~ by Paul Sackmann
It’ s always fun to find a bottle or jar someplace with some history behind it. After the thrill of finding it wears off you are left with the question“ What should I do with it?” Do you keep it in the condition that you found it? Or, if the jar is an old valuable one and stained, how do you get it sparkling clean again?
Glass is only sand. When it is buried in the ground for a long period of time, it can break down from corrosion due to ground conditions. Most of the aqua colored bottles from the 1880s thru the 1930s are made with Lake Michigan sand and have acid stain when buried for a long time.
Bottles that are stained can be left in a vinegar bath solution for a few hours, then buffed up with a Scotch-Brite sponge. If stronger methods are required, denture cleaner works well. Barkeeper’ s Friend( a cleaner found at most hardware stores) and elbow grease will remove any rust stains that may have occurred.
I have tumbled bottles and jars like you would polish a gemstone, and they come out looking better than new. Use caution though, because this process can wear the embossing down on the glass and degrade the value.
Most of the glass items that I find usually just need a little dish soap and bottle brushing inside of them. If they are really full of mud, I place a small amount of gravel and a little sand and water inside and shake them up. This usually does the job.
I have an old fruit jar that I found abandoned in a cabinet, it was hiding out on the bottom shelf on its side. It was black as coal from decades of neglect. After it was cleaned up, the clear jar sparkled! It also was discovered, that it was embossed with the name“ Agnew” on the bottom. This company made fruit jars in the 1800s— a real prize.
There are bottles and jars that are found where no amount of cleaning will help them. These are“ diamonds in the rough“ as I like to call them. I think they still look good as they are. Some items are so scarce, they are worth saving— even chipped and cracked, or with parts missing.
Sometimes just a good old rain bath will do the trick. After finding a root cellar filled with dust and dirt covered fruit jars, I brought them up in apple baskets. The baskets were left out and rained on for a few days. This was enough to clean up the jars to be serviceable again. This is definitely my preferred method. Oh, if it were only always that easy.
Good luck in your searches. •
2 / 5 / 14
the fine snow coming down fast in the wind which swerves and swells is not silent it makes a rustling as it falls on itself
over which I hear my breath pounding you could call it music if you want I feel the odd strain in this or that muscle
my foot slips sideways a few times my fingers numb in the cold I set my mind on the warm house
and in all ways I can I do wonder at what the world does with itself in winter and shudder myself along through it
— Eric Rensberger
Jan./ Feb. 2016 • Our Brown County 35