit my purchases, so when I asked the person selling the goods what I owed him, he immediately told me I needed to buy the boxes of jars. Of course I went and looked.  Three apple boxes to be exact. The jars were mainly regular mouth pints and quarts, of which I already have. And yes, there were some oldies in there. I sorted through and found four wide mouth pint jars and three regular mouth half pints. Again though, on my way to pay the gentleman my eyes caught more "goodies". I found a clear glass, regular mouth, half gallon bail top jar, minus the lid. Oh, but wait, I had found a lid on my first swipe through...sure enough, it fit perfect.  This jar was made by The Liquid Carbonic Co. with a patent date of July 14, 1908. I performed some online research and came up with this link. A soda fountain business started during prohibition.  The oldest of the screw top jars was one of the Kerr pint jars with a Patent date of August 31, 1915, again in mint condition other than being dirty.  I also came across a set of two vintage Ekco muffin tins. They're not mini size, nor regular size...just in between and cute to boot. The last, and perhaps one of my fondest, is a 1938 copyright Ball Blue Book Canning Book. It is in relatively great shape. What's neat about the book is all the pictures of jars from that time.  I'll peruse the recipes this evening when I get home from work. This "short" was printed on the inside cover of the book:

They shall rise up and call her blessed-
this woman, who-loving and thoughtful of
future joy and health-secures the goodness
of Nature at her best, and cans against the
barren sameness of the Winter months. Well
does she look to the ways of her household.

♥ it!!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment