The amber beaver jar and how it became the quintessential Canadian collectible
Lot 60 in Miller & Miller’s upcoming Canadiana, Pottery & Folk Art Sale in an amber beaver jar.
So, what is it about amber beaver fruit jars that makes them so desirable? How can a utilitarian glass sealer jar used for everyday canning over a century ago command thousands of dollars?
It’s simple, says fruit jar expert John Barclay. “It’s all about the beaver. It’s a true Canadian symbol.”
In fact, all the beaver-style jars were made here in Canada, roughly between 1880 and 1900, many by the Sydenham Glass Company in Wallaceburg, Ontario. In those days, most Canadian glass was made domestically and Wallaceburg was Canada’s glass town.
The Sydenham Glass Factory, C. 1895
As to what makes one amber beaver more valuable than another, that’s not so simple. “There are a million things about beaver jars,” says Ontario-based Barclay, who’s been collecting for over 50 years and has written several books on the subject, beginning with his 1977 The Canadian Fruit Jar Report. But the top three factors, he says, are colour, condition and the lid.
Every amber beaver is a different colour, he explains, due to the fact that when the glass factory workers mixed the chemicals for colour they never measured them so every batch was different. As a result, there’s dark amber, honey amber, light amber, orange amber, even red amber. The most valuable, he says, tend to be the lighter colours. “Collectors don’t want them washed out but they like it when you can see through them.”
While the vast majority of beaver jars were colourless, amber glass was used specifically because of its light-resisting properties which would reflect the harmful ultraviolet light that could oxidize and spoil a jar’s contents more quickly. It was an effective strategy and that’s why it’s still used today in beer bottles and for some pharmaceuticals.
Amber glass remains useful today for its light-resisting properties.
Miller & Miller Auctions featured two amber beaver jars recently, both of which sold over estimate. In February 2018 a right-facing, medium amber quart with #10 embossed on the bottom commanded over $4,130, while a year later a darker amber beaver quart with minor condition issues and embossed with a #9 sold for more than $2,040.
At Miller & Miller’s upcoming Canadiana, Pottery & Folk Art Sale on Saturday, February 8, a third amber beaver jar will be introduced to the market – this example comes from the lifelong collection of the late Don Pero. In colour, it closely resembles the more desirable medium-amber jar the firm sold in February 2018.
According to Barclay, condition also affects price, and fruit jar collectors are notoriously fussy about condition. If they’re cracked, chipped or stained they’re just not as desirable. It’s also important the lids match the colour of the jar, which isn’t a given since they weren’t made at the same time or with the same batch of glass. Barclay says once the warehouses were filled with jars the factories shut down for the summer because it was simply too hot to make glass. When the fall came around workers returned and that’s when the lids were made.
A rare "Beaver Jars" crate top from The Sydenham Glass Company in Wallaceburg, Ontario.
Among those “million things” that can make one jar more valuable than another, is which way the beaver is facing. A left-facing beaver is more desirable than a right-facing beaver, for example. How much ‘whittling’ there is in the glass can also impact value. Barclay explains the factory workers had to blow hot glass into the moulds at the start of each day to get them heated up for production. When that molten glass hit the cold moulds, the first jars that came out tended to be wrinkled, or whittled, like ‘crepey’ skin. “Collectors don’t necessarily want a highly-whittled jar, but a little whittling makes a nice contrast and picks up the light.”
The numbers on the bottom of the jars are also significant. They were sometimes used for quality control, since the numbers could be used to identify a bad batch which, say, might have cracked when boiled during home sterilization.
The numbers on the bottom of the jars are also significant.
Sometimes, the jars are identified with letters from the alphabet, points out Lex Plater, another Ontario collector whose passion is fruit jars. “The alphabet beaver has an A, B or C and they’re rarer than the numbers,” he says.
Except for the number 13 beaver.
According to Plater, back in the 1800s people were highly superstitious and women often smashed those ‘unlucky’ number 13 jars. As a result, they’re extremely hard to find.
Size also counts. There are American half-gallons, quarts, and the most desirable of all, the pint beaver jars (also called midgets).
“If you ever find a midget in amber with a left-facing beaver, that’s the holy grail,” says Plater, who speculates the jar might command as much as $10,000.
But the rarest beaver jar of all is something Barclay describes as his “most exciting find” – and the one that got away.
Years ago, he heard about a man in Nova Scotia who had a Nova Scotia beaver jar where the beaver was standing on its hind legs. “I tried for 20 years to buy that jar,” says Barclay. “It wasn’t about me, he just didn’t want it to leave Nova Scotia.” Eventually the owner sold it to another Nova Scotian who promised it would never leave the province. As fate would have it, when the original owner died the man ended up selling it to someone else in Ontario.
It’s not the way Barclay hoped things would go, but collectors are an optimistic lot. For them, the hunt never ends and hope never dies.
Story by Diane Sewell
Item Estimate: $800-1200
Lot Number: 60
Auction Details: Canadiana, Pottery & Folk Art, February 8th, 2020. 9 am.
Live Auction Location: 59 Webster St. New Hamburg, Ontario. N3A 1W8
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