Junk Heaven!

The Pyrex UFO has landed. And she's a BEAUTY!

My book - Pyrex by Corning: A Collector's Guide by Rogove, Steinhauer - dates this piece to 1956. Other information I've found has called it the first promotional Pyrex piece. Either way, it's a real beauty, and one of the rare instances that the cradle & lid are a major, major factor in its value. The turquoise 024 casserole was sold by itself, so finding a replacement for it isn't a major difficulty, but finding this particular cradle and lid is another story. I can't find another one that has sold recently, leading me to believe I've found a pretty uncommon piece. Whether it's rare or not, I love it because it's beautiful. WHOO-HOO!

This is my total Pyrex haul from yard sales this year. And the bad thing is, I'm probably keeping it all for myself. I've seen a lot of Pyrex in yard sales the last little while, and all the sellers seem to want a blue fortune for it. My favorite purchases (besides the UFO on the right) are the 3 round casseroles in the very center of this pic. They came from an older man who had the most reasonable prices of the day of anybody - 11 dollars for the 3 pieces, 2 lids. I'd pay him those prices over thrift stores any day!

Lustroware canisters! In Red! Awesomeness!

Funny thing is, I had these in yellow and I sold them. Along with a few other Lustroware goodies, and told myself that was the end of that. But these big, red, beautiful boxes were frankly, kinda cheap for what they are. And in excellent condition. I'd say the next notch down from being completely unused. So literally, the very first time I've seen them in person, in Red, they are a price I'd be a fool not to buy. So, more Lustroware!

 And of course, no swearing off of aging Mid-Century plastics would be complete without buying yet more! This salad set is Steri-Lite. As in, the very same company any old plastic item bought from Walmart has a good chance of being. But this is OLD Steri-Lite, with a cursive logo and atomic styling. Only the bowls are marked, but there's salad sets on ebay that confirm the rest of this set goes together. More plastic I won't use but can't bear to part with!

And finally, friends, this is a vintage Fiesta mixing bowl in original yellow. The second-to-largest size, a number 6. It has a chip around the rim, but I picked it up for 5 dollars. Oh yes! I love vintage Fiesta mixing bowls, and I'll take them in any condition.

I have 9 bowls now, but no complete set yet. Missing the largest #7. And like the detail wonk I tend to be, I've noticed a variation that is driving me crazy! Of my early 'inside rings' bowls, there is a difference. I'll try to photograph it and blog it in my detail later, and just describe it now. In some, the rings are evenly spaced apart, and in others, it's a cluster of rings with more open space inside and outside. These variations don't fit together!

I'm a stickler for details like this. The Fiesta books speak of the two variations in mixing bowls, but not 3. I can prove their is 3! Lol!

I'll get wonky and post pics of the bowls soon!

Hope you're finding thrifty treats & treasures!

Birthday shopping extravaganza!

Sagaform teapot

My husband bought me this loverly new Sagaform teapot for my birthday. I'm not entirely sure how I discovered Sagaform, but I really like many of their designs. This one is appropriately called "Retro". Some of the others I like a lot are "Season" & "Blossom". This Scandinavian firm puts the name of the designer right on the dish, reminiscent to me of vintage designs by Eva Zeisel or Ben Seibel for firms such as Mikasa, Iroquois, Red Wing, etc.

But as usual, this birthday was all about the Pyrex.

Let me just say, Pyrex prices have just about doubled from when I first started collecting. And I'd say the supply is somewhere around half what it used to be too, even with blood-thirsty (and sometimes incredibly greedy) dealers in hot pursuit of it for their booths.

I paid an arm and a leg for the turquoise 402 bowl. But I was looking for that exact one to nest in between the smaller and larger bowls I already had. So that completes a 3 bowl set. I'd be very glad to find a large turquoise 404 bowl, but I'll live if I don't find one soon.

The big red 404 is only the second time I've ever spotted it. First time, I didn't buy it, because it was scratchy and they still wanted 30 bucks for it. This time, it was very shiny, only minimally scratched, and a much more tolerable 14 dollars.

The little blue completes a primary set. I won't even tell you how many primary sets I have. You'd put me away. I've sold one, and I'll probably sell another one or two when the mood strikes. But yeah, I'd say I have a problem, lol. Oh, and that big yellow 404 there, guess that's the beginning of a new set......;-)

And that poor pink. Maybe you can't tell, but it's dishwashed. Very, very dishwashed. But it was 4 bucks. I picked it up for my mom, who adores pink pyrex, but never steps foot in an antique store. She's a little rough on her dishes, and this is one I won't be too heartbroken if I see it being used as a cat dish.

