New (to me) Jars

Every Columbus Day weekend one of the local town fire departments has a large fundraising yard sale. People donate to the sale and they always have quite an assortment of furniture, books, and odds and ends. We've gone the past two years and found some nice finds. Last year my husband got a first edition G.K. Chesterton book for the hardback price of $1. This year I picked up a stack of 30 Cooks Illustrated Magazines from the past few years that I'm looking forward to reading. I also found a whole bunch of wire clamp top canning jars. I picked through the three boxes and chose 10 that had the least rust on the wires. They are an assortment of sizes and brands, both Atlas and Ball.

I already have a few wire clamp jars that I use for more decorative purposes. These hold a collection of shells and sea glass collected in Newfoundland.
However, I wanted to use the new jars for storing food. I looked around on the internet for rubber seals so that I could use them to store food. I found a site in California, but by the time I paid for shipping it was going to be $20 for the seals! I'd only paid 25 cents a jar, so that seemed quite ridiculous. I decided to stop by the local grain and feed store that has canning supplies and was pleasantly surprised to find he had dozen for $2.45. That was more like it. Now that we've cleaned up the jars and run them through the dishwasher they are being put to good use storing dry goods. We use other canning jars for food storage also, but then find that every time I need to can, my jars are in use. I don't plan on canning with these jars, though some people still do. I'll be using them to store some foods that sit on top of our bread box for easy access.
We'll be looking forward to the Fireman's Foliage Sale next fall.