Crystalvac Jar

→ Full physical provenance, glass marks, mold numbers, dating criteria, and collecting notes are compiled in the brand guide: Crystalvac Jars.

This page exists as an anchor for kb_ref: links from the accession ledger. All item-type research lives in the brand guide.

Quick ID:

Square cross-section glass — no round coffee jars in this collection

Read the base mark, not the walls. Waffle-textured and smooth-walled jars overlap — smooth bodies are date-coded from at least 1936, so wall texture alone does not date a jar (revised 2026-07-21)

“Crystalvac” embossed disc on underside of lid; “We Roast It / Others Praise It” on lid top

Three Rivers Glass mark (three interlocked circles) on base → c.1932–c.1937; Owens-Illinois diamond-oval-I → documented from at least 1936, i.e. not a post-1940 indicator

Quick reference

Form: Screw-cap clear or amber glass jar; round cross-section
Sizes: ½ lb, 1 lb (launch 1932), 3 lb (added Dec 1932)
Manufacturer succession: Three Rivers Glass Co. (from 1932; in receivership from 1932, dissolved Jan 1937) → brief Ball Brothers Glass stage via the Dec 1936 TRG reorganization → Owens-Illinois Glass, documented supplying from at least 1936, not merely the 1940s. TRG’s long receivership means the transition was likely gradual and overlapping rather than a clean handoff.
Dating: Three Rivers star mark + 601-N mold number = pre-1937. Diamond-oval-I (Owens-Illinois) does not imply post-1940 — collection specimens carry plant-7 codes for 1936, 1937 (×2), 1938 and 1939.
Amber jars: Scarcer than clear; documented mold 601-8

Dating correction, 2026-07-21. This page previously stated “smooth walls → post-c.1940”, “Ball or Owens-Illinois mark → post-c.1943”, and “Owens-Illinois Glass (1940s+)”. All three were contradicted by the four one-pound jars accessioned as HH-BOTTLE-2026-0002, HH-BOTTLE-2026-0003, HH-BOTTLE-2026-0004 and HH-BOTTLE-2026-0005 — all smooth-bodied, all Owens-Illinois plant 7, date-coded 1936, 1937, 1937, 1938. The correction is consistent with the corporate record rather than at odds with it: Three Rivers Glass entered receivership in 1932 and dissolved in January 1937, so an Owens-Illinois presence in the mid-to-late 1930s is what that collapse would predict. The old “1940s+” appears to have been inferred from later specimens without an earlier one to bound it.

Caveat: Owens-Illinois single-digit date codes are ambiguous by decade (1936 vs 1946) and require triangulation — see Owens-Illinois Glass Company. Here the tight 6/7/7/8 clustering and the TRG dissolution timing both favour the 1930s reading.

Artifacts

In the collection

HH-COLL-0000-0004 — H and H Crystalvac Jar (group photo)
HH-COLL-0000-0017 — Small Crystalvac Jar
HH-COLL-0000-0029 — Small H and H Coffee Crystalvac Jars from Three River Glass Co.
HH-COLL-0000-0031 — Crystalvac-type square jars — waffle-textured wall and smooth-wall pair
HH-COLL-0000-0066 — Crystalvac Jar Lid — We Roast It / Others Praise It (Embossed Metal)
HH-COLL-0000-0071 — Crystalvac Jars — Waffle Glass vs. Smooth (Looking for the “Older Brother”)
HH-COLL-2014-0006 — Crystalvac Jar, Clear, Handle, Plain Top
HH-COLL-2015-0002 — Large Crystalvac Jar
HH-COLL-2015-0005 — Small Crystalvac Jar
HH-COLL-2015-0006 — Small Crystalvac Lid
HH-COLL-2015-0011 — H and H Coffee Square Jar
HH-COLL-2015-0013 — Large Crystalvac Jar with Wooden Handle
HH-COLL-2015-0014 — H and H Crystalvac Lid with Handle on Square Duraglas Jar
HH-COLL-2015-0023 — Crystalvac 3 Rivers Imprint
HH-COLL-2015-0032 — H and H Small Crystalvac Jar
HH-COLL-2015-0033 — H and H Large Crystalvac Jar
HH-COLL-2015-0034 — H and H Large Crystalvac Jar Disc Revealed

Reference

HH-REF-0000-0013 — H and H Blend one-pound Crystalvac jars, clear and amber (Mac Johanson collection)
HH-REF-0000-0014 — H and H Crystalvac coffee jar, tea box, and High Grade tin (group photo)
HH-REF-0000-0040 — Crystalvac jar with label (clear)
HH-REF-0000-0048 — Crystalvac H and H Blend
HH-REF-0000-0103 — Crystalvac Jar Lid Embossed (Instagram archive)
HH-REF-0000-0104 — Crystalvac Newspaper Front Page (Instagram archive)
HH-REF-0000-0105 — Crystalvac Older Brother (Instagram archive)
HH-REF-0000-0106 — Crystalvac Jar
HH-REF-0000-0107 — Crystalvac Jar (dark background)

Wanted

HH-WNT-1932-0001 — 1932 Crystalvac cutout (newspaper detail)
HH-WNT-1932-0002 — 1932 Delaware plant (Crystalvac roof promised)
HH-WNT-1932-0003 — 1932 Crystalvac news feature
HH-WNT-2016-0001 — Crystalvac with Label

Manufacturer

Container (glass): Three Rivers Glass Company, Three Rivers TX (from 1932; in receivership from 1932, Texas corporation dissolved January 1937) — Three Rivers made the original Crystalvac mold under contract and is documented as the local glassmaker in the 1932 newspaper launch coverage. (Corrected 2026-07-21: this entry previously gave Three Rivers a c.1932–c.1943 window, which outlives the company’s January 1937 dissolution by six years.)

Owens-Illinois Glass Company produced jars from the same or similar molds, and is documented in the collection by plant-7 (Alton, IL) date codes running 1936–1939 — i.e. contemporaneous with, not merely subsequent to, the Three Rivers period. Ball Brothers Glass enters via the December 1936 reorganization of Three Rivers, but no Ball-marked Crystalvac has yet been documented in this collection, so that stage remains inferred from the corporate record rather than from an object.

Duraglas (an Owens-Illinois trademark introduced 1940) remains a useful one-way discriminator: a Duraglas-marked jar or lid is post-1940. The absence of Duraglas does not imply a pre-O-I jar — the 1936–1939 specimens above are Owens-Illinois without it.

Lid: Embossed pressed-metal lid; fabricator undocumented. The lid carries the “We Roast It / Others Praise It” slogan in relief — no paper label or lithography on the lid.