Have you noticed a serious shortage (as in none on the shelf) of canning jar lids at the store? It started in June (strawberry jam season) with shortages and price scalping by grocery stores and Amazon alike. Then the lids were all gone at the stores, standard first then wide mouth. Next to disappear were the boxes of lids with rings. And now if you want lids, you are going to have to buy the jars and rings too.
Seriously, are the Ball and Kerr production facilities really still shut down? (It is probably the same factory in the USA just marking and packaging the lids differently.) How hard is it to get the raw materials to make canning jar lids? I seriously doubt that the supply chain for those items has been interrupted that much. Why am I wondering if they're just taking advantage of the "pandemic" to offload old stock of jars, lids, and rings? Surely the profit margin is much higher on those. Are they really that bad at planning, or are they laughing all the way to the bank, because they are forcing their customers to buy more jars?
I have been thoroughly disgusted with the flimsy construction of canning jar lids over the last 8 years or so. The new "guarantee" that they will hold a seal for up to 18 months is pitiful. That is if you can get them to seal properly in the first place without buckling and wrinkling. I don't even try to pressure can with wide mouth lids anymore. There is a limit to how loosely you can adjust a lid before too much of the contents of the jar end up in the canning water. Maybe the next post will be a comparison between modern lids and some new in box "vintage" lids from mom's stash. It is time to get out hubby's micrometer.
If someone wants to start a business making decent canning jar lids, there is no better time than the present.