And that plate is lilac Fiesta! My second one. I thought my first one was a way good deal at 10 bucks, but this one was the interesting price of $4.29. It's in similar shape too, it still looks good, but has totally been used, so in to regular rotation it goes. Yay!

 And again with the dishwashed bowls. That orange dot bowl should be a lot more orange. But it was appropriately priced at 5 bucks. It's a totally acceptable placeholder bowl for my set until I can find a nice, shiny one (which may or may not happen soon, with my luck). I still need the largest 404 green dots bowl. It's the big one, sold separately, that sells for a minor fortune on ebay. Yuck.

These are all duplicates for me. My husband say's I have "a sickness for Butterprint" - and yes, he actually uses the correct pattern name. I needed one little fridgie dish to complete *another* set, but there were these other two sitting right there. Just sitting there, saying "Buy me. You know you want to."

So, sickness it is.

Oh, and you know what else is sick? How about 200 dollars for 3 pink Pyrex bowls? The 3 smallest. Not even the somewhat harder to find 404. Remember what I just said about greedy, blood-thirsty dealers?

And sadly, this was the first time I'd seen those bowls in the wild in all this time. I think at that moment my husband was actually glad I'd broke down and bought them online.

Also saw my first two Cathrineholm items same day. Both "Lotus" pattern. A large tan mixing bowl for 45 dollars, and a Verde-colored coffee pot for 88. At those prices, I don't think any Cathrineholm is in my future. But I'd be all over it at the thrift store!

If I feel froggy, I'll make another post about the cool things my hubby found (and won't post about, because he's a LAME-O).

All in all, great birthday!

Hope you're finding cool treasures!

Pink Gooseberries Complete!

This is the entire group of American-made Pink Gooseberry Pyrex. * aaaahhhhhh....Muppet dance*

 My pink gooseberry Pyrex collection is now complete!

The smallest two (501) refrigerator dishes were among my very first pieces of Pyrex, and my first pieces of pink. I've built this collection up over the last 3 years, but stalled on finding the largest refrigerator dish - the very last one I needed.

Finally I gave in and bought it online. Story of my life. And of course I'm trying to buy high demand pieces at a time when prices are climbing to all-new highs (the fact that it's tax refund time probably isn't helping, either).

But nothing, I repeat, nothing compares to pretty pink Pyrex, and a job well done. Now I can rest on my laurels, knowing that I have saved a sweet grandmothers Pyrex from falling into the well of obscurity.

Or something like that. Haha, I get downright imaginative when it comes to finding excuses reasons for buying more Pyrex!

And I just have to show you my two favorite brand-new kitchen towels! The one behind is a new Fiesta official go-along "zig-zag" towel. Not pictured, but I have a new, striped Fiesta dish drying mat that coordinates with the towels. Works great. All these new Fiesta linens are showing up at Kohl's, Dillard's, JC Penney, you name it. Great colors, and seem to be nice quality. Can you tell I'm a fan? :-)

The towel in front was purchased at TJ Maxx and I just HAD TO have it. It features the lovely Cathrineholm (the pink leaf mixing bowl, bottom left) ((OH TO have that actual bowl in real life!!!!!*swoon*)) as well as the lovely green leaf teacup and saucer, bottom right - "Bersa" pattern by the maker, Gustavsberg, designed by the iconic Stig Lindberg.

This little tea towel is likely as close as I will get to either one of these dreamy (and pricey!) pieces.


And my apologies to any commentors, I've had to add a captcha to my blog comments due to a sudden influx of spam comments. I hate to do it - they are annoyingly difficult to read sometimes. If it doesn't help cut down the spam-bots, I'll take the captcha off and just continue manually deleting the fake comments.

Hope this doesn't deter any REAL people from leaving lovely comments! :-)

Hope you are finding thrifty treats & treasures!

Valentine's Day

It's a bit late to be sharing Valentine's Day goodies, but better late than never, right? :-)

Hubbie and I spent the day a couple of hours away at an antique district we've only managed to visit twice since spending our honeymoon there 7 years ago. On the way out, we stopped at a Dillard's where I bought two sets of modern Fiesta small mixing bowls - better known as "Prep bowls". Ivory, and they were on clearance for 14 dollars a set. Found that out thanks to one of the Fiesta facebook groups - love it when we get a tip-off on a good sale!

