28 Butter Churns and Jars Buyers Display

A farmhouse kitchen once ran on containers. Cream went into a churn, butter went into a crock, and summer fruit went into glass that had to hold a seal until February.

Most of those objects were made to be used hard and replaced without ceremony. The ones that survived now sit on open shelves and mantels, and buyers pay real money for the right maker, color, or mark.

Dazey Glass Churns from St. Louis

Nathan Dazey bought a glass jar churn design from an inventor named Jones in 1904, patented his improved paddles in 1906, and built the Dazey Churn and Manufacturing Company in St. Louis. Its square-bodied glass churns with iron crank tops became fixtures of small farm kitchens, sold in four, six, and eight pint sizes.

A 1922 Dazey patent added a strainer screen in the top so butter could be washed without leaving the jar. Buyers check that the embossed Dazey name on the glass matches the stamped top, since married parts are common.

Taylor Brothers Dandy Churns

Dazey had competition across town. Taylor Brothers Churn and Manufacturing Company of St. Louis sold the Dandy, a hand-cranked glass churn with steel gears and a wooden paddle, and the Maine Memory Network holds an example dated to about 1920 labeled the improved Dandy Churn.

Dandy churns turn up less often than Dazey models, which gives them a small edge with collectors who want the pair. The top should carry the Dandy name clearly, and the glass jar should be free of cracks radiating from the threaded neck.

Wooden Dasher Churns

The upright dasher churn is the form most people picture, a tall tapered tub of wooden staves bound with iron or wooden hoops and worked with a plunging pole. Handmade nineteenth century examples show irregular staves, hand-cut hoops, and a dasher worn smooth by years of use.

Buyers look for old surface, meaning dry paint or a natural patina rather than a fresh coat of varnish. Shrinkage gaps between staves are normal on these churns, but a replaced dasher or lid lowers value because it breaks the original set.

Salt-Glazed Stoneware Churns

Stoneware potters made dasher churns alongside their crocks, usually in sizes from three to six gallons, with a capacity number stamped or painted near the top. The best examples carry cobalt decoration, from simple swags to full flowers, and a maker’s stamp from a known New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio pottery.

A complete churn with its original stoneware lid is scarcer than the body alone. Plain examples often bring $150 to $400 depending on condition, while strongly decorated churns from named potteries can climb well past that.

Barrel Churns on Wooden Stands

By the late nineteenth century, dairy farms with more cream turned to barrel churns, which tumbled end over end on a wooden or iron stand when cranked. The Standard Churn Company of Wapakoneta, Ohio, is among the makers whose stenciled names still turn up on these barrels, along with its bentwood dasher models.

Size is the main obstacle for buyers, so smaller household barrels sell faster than big dairy units. Original stenciling, working gears, and an intact lid clamp all matter more than a fresh coat of paint.

Davis Swing Churns

Some churns were built to rock rather than plunge. The Davis Swing Churn, made by the Vermont Farm Machine Company of Bellows Falls, Vermont, suspended a horizontal box in a wooden frame so the cream sloshed back and forth as the churn swung.

Some households rigged rocking churns to a chair so the work happened while sitting down. These frames are uncommon and eye-catching, and examples in good order have sold for over $500, though price depends heavily on condition and completeness of the frame.

Hand-Carved Butter Stamps

A butter stamp pressed a design into the top of a finished pat, marking whose farm it came from. Hand-carved examples from before about 1880 show uneven cutting depth and slight irregularities that machine-made stamps lack.

Cows, eagles, and pineapples draw the strongest interest, while simple wheat sheaves and flowers are common. Early cow and eagle stamps often sell for $200 to $300 depending on condition, and a stamp carved from a single piece of wood with its handle is generally more desirable than one with a separate inserted handle.

Box and Plunger Butter Molds

Where a stamp only decorated butter, a mold shaped it. Plunger molds pushed a carved print down through a round wooden sleeve, while rectangular box molds with removable sides formed pound and half-pound blocks for market.

Multi-print blocks that shaped several small pats at once are harder to find than simple brick molds, which often sell for under $40 depending on condition. Tight-grained maple, cherry, and birch were the usual woods, and legible carving matters more than a few hairline cracks.

Scotch Hands and Butter Paddles

After churning, butter still held buttermilk that had to be worked out before it would keep. Scotch hands, pairs of flat wooden paddles with one ribbed face and one smooth, pressed out the liquid, spread the salt, and shaped the finished pat.

The best were made from sycamore, a pale wood that does not taint the butter’s flavor. Buyers look for matched pairs with worn but crisp ribbing, and single wide scoop paddles carved from one board are a separate, older form worth a closer look.

Blue-and-White Butter Crocks

Between about 1900 and 1930, Midwestern and Ohio potteries turned out salt-glazed stoneware stenciled or molded in cobalt blue, and butter crocks were one of the most popular forms. Many carried the word Butter along with patterns such as daisies, cows, or waffle grids, plus a wire bail with a wooden grip.

