I've paid anything from $1 a box to 25 cents each for really good quart ones but that was awhile back. Prices now are likely 2x or 3x that.

Dave

Yep, about $1 a dozen sounds right. Much more and people will pass them by.

I suspect it's regional, but I usually don't pay over $2.50/dozen. I'll pay more for pints and/or wide mouth quarts & less for regular quarts. All actual canning jars, no mayo jars etc. New jars do have lids & rings which reduce my price somewhat for used without them. I broke over & bought some 1/2 pints new this year, just about broke my heart! BTW, my all time best is 19 dozen for $2.50 total!

I just picked some up at a yard sale, I got 8 half pints and two pints for 75 cents, no rings and lids.

About $1 a dozen is good, I've spent up to $2 a dozen for mixed sizes, again, no rings or lids.

Annie

I just got 5 dozen assorted good canning jars almost free. All it cost me was a bowl of Roasted Red Pepper Bisque. If I was desperate, I would pay up to $2. a dozen, after I checked for damage. In fact, I am desperate. Had to do my chili sauce in wide mouth pints. Still waiting for returns.

Having a hard tim locally. Big Lots here has no stock of canning jars at all. Its usually loaded with pallets of them, but they tell me none have shown up yet. That was as of Sept 19. A recent customer there said that the Golden Harvest brand is discontinued, but I feel that info is not valid. Anyone else seen any issues with Big Lots and canning jars?

I don't buy them used. After three or four years they seem to get brittle and you start having one break inside the canner. ABout every four years I give mine away and buy new ones.

Yes, agree. The glass in todays canning jars seem to only hold up a few cylcles. I hate it when I hear a 'crack' sound in the canner and its a real mess to clean up!

I often find jars in thrift stores for 10 cents each, all sizes. I've also paid $1 for a dozen or so.

I've seen some Golden Harvest at Walmart this year, I think just pints. I haven't been to big lots, so I don't have any info on them from this part of the world.

The Big Lots near me was loaded with canning jars since last year. They ran out of lids last fall but had jars. Load of lids and jars this spring.
I stopped in today and there was not one canning item left. Walmart was down to a few lids and quart jars only.
No canners, funnels or anything. Folks are canning.

No yard sales around here have canning jars, the neighbors were looking. We did get a huge batch of misc sizes from a friend, and one cracked on me. Lucky me, I heard a ping when it entered the canner and I could retrieve it before it exploded.
I ran out of pints and pulled out my old blue ones, they canned up fine, accidently I filled a mayonaise jar and the bottom blow on that one.

Yup, me too. A mayo jar was slipped into my jars too. It was the exact same thread size. I also had the bottom break out after only a couple of minutes in the bath. What a mess!

Massachusetts is having a canning jar shortage! The last time I was at the grocery store they only had 1/2 pints and quarts. I paid $3 at a yard sale for a box of pints with rings and another $2 for a box of mixed qts and pints with rings and thought that was a good deal. Dodge Agway has a good selection in Hampton, NH but they're $11 bucks a case. Last year I scored when a woman at work gave me all her old canning jars - about 6 cases. Most people hate to part with them too - the bf was working at a house where the very elderly owner had stacks of canning supplies in her basement - when he asked if she wanted to get rid of them she said, "Oh, no, I plan on getting back into canning someday"!

Big Lots here hasn't carried canning jars for 2 years. I scored on Craigslist a few months ago - BWB canner, 70+ various sizes of jars, rings/lids for $25.00. There's someone advertising a BWB canner, Mirro pressure cooker, Foley food mill, 2 doz jars, rings/lids and cookbooks for $60.00 firm.

Haven't come across canning supplies in garage sales. Once in a while I can find jars at Goodwill: pints for $.69 and quarts for $.99 with rusty rings. I wait until they have their 50% off sale and I think they're still overpriced.

I actually find more at estate auctions than yard sales. I watch for a tiller in the ad, that's often a good sign there'll be jars, canners etc. For me, the older jars perform equally or better than new ones. I've had far more failures with newer golden harvest than older Kerr/Ball jars.

I just sent off a note to Big Lots asking about canning jars. Apparently they go by local store demand. If they have skids full, and these sit for more than a few months of canning season, they won't send off any the next year apparently. I suggest that if your local Big Lots has no jars, send off a note to them through their web site. I don't mind using a jar over, but to just buy used old jars, gives me another issue that I must carefully inspect each one, for cracks, chips, and most importantly heat stress. The heat stress can only be done with a polariscope I believe, unless you just want to fill a jar with hot water and run it through a whole canning process to see if it will crack. Its like buying a pig in a poke, or that 'infamous' box of chocolates (Forrest Gump)! Older jars over about 4-5 years are actually pints and quarts, whereas todays are in liters.

I've never purchased new Golden Harvest and don't have a Big Lots, but I just canned 8 quarts of tomatoes in old mayonnaise jars that I've been using for at least 10 years, not a break in one of them.

I get a couple of broken jars every year and I'm using jars that Grandma used 40 years ago, I never get rid of them. About the only jars I buy new are the 8 ounce jelly jars, because I give so many of them away as gifts and because they are gifts, I don't expect the jars back.

I did just throw away an old square jar that had spaghetti sauce ro something in it. I've used it for at least 15 years, but this year I ran my finger around the top and found a chip. Sigh. Into the recycling.....

Annie

Did get an answer?

My mother passed and now I have boxes of jars to sell or donate.

No idea what they're worth. Help!!

I just bought a box of 20 mixed pints and quarts for $4.00 at the local on line auction, they were all Ball/Kerr. They were pretty dirty, it took some scrubbing and a couple of trips through the dishwasher to get them all cleaned up and sparkly. I think that's why they were so cheap.

Others from the same source have been a bit more expensive, I paid $6 for 18 quarts a few weeks ago. I won't go much higher than that because I can buy a case of brand new quarts for about $11 at the local big box stores and they include lids and rings. Because a dozen lids with rings cost about $4.99 right now, I figure that leaves $6 for the jars, or about 50 cents each, and those are brand new.

That's canning type jars, not old/rare/collectible ones. Even most of those aren't worth more than a couple of dollars.

Annie