Could be. Suggest you call them to ask. They may be able to positivly tell you if that is a date code or a mold number. Gaskets are easy to find, but if the models have changed in size, even a slight amount, that may be the reason they are offering two kinds of gaskets for that one you own. Also, if it has no weights, suggest that you ask about them as weights are far more accurate compared to a dial gauge. A canner that old could have very different pressure readings if the gauge had veen exposed to any water vapor (they ALL get exposed to that). Good luck.

As others have said you can use the pressure canner if it allows 2 inches of boiling water above the jars. Be very careful, however. Two years ago I was using this method and had locked down the lid leaving the vent open as JodieMo suggested earlier. A small amount of pressure had built up and when I removed the lid, the superheated water exploded up out of the canner and burned me quite badly. I still have the scars to prove it. This was a very old canner (it has since been retired) and did not contain the pressure lock that modern Presto models have. However, I will never again lock a pressure cooker lid down for boiling water processing. Either remove the seal or search for a lid that fits the pot.

There are plenty of tomato recipes you can water-bath too, however. Some of us who have only water-bath canners manage to put up quite a few tomatoes! But the good news is you can use your pressure canner as a BWB canner if you decide you want to can some recipes that can be done that way. The resources you mentioned (BBB and the NCHP) are great ones, with up-to-date safety guidelines. They'll tell you for each recipe whether it should be pressure canned or BWB canned or whether you have a choice. BWB is used for high-acid things: fruit in syrup, jams and jellies, pickles, some tomato and other recipes that have appropriate acid amounts. Pressure canners allow you to do low acid things like beans, other vegetables, prepared soups and stews, even with meat in them, and a wider range of tomato recipes. Try both approaches! See what you like! Z

Paula, DS's co-worker's name is Roy and I've never met him, but he must have gardening family members because he is so appreciative when I send peppers and tomatoes to the guys at the station. I've noticed the folks who are most appreciative when receiving fresh produce or home-preserved foods are those who know just how much work it takes to raise and/or can those home-grown veggies. When Roy sent me the case of jars via Chris, I immediately packed up a case of 12 jars of assorted home-canned goodies for Roy and his family and sent them back to him via DS on their next work day. (One good turn deserves another.) In that assortment was my last jar of Blueberry-Lime Jam. A few days later, DS said that 'my' Blueberry-Lime Jam reminded Roy of his grandmother's Blueberry-Lime jam and that they loved it. So, I assume the Blueberry-Lime Jam recipe has been in the BBB forever and that his grandmother likely made exactly the same recipe 'back then' that we still make today. Just a reminder that there's nothing really new under the sun. I think that we have to talk about something or we'll go crazy...and canning/dehydrating/storing the harvest is an important part of being a gardener too. After all, if your garden is producing well, there's no way you can eat all the produce fresh, assuming the garden is large like yours and mine. I was harvesting okra yesterday evening and noticed I have about a gazillion peppers to harvest. Gggrrrrr. I haven't even used up all the peppers I harvested last week. Uh oh. I simply cannot let the peppers start piling up like this because you remember what happened to me last year. I've been working hard to can peppers every week so I don't get behind like that again, but there's a million things on my 'to do' list everyday, and sometimes I don't have time to can. I guess today I could smoke some and freeze them to go with the 2 or 3 or 4 gallons of peppers already in the freezer. Tim hurt his back yesterday when he and DS were moving the big deep freeze from the garage into the house. I had read that motors on deep freezes kept in outbuildings often burn out in 2 or 3 years because they have to work so hard to keep the freezer cold enough, so I've been asking (alright, nagging) Tim for months to move the freezer into the dining-room-turned-TV-room-turned food storage room/Mom's hobby room. Finally, DS and DH were both here at the same time and thought they'd move it yesterday. You probably have to be a woman to appreciate this next bit because it so perfectly illustrates that macho man type attitude that hurts men...... I was in the once-formal dining room in which we rarely dined (except for holidays we eat in the breakfast room so to me the dining room is wasted space if all you use it for is holiday dining), moving things around to make room for the freezer and Tim comes in, grimacing, and telling me we'd "have to" empty the freezer in order to move it because it was too heavy to lift fully filled. Really? I was practically speechless and all I could say was "What were you thinking? Tell me you didn't try to lift it fully loaded? Of course we have to unload it. I knew that. What were you thinking? What were you thinking? What were you thinking?" Sheesh, men! Who in the world would try to move an almost-full 18 c.f. chest-style deep freeze without taking the food out of it?????? So, he made a trip to the chiropractor yesterday and will make another one tomorrow because he apparently either strained or sprained his back. When he called his boss and told him he wouldn't be at work yesterday because he hurt his back trying to lift a full deep freeze, the boss asked him what he was thinking and said something like 'you do know how old you are, right'? lol I don't know if a hurt back from moving a freezer qualifies as a garden-related injury but it should because almost everything in that freezer came from our garden. Finally, who are we to say someone can't have bread and butter pickles for dinner or supper or even breakfast? When we have jalapeno poppers left over from lunch or dinner, I like to eat them for breakfast the next day. Well, they are wrapped in bacon, so that's a breakfast food, right? Dawn