The FRANK TEA & SPICE co of Cincinnati, Oh...makers of old Frank's Red Hot sauce...made peanut butter for ages....early 1900's till the 1960'2/70's...
Any of us have seen a slew of these JUMBO peanut butter jars....every Antique store worth their salt has a plentiful supply, most estate sales and even the more cosmopolitan garage sales will have one.
I'd never been interested in them...until reading a post on the "Jar Fetish™" sites...
"The JUMBO jars....produced for so long...have about 80 variations...different sizes, different lids, different eras...rarely will you come across one with a lid...."
Yuppers....that jumped out at me..."The lid is the key!" And here I found a 7oz jar, of the older variety, with its original lid!
Not the "grail" of peanut butter jars....but a rare find regardless!
All in a days scurraging!!
***UPDATE*** So...that lid I found is from the 1920's...one of the oldest JUMBO lids out there....not too shabby!
Another estate sale out in the hinterlands. Advertised as a "1850's farmhouse"....who could pass up a chance at some ancient artifacts buried out in the sticks?!?
Not I...Off I set in search of who knows what?
2 barns....full of "Horses-people" stuff! Harnesses & Horses collars...mostly useless things...useless to me anyways...off to the house!
Inside...most glassware & clothing....seemingly a bust.....then I noticed the basement with its "DO NOT ENTER" sign...being ignored by hoarders & employees alike!
TO THE BAT-CAVE! Down a set of ramshackle stairs that even the Dog-Boy would have disapproved of! Again...nothing....dust & mold & a dank smell...people picking their way among the ruins...I had almost given up hope....until I saw a woman rummaging through an old cupboard....and there they were: An ancient prescription bottle....and, buried at the bottom...an old Velvet Peanut butter jar, dirty almost beyond recognition!
The 'script bottle...looking like was just handed over yesterday to some farmer's daughter...."R.L. McCabe"...DETROIT, MICH. I have one other such bottle....who's label is torn almost beyond reading....this one is perfect. A bit of research provided ad's circa 1930's from DETROIT advertising McCabe's pharmacy! Who knows when they became defunct? A bottle of " Potassium permanganate"...A household oxidizing agent....good 'ol Potash!
And the Velvet jar...
Tucked away at the bottom of the cupboard....covered in dust & dirt....and filled with turpentine! Who can guess how long this jar had been siting down in the dungeon of gloom containing this piney concoction? An age & an age perhaps? Label torn & frayed....it took some cleaning & elbow grease...but it cleaned up rather well....artistic representation non-withstanding!
