}ULASERJET€}.mt 10 .hm 3 .pn 1 .h1Grayson Enterprises Ltd. First NA Serial Rights .h21 Oct. 1989 Copyright 1989 800 words .h3Page #. 771 words .fo   GORGEOUS GLASS COOKIE JARS  Written by June Grayson Photographed by Richard Grayson and June Grayson .OJ OFF .LS2 I didn't want to collect cookie jars - or cracker or biscuit   jars as the Victorians called them. It meant defying my husband   and depleting my bank account. It also meant re-cluttering our   home. Our four children had grown up and left us; their pets had   died. My husband had sold his 100 piece antique radio collec  tion. I had even sold my antique doll collection so that I could   buy Leica cameras for a new career as a writer and photographer.   Our home had never looked so nice.  π03  Š But in 1986 George Keyser allowed us to photograph the 135   cracker jars that he and his wife Mary had collected in their   travels throughout the United States and Europe before her death   five years previously. I had never seen such an exquisite col  lection.  When our children were little and the house filled with dogs   and cats, I had purposely avoided buying anything breakable for   our home; that consideration no longer applied. The beautiful   cookie jars reminded me of the best times of my own childhood and   I wanted to relive them.  Many of us who grew up in the 30s and 40s during the Great   Depression never realized at the time how poor we were. When I   came home in winter after the dark had started to fall, I could   see the inviting glow of our living room lamp with its pink shade   shining through the window onto the snow. I knew that my mother   had hot chocolate and home-made cookies on the kitchen table.   (In those days, no "good" mother would think of serving "bought  en" cookies to her family). How could I help but try to recap  ture those happy childhood days by collecting cookie jars, too?  Andy Warhol, the recently deceased "pop" artist and also a   cookie jar collector, called cookie jars "pieces of time." And   so they are - hundreds of them with their own little story to   tell and all adding up to an intriguing history of an entire age.   π0-  Š The English started it all around 1700. They had to eat   something with the tea brought by the clipper ships from the   Orient by the East India Company. Serving tea became a national   tradition during the Victorian Age. A family displayed its   prettiest biscuit jar on the dining room sideboard and reserved   it for company. Simpler jars stayed in the kitchen.  Surprisingly, it was American silver manufacturers who   popularized biscuit jars in the United States and advertised them   in their silver trade catalogs. Silver manufacturers made the   silver plates, rims, lids, and handles. They imported the glass   jars from France and England until American glass and pottery   makers arose to supply them. Glass manufacturers produced humidors, pickle jars, and   ginger jars as lavishly designed and decorated as were their bis  cuit jars. Sometimes they made matching sugars, creamers, and   spoon holders. The tea biscuits the Victorians served from their biscuit   jars were not the sweet treats we call cookies today. They were   more like our crackers. You can still buy similar crackers   imported from England in your grocery or department store. Victo  rian cookbooks did not even have a section for cookie recipes.   The one or two cookie recipes to be found are in the "Cakes"   section and are rolled sugar or molasses cookies.    π0-  Š „„  Since then, American cooks have brought the art of cookie   baking to its greatest glory.  You can still start a wonderful cookie jar collection.Col  lectors tend to specialize because of the sheer volume of cookie   jars available. Prices for pottery figural jars have soared   since the Sotheby auction of the Warhol collections in 1988.   However, almost every antique store has one or more Victorian   biscuit jars for sale. True, signed art glass jars from reputa  ble antique dealers are expensive, but they are worth budgeting   for. After you know the field, you will seldom come home from a   flea market without a lovely, although modestly-priced, jar. And   there is always the chance of finding a real bargain at a local   market or garage sale.  Beware, though, cookie jar collecting is truly addictive.   Our appetite for treats of any kind - cookies and the jars we   keep them in - may well remain insatiable. ##### Please write me at POB 167, St. Charles, Illinois, 60174,   with any additions or corrections to the cookie jar captions in   this article. I would especially like to know if you have seen   any of these jars pictured in factory catalogs. This is almost   the only way to substantiate the exact maker and the time of   manufacture. I will incorporate such facts in a book I am writ  ing on cookie jars.   π0-  Š