Enormous Hand-Blown and Etched Hatching Jar

My sister acquired this item in Tampa in 1993. She says it stands 1'6" high and is 6" in diameter; she hasn't weighed it but my guess is about 5 lbs. At the base, "Meehan Hatching Jar" is etched and around the rest of the "jar" lovely grapes and grapevines are etched, at the time causing us to think it had something to do with wine. Now (with the internet at our fingertips) we know that hatching jars were never this large or elaborate and are still used to hatch fish or shrimp (one "giveaway" is the distinctive shape of the spout)!

Have any of you seen such a thing before?

The mystery is -- why was such an elaborate hatching jar created and for whom?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/ideas/or guesses!

 

I sure hope someone can find the answer for you. I am now extremely curious!

Cool item.

 

Me too, birddog. I've never heard of such a thing.

 

I've just been crawling around the internet and can only come up with the thought, that, based on your jar shape, and the shape of the hatching jars, below, that someone heavily involved in the business, wanted a "one off" beautiful decorative piece representing the business, or as a gift to an owner OR RETIRING BUSINESS PARTNER!!! ESPECIALLY, with the NAME of the business etched into it!!!! It's beautiful!!!!

 

Always learning on here ! I had never heard of a hatching jar until this post !

 

Thank you all for your input and thoughts!

With your help, I took a deeper dive and eventually found:

William Edward Meehan (Aug 31, 1853- Jan. 7, 1930), named Commissioner of Fisheries (Harrisburg, PA) by Gov. Pennypacker and appointed to (and later President of) the Board of Fishery Commissioners by Gov. Stone; writing in 1905 under the heading, "New Hatching Jar" --

"At the urgent request of the superintendents, I undertook to devise a hatching jar which would meet the undesirable features of those which we had in use and apparently I have succeeded. I have designed a jar having the bottom, like the first mentioned type with a top like the second and with generally a uniform width from bottom to top. Also with a longer lip. I have also got rid of the stem which connected the other types of the jar with the foot and had the foot set against the bottom. This it is hoped will overcome the objectionable breaking feature."

And that's about all I can add to the story.

We're thinking that on retirement his colleagues presented him with the "commemorative" jar since it was such an improvement over the older versions.

Once again, thanks for all your suggestions!

 

How interesting! Great research DrPam.

 

Your jar was hand cut by a skilled glass cutter, not etched which is a much less skilled operation. Treasure it. It may very well be unique.

 

Wow, thank you so much for that info—had no idea! I’ll pass it along to my sister.