I expected that deal would be my Fiesta mixing bowls for the day. But whoo-hoo, I was happily wrong!

These 3 vintage Fiesta mixing bowls came to 38 dollars total. Sweet!

Now, the ivory bowl (a size 3) is the only one truly in good condition. The Green #2 has been completely cracked and reglued. And the small yellow #1 has a lot of chips around the very bottom.

The yellow #1 is a duplicate for me. Both are seriously damaged, but I love them still. The new one is the older style with the inside rings.

Vintage Fiesta mixing bowls. Both of these are yellow #1 bowls, but the one on the right is slightly older and has the inside rings. The backstamps on inside ring bowls are a bit plainer. Both are in poor condition, but I love them anyway.

 And now I can do this! A nest of the first 6 bowls. Just missing the very gigantically large #7 bowl. LOVELOVELOVELOVE.

I have two extra bowls that currently don't have nest mates. My ultimate dream is to have a complete set of seven, with the inside and outside bowls being turquoise (my favorite vintage color), my almost perfect red #5 in the center, and one each of the remaining colors - all in excellent condition. But if I also end up with a hundred chipped and flawed ones, as long as I haven't spent too much money - I will love them too!

And finally, I added a new Fiesta heart bowl to my tiny collection of two. The first one was Marigold, bought last year on our anniversary. This year, Flamingo on Valentine's Day. If we go back on our anniversary this year, they should have the brand new color, Lapis, available. They've also announced a larger size heart bowl just a few days ago at the Chicago Housewares convention.

If both sizes are being produced, I may keep adding to my small bowls - which are more keepsakes to me - I might buy the larger size to use. We'll see when they hit the stores some months from now :-)

Fiesta heart bowls in Marigold & Flamingo

So there's my belated Valentine's Day post. And I totally forgot to photograph or mention that I bought a partial Lilac place setting. My first Lilac! Dinner plate for 10 dollars, salad plate for 8, and a saucer for 2.50. All of them in used, but still nice condition. They are all in regular rotation, but I won't use a knife on them.

Oh, and I have to share this: My poor husband. Poor, poor man, married to crazy dish lady. I scolded him but good the other day. Why? Because he dared to warm something up in the microwave on same lilac dinner plate I had just bought the day before. Visions of lilac shards and terror danced in my brain as hubbie's hands go towards the microwave oven controls.

Have I mentioned that I've now scared him away from most every type of dish in the kitchen besides corelle/corningware? Perhaps the only thing left in my kitchen that I don't have some weird use regulation for? Just when he thought that new Fiesta was safe for every use, I go and buy some magic color that will make me screech like a banshee if he even touches it. Now, when he sees the lilac dinner plate has come up on the top of the stack, he skips it and gets the one beneath it.

Poor, poor man.

Hope you are finding fab, affordable finds and tasty treasures!

Why I thrift

Come to mama!

Sure these guys are battered and bruised, but at $5.99 you'd have to be a very discriminating Fiesta collector to pass these guys up entirely.

Here they are after a bath, best sides showing. I'm in love! The vintage red & yellow add a really nice pop of color to my predominantly blue & green collection - which is not that way deliberately, but just how it's worked out so far.

The damage to the pieces is unfortunate, but it doesn't hinder me at all from thoroughly enjoying these beautiful pieces!

 And on the same day, different thrift, I found this milk glass 1 pint dry measure. It also has a chip, and it very nearly didn't come home with me. I got it for $2.50

 Worse, I actually passed it up altogether, the first time I saw it. I honestly thought it was a reproduction. The milk glass is swirly and has many straw-marks, all characteristics of something cheaply made.

And it probably was cheaply made. Only now I think it could be from the turn of the century - 1920's.

I can only find two bits of information, both auctions. One appeared to just copy and paste the same info from the first auction, so I can't be sure.

And here's where I admit that I'm a dunderhead. I would have bought this anyway. Just cause I liked it. But I probably would have looked at it for years and years without deducing what my husband did in about 8 seconds. -  National Biscuit Company = NABISCO. !!!!

According to the auction house that sold a grouping of turn of the century Nabisco items, these dry measures were given to retailers to measure product out to customers. And when it ran out, they could keep, sell, or give away the glass measuring cup.

