Antique Mason Jars Value: Old Jar Prices by Type

An antique jar is usually worth $5 to $30 if it is a canning jar in clear or aqua glass, and hundreds to thousands of dollars if it is a rare-colour canning jar or a shop counter jar with a brand name. Knowing which of the two families you have is the first step:

• Canning (fruit) jars: Ball, Atlas, Kerr, Mason's Patent and Lightning-type jars made for home preserving. Made by the million, so most are cheap.
• Store and advertising jars: gum, candy, pill and pickle jars made for shop counters, often with an embossed or labelled brand. Collected as advertising, so a known brand in good condition sells for far more.

These are dealer price ranges from the Adirondack Girl @ Heart canning jar guide, as shown on 25 September 2026. They are asking ranges, not auction results.

• Aqua Mason's Patent Nov. 30th 1858, quart, about 1890 to 1915: $15 to $18.
• Aqua Mason's Patent, quart, about 1875 to 1900: $15 to $18.
• Aqua Ball, quart, triple-L lettering, about 1900 to 1910: $15 to $18.
• Aqua Ball Mason or Ball Perfect Mason, half gallon, about 1910 to 1933: $25 to $30.
• Aqua Atlas Strong Shoulder Mason, quart, about 1920: $10 to $12.
• Lightning Registered U.S. Patent, pint, Putnam embossed: $15 to $20.
• Aqua Ball Ideal, pint, lightning seal, about 1900 to 1910: $10 to $12.
• Clear Ball Ideal, half pint: $12 to $15.
• Clear Atlas E-Z Seal, quart: $5 to $8.
• Aqua Atlas E-Z Seal, half pint, about 1900 to 1925: $15 to $20.
• Clear Presto Wide Mouth, quart: $18 to $20.
• Unmarked clear square jars with decorative embossing, pint: $10 to $12 each.
• Zinc and milk-glass lids: $2 to $3 each.

The same guide notes that rare colours such as amber, cobalt and milk glass bring several hundred dollars, and Taste of Home reports green jars fetching upwards of $300.

Antique Advertising's price guide lists what customers actually paid for items it sold; these are sold prices, shown as of 25 September 2026, and the guide does not give sale dates.

• Faultless Wonder Nipples jar: $6,500.
• Shac Headache Tablets jar: $4,290.
• Heinz Pickling Vinegar jar: $3,630.
• Dr. Jayne's Sanative Pills jar: $3,080.
• Yellowstone pickle jars: $2,070.
• Dentyne Chewing Gum jar: $1,540.
• Walla Walla Pepsin Gum jar: $1,322.50.
• Banjo store jar: $1,320.
• Planters Jumbo Block jar: $1,265.
• Six-sided glass candy jar: $345.
• Adams Pure Chewing Gum jar: $132.

The spread is the lesson: a named brand and original lid or label move a store jar from the low hundreds into the thousands.

In the same Antique Advertising guide, the highest prices went to soda-fountain syrup bottles and display bottles with brand names (sold prices, checked 25 September 2026):

• California Grapine syrup bottle: $12,650.
• Allen's Red Tame Cherry syrup bottle: $4,600.
• Waterman's ink display bottle: $2,420.
• Vin Fiz syrup bottle: $2,415.
• Heinz ketchup display bottle: $2,310.
• 1910 Coca-Cola syrup bottle: $357.50.

Ordinary medicine, beer and food bottles without a known brand are usually worth little. To date a bottle before pricing it, look at the seams, the lip and the base; the Society for Historical Archaeology's bottle site explains the method but deliberately gives no values and points readers to eBay, WorthPoint and price books instead.

• Colour. Clear and aqua are common, and so is Ball blue, which Ball used from about 1910 to 1930 (Wikipedia). Green, amber, cobalt and milk glass are the valuable colours.
• Age and how it was made. Mouth-blown jars are older than machine-made ones; the Society for Historical Archaeology dates jars by the same manufacturing clues it uses for bottles.
• Closure. The Society for Historical Archaeology groups jars by closure: wax sealers, Mason's Patent screw tops, Lightning-type wire bails, thumbscrew and stopper lids, cam levers, and cap and spring clips. Earlier and less common closures are worth researching.
• Embossing and errors. Brand, wording and misprints change the price; Taste of Home mentions a Ball jar with three Ls on the front as a collectable error.
• Size. In the guide above, half gallons list above quarts of the same age.
• Condition. Cracks and chips on the rim lower the price.