Original lids and bails add value, though a crock missing its bail still sells. Genuine examples have unglazed or partly glazed bottoms with real wear, while a fully glazed base is a common sign of a reproduction.

Norton Stoneware from Bennington

The Norton family began making pottery in Bennington, Vermont, in the late eighteenth century and kept at stoneware until 1894. Crocks stamped J. and E. Norton, from roughly 1850 to 1859, are often considered the firm’s best period.

Norton values ride on decoration more than rarity, so a crock with a detailed cobalt bird, deer, or house far outruns one with a quick flower. Hairline cracks and chips at the rim cut value, but a strong image can carry a piece that has seen hard use.

Incised Stoneware from Early New York

Before brushed cobalt became standard, a few potters cut their decoration into the wet clay and filled the lines with blue. The Crolius and Remmey families of Manhattan produced some of the finest early American incised stoneware, including ovoid jars with bulging middles and narrow bases.

Birds, flowers, and ships all appear, and pieces with dates or owners’ names attract top bidders. Ovoid shape alone suggests an earlier piece, since later jars straightened into near-cylinders that stacked more efficiently in kilns and wagons.

Edgefield Alkaline-Glazed Jars

The Edgefield District of South Carolina developed a Southern stoneware tradition using alkaline glazes, which run in green and brown drips rather than the gray of salt glaze. Its best-known potter was David Drake, an enslaved craftsman born around 1800 who signed jars Dave, dated them, and sometimes inscribed rhyming couplets.

His large storage jars are among the most important objects in American ceramics and sell for sums far beyond ordinary stoneware. Unsigned Edgefield jars also have a strong market, particularly those with kaolin slip decoration.

Pennsylvania Redware Storage Jars

Redware came before stoneware in much of early America, and Pennsylvania is the state collectors most associate with it. The porous red clay needed a lead glaze on the interior to hold apple butter or lard, and many jars were left unglazed outside.

Manganese splotches on the glaze add color and interest. Because redware chips easily and flakes at the rim, buyers expect some wear, but a jar with a crisp profile, strong glaze, and applied handles stands well above plain examples.

Red Wing Union Stoneware Crocks

Several Minnesota potteries merged in 1906 to form the Red Wing Union Stoneware Company, and a red wing trademark appeared on its wares by about 1909. Large storage crocks with that wing, often paired with a stamped leaf and a capacity number, are staple display pieces.

Size affects price in both directions, since huge crocks are impressive but costly to ship. Stoneware production ended in 1947, and buyers check carefully for hairline cracks, which can hide under grime and cut value sharply.

Western Stoneware Maple Leaf Crocks

In 1906, seven Midwestern potteries combined as the Western Stoneware Company, with headquarters in Monmouth, Illinois, a town long nicknamed Maple City. The company’s crocks and jars carry a maple leaf mark, sometimes with a plant number that identifies which of the seven factories made the piece.

Those plant numbers give collectors something to chase. Clean glaze, a legible leaf, and an intact base are what buyers want, and minor kiln flaws from the original firing do not count against a piece.

Stoneware Wax Sealer Canning Jars

Before screw lids won out, many households sealed preserves with wax. Wax sealer jars had a groove around the mouth, and hot wax poured into that channel held a lid in place.

Stoneware versions were made by regional potteries through the middle and late nineteenth century, often with cobalt stripes or stenciled maker names. Their popularity peaked in the 1870s and 1880s, and marked examples from identified potteries in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania sell best with collectors.

Mason’s Patent Jars with the Famous Date

John Landis Mason’s patent of November 30, 1858, covered a screw-neck jar, and the date was embossed on jars for roughly sixty years, long after the patent itself expired. Most are light aqua and common, but variants with maker monograms, unusual sizes, or odd mold numbers attract advanced collectors.

Crude glass with bubbles and a whittled surface is a good sign. Reproductions made since the 1970s often appear in bright colors, show no base wear, and carry mold numbers such as H395 or H430.

Genuine Cobalt Fruit Jars

Collectors often buy fruit jars by color, and true cobalt blue sits near the top. The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors has shown a cobalt quart Mason’s patent jar valued at $25,000 to $35,000, depending on condition and provenance, with only three known examples of that variant.

Cobalt Trademark Lightning jars marked Putnam on the base are another prized find. Modern cobalt copies are far more numerous than originals, so any cobalt jar with slick glass and no wear deserves suspicion.

Trademark Lightning Jars

Henry W. Putnam patented a wire lever closure in 1859 for bottles, and an 1882 patent adapted it for wide-mouth fruit jars. The resulting Lightning jars, sealed by a glass lid and a wire bail rather than a screw band, became a real challenger to the screw-top Mason jar.