How neat! I LOVE the story behind this piece, and it will fit right in with odd collection of depression era glass, half of which has some chip or imperfection anyway. I think I'm a sort of retirement home for half-cracked glass.

The expression 'half-cracked' is telling, isn't it? lol!

Hope you are finding thrifty treats & vintage treasures!

Pyrex 473 casseroles

Thought I'd get out all my Pyrex 473 casseroles for a family portrait.

I honestly didn't know how many of these I had. Worse still, I even forgot one - a Homestead with the decorated lid.

It's ridiculous I know, the amount I have. But I can resist them, obviously. Nor do I really want to.

 Not all these are favorites. I've said to myself over and over again that I was going to sell the ones I'm less in love with. And I might just yet. But at least I have a family portrait to remember them all by, lol.

 These four here are ultimate favorites. Can't choose between them which one I like the most. The red bird pattern, "Friendship" is a recent online purchase. These four patterns are becoming pricey, and "Friendship" seems to be on everyone's most coveted list.

 There's still at least 3 more that I want - bright Daisy yellow with the sunflower pattern lid, Snowflake Blue, and a promotional dish called "Crazy Quilt". But like it goes with Pyrex, just when you think you know just about every pattern and size, something else comes along to covet.

Happy Thrifting!

The difference between Delphite, Turquoise Blue, and Azurite

Delphite on the left, Turquoise Blue center and one lone piece of Azurite on the far right

First, an apology. I've got a dark house, an out-of-date 5 MP point and shoot camera, and not the greatest photography skills. And forget photoshop, I've never used any image editing software. So these pictures kinda are what they are. But hopefully these will help someone tell the difference between Turquoise Blue, Delphite & Azurite (also spelled Azure-ite).

This topic has been well covered here by Jadite Kate, I just wanted to add my own photos and few tidbits of information not already covered.

 Above, a better look at the difference between Delphite (left) and Turquoise Blue (right). The measuring cups & shakers are by Jeannette, and the bowl by McKee. To the right of these are Fire King Splash-Proof mixing bowls in Turquoise Blue.

Now here's a handy thing to remember: McKee & Jeannette never made Turquoise Blue. And Fire King never made Delphite. These two materials were actually manufactured in a range of time that is potentially decades apart. These terms become confused because of the tendency for all blue glass to be labeled "delphite" when that's actually incorrect.

Fire King (Anchor Hocking glass) manufactured both of these shades of blue glass shown below. Again, the mixing bowls are Turquoise blue, but the lone pale teacup is actually referred to as Azurite - which can be spelled multiple ways, including Azure-ite or without the dash.

Turquoise Blue was available in splash-proof mixing bowls and a round dinnerware line. Azurite was available on the popular shapes, Swirl and Charm (square).

Fire King Turquoise Blue mixing bowls, left, and Azurite teacup, right.

 As you can see, the square Azurite Charm teacup is significantly paler than its Delphite and Turquoise Blue brethren.

 I've stacked it here on a Pyrex teacup to show how close to pure white milk glass it is.

Pyrex also manufactured Delphite pieces, in both factories here and in Canada. I don't have any of these pieces, but I assume they are close in shade to Jeannette and McKee Delphite.

And if you are one really lucky duck, there is another very pretty shade of blue I've only seen in books. It is a lovely Robin's Egg blue called "Chalaine". It's a Depression Era glass that was contemporary to Delphite. Since I've never actually seen it before, I can't say for sure what it truly looks like, but from pictures, it seems quite similar to Turquoise Blue Fire King.

And a final word of warning. Delphite is being widely reproduced. It's hard to keep up with the individual pieces. They are often made overseas and imported in to the US. But they are invariably collector's favorites, such as reamers, measuring cups, rolling pins, shakers, etc.

A US company called Mosser glass is producing Delphite (listed in catalog as "Bonnie Blue") glass nesting glass mixing bowl sets whose body shapes are very, very similar to vintage Pyrex. Unfortunately, these sets have a way of turning up in antique stores, sold as "vintage" with a high $$$. The way to spot these is to look for a mark - an M through an outline of the state of Ohio. I think these bowls are lovely and perfectly useful, it's just unfortunate that they are presented as being vintage when they are not.

Hope this adds some clarity to the many lovely shades of vintage blue glass.

Happy Treasure Hunting!