Wikipedia sums up value as age, rarity, colour and condition.

• "Patent Nov. 30th 1858" is John Landis Mason's patent date (US patent 22,186); jars carried it for decades, so it is not the year of manufacture (Wikipedia). The Adirondack Girl @ Heart examples bearing it date from about 1875 to 1915.
• Ball Perfect Mason was introduced about 1913, and the Ball Ideal appeared about 1915 and was discontinued in 1962 (Wikipedia).
• Atlas jars were made by the Hazel-Atlas company, which operated from 1902 to 1964 (Adirondack Girl @ Heart).
• Reference books. The Society for Historical Archaeology names Alice Creswick's The Fruit Jar Works (1987) and Dick Roller's The Standard Fruit Jar Reference (1983) as the classic references, now out of print.

For Ball blue jars in detail, see our page on blue mason jar value.

• Decide whether it is a canning jar or a store jar.
• Read every embossed word and note the colour against daylight.
• Check whether it is mouth-blown or machine-made, the closure and the size.
• Look for cracks and rim chips.
• Compare with the dated prices above, then with recent sold listings for the same wording and colour.

AntiqLens can suggest the maker and period from photos of the front, lip and base. For a rare colour or a branded store jar, check sold auction results before you set a price. If you are sorting mixed glassware, see antique glass identification.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Prices are copied from the named auction house, dealer or guide with the sale date where the source gives one and the date we checked it; asking prices and estimates are labelled as such, and where a figure could not be confirmed we say so rather than estimate. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.

The most valuable mason jars are early jars with unusual closures in rare colours, not Ball jars. The current record is a cobalt blue quart embossed The Van Vliet Jar of 1881, which sold for $48,805 at North American Glass; Maine Antique Digest reported it on 25 May 2026 as an auction record for any fruit jar and the only Van Vliet known in cobalt. It still had its original aquamarine lid and cast-iron yoke clamp with thumbscrew.

LoveToKnow lists these other rare jars with the prices they brought (no sale dates given):

• Van Vliet quart in yellow-green, one of only two known in that shade: $23,500.
• Bennett's Backwards No. 2 quart, about 1870, with the 2 embossed backwards: $1,295.
• Ball Perfection jar with a milk glass top: $702.
• Upside-down Ball mason jar, made to stand on its lid: $475.

The pattern is consistent: original closures, embossing errors and colours other than clear, aqua or Ball blue are what lift a jar into the hundreds or thousands.

The number on the bottom of a Ball jar is a mould number, not a date or a lucky charm. Minnetrista, the museum and heritage centre in the Ball family's home town of Muncie, Indiana, explains that it identifies which mould made the jar, that most machines had eight to ten moulds, and that higher numbers appeared when worn moulds were replaced. That is why 13 turns up less often.

The popular story is that superstitious moonshiners smashed jars marked 13. Minnetrista says there is no evidence Ball ever made special jars for moonshiners, and that knowledgeable collectors do not consider the base number to make any difference in value. Glass Bottle Marks agrees that most of the stories are hogwash, and suggests the mild scarcity may come partly from collectors pulling 13 jars out of groups to keep them.

Glass Bottle Marks gives these dating clues for the Ball Perfect Mason, the most common old jar:

• Production: from about 1913 to about 1960. Earlier aqua jars embossed Ball Mason without Perfect date from about 1895 to 1913.
• Colour: aqua or Ball blue is generally before 1937; clear glass is 1937 onward; brown amber jars are from the 1950s.
• Logo: Ball's script logo changed several times; Logo 5 (1913 to 1923) and Logo 7 (1933 to 1962) are the most common on Perfect Mason jars.
• Base number: a mould number, which does not date the jar.

The same source puts common aqua and blue Ball Perfect Mason jars in standard sizes at $1 to $2 each, with antique dealers pricing them higher.

Retail prices are higher than auction prices for common jars. Mason Jar Merchant, a vintage jar shop, listed these asking prices when we checked on 25 September 2026:

• Kerr regular mouth jars: $5.99 to $6.99.
• Improved Gem quart, 1930s: $11.99; half gallon $31.99.
• Sure Seal wide mouth, 1930s: pint $31.99, quart $35.99.
• Jewel jar tall pint, early 1900s: $31.99.
• Canadian Jewel half gallon, early 1900s: $27.99.

These are asking prices from one seller, not sale results; use them as the upper bound for an ordinary jar in good condition.