Jars embossed Trademark Lightning with Putnam on the base are an early form collectors look for. Original wire fittings and glass lids add value, and amber or strong green examples bring more than common aqua.

Atlas E-Z Seal Jars

The Atlas Glass Company launched its E-Z Seal line in 1896, before the 1902 merger that created Hazel-Atlas of Wheeling, West Virginia. These wire-bail jars were made in huge numbers, so most sell for modest sums, but their aqua and light green glass looks good in groups.

An H over A mark on later Atlas jars dates from about 1923 onward. Strong Shoulder Mason jars from the 1920s and early 1930s are another Atlas variety, identified by a pronounced ridge above the shoulder.

Kerr Self Sealing Jars

Alexander H. Kerr founded the Hermetic Fruit Jar Company in Portland, Oregon, in 1903 and renamed it Kerr Glass Manufacturing Company the next year. The firm’s Kerr Economy and Self Sealing lines were made at several plants, including Sand Springs, Oklahoma, from 1912 until 1992.

Jars embossed with Sand Springs on the base appeal to regional collectors. Early Kerr jars without the AHK monogram, which only came into use in 1944, are generally the ones serious collectors look for first.

Drey Jars from the Schram Company

The Schram Glass Manufacturing Company used the Drey name on fruit jars from about 1908 until the mid-1920s, after Leo A. Drey, who became president of its Hillsboro, Illinois, plant in 1907. Variants include the Drey Mason, Drey Ever Seal, Drey Perfect Mason, and the Drey Square Mason, made roughly 1922 to 1925.

Schram’s plants were sold in 1925, and some Drey molds stayed in use afterward. The square jars are the most distinctive and tend to sell fastest.

Hemingray Globe Jars

The Hemingray Glass Company, which began in Covington, Kentucky, and is better known for telegraph insulators, patented its Globe fruit jar on May 25, 1886. The jar used a glass lid held down by a lever clamp and came in pint, quart, and half-gallon sizes.

Amber Globe jars in shades from light honey to deep brown are the ones collectors want most. Half-pint and quarter-pint sizes are extremely hard to find, and an original lid and clamp make a real difference to value.

Midget Pint Fruit Jars

Small jars hold a special place with fruit jar collectors. The midget pint, a squat jar well under a standard pint, was made in several popular embossed patterns, and it is nearly always rarer than the regular pint version of the same jar.

Because these jars take up little room, they are easy to display in rows on a narrow shelf. Chips at the lip and heavy interior staining lower value, while clear embossing and even color help a midget pint sell quickly.

Label-Under-Glass Apothecary Jars

Drugstore bottles with labels sealed beneath a curved glass panel were built to survive spills and constant handling. Whitall Tatum Company of Millville, New Jersey, a major maker of pharmacy glass that operated there from 1806 until it was sold in 1938, produced many of them, often marked W.T. and Co. on the base.

Matched sets from a single pharmacy are prized, as are amber examples. Buyers check that the protective glass panel is not cracked and that the label beneath is not badly faded.

Apothecary Show Globes

Show globes were large glass vessels filled with colored liquid that stood in pharmacy windows as a trade sign, a custom carried from England to American drugstores into the early twentieth century. Forms range from simple urns to multi-tiered stacks and hanging models on brass chains.

Henry Whitney patented a version in 1869 that used colored glass instead of liquid to avoid messy leaks. Complete globes with original stoppers and stands are uncommon, and a crack or chip anywhere hurts value.

Planters Peanut Store Jars

Planters sold nuts from glass counter jars in general stores, and those jars now rank among the most recognizable pieces of store glass. Shapes include barrels, squares, hexagons, and designs with Mr. Peanut figures, and many lids carry a molded peanut finial.

The Henry Ford museum holds a Planters jar dated 1935 to 1945. Reproductions are common, so buyers look for wear on the base, crisp embossing, and an original lid, since a replacement lid or chipped peanut finial reduces value noticeably.

Crocks, Glass, and Everyday Proof

Every piece on this list was once ordinary, bought for a few cents or made on the farm and used until it cracked. The value now comes from what survived that use, from a legible stamp, an unbroken lid, or a color that few factories ever made.

Buyers display these things because they carry evidence of how food was made and stored.

That evidence is easy to lose. Fresh paint on a churn, a mismatched lid on a jar, or aggressive cleaning of a crock can remove exactly what made the piece worth keeping.

A careful look at marks, wear, and original parts usually tells the story before any price guide does.

More from Home As We Make It

• 18 Affordable Places to Retire in the U.S.
• Antique Glassware That’s Worth Collecting
• Stay-At-Home Jobs That Actually Pay
• 18 Forgotten Snacks from the ’80s and ’90s
• 20 Things That Make a House Look Cleaner Than It Is

Like Home As We Make It‘s content? Follow us on MSN.