I confess. I am a lid hoarder.

This here is my hoard of lids. Yep, you heard me right. A hoard of lids. They live inside my great-grandmothers Pyrex loaf dish, in an upper cabinet that I have to climb on a chair to retrieve.

You may ask yourself and I'm sure you often do "Why hoard lids?"

Well, since you asked, it's because sometimes they go from looking like this:
(sad, lonely little lidsies)

to this:
(Reunited and it feels so good!)

The McKee canister on the left was a lidless GW find for $2.99 and should have come with a milk glass lid. But on a lark, I tried a marked Glasbake lid from my lid hoard, and it fits perfectly. And I actually like it better than what the real lid looks like.

And the Fire King grease jar was quite a bit cheaper than it would have been had it come with a lid. I paid 25 cents for the lid at a little mom-and-pop shop a year before I even knew what it was. It just chilled out in my cabinet with its hoarded brethren, lol.

And speaking of brethren, I'm not even sure I can identify all of these. But by hook or by crook, I know they'll eventually be paired with something - even if that something isn't exactly what it was designed to pair with.
What could be missing in from a hoard of lids? How about a hoard of bases?
This Hazel Atlas Criss-Cross butter dish is missing its bottom, and the small refrigerator dish is missing its lid. Figures, right? Not a one of the lids from my hoard fits its very distinct, square shape.

Oh well, all the sweeter when these guys are reunited.

Happy treasure hunting!

Taste the Rainbow

Think I have enough Pyrex 024 casseroles? Lol! What's worse is that I probably don't have even half of all the colors & patterns that were made in this shape!

The newest one here is on the bottom. It's a mustard color I've seen before, but wouldn't pay an antique store price for. But tonight, the hubs found it for me at the thrift, so even though it scratched and a bit pricey, it came home with us.

Tonight was Pyrex night. In addition to the mustard 024, I found a duplicate lime green 024, and an opal divided dish. It came with a lid for a standard 045 that I've already put with another dish. I cannot remember a time in the last year that I've even so much as seen 3 pieces of Pyrex at the thrift, much less bought 3 pieces.

Homer Laughlin Carnival

I've been looking for a detailed resource for HLC's Carnival line since I began collecting it some months ago. This blog here is my attempt to cobble together information I've gleaned from various sources and have it all in one place. Many apologies for any potential inaccuracies.
Carnival was a 5 piece breakfast set that was premium, or giveaway item, packed one piece at a time in boxes of Mother's Carnival Oats (a Quaker Oat brand). According to my somewhat out-of-date 8th Edition of Bob & Sharon Huxford's The Collector's Encyclopedia of Fiesta, this line was likely produced between the late 30's to sometime after 1952.

Originally I had assumed that all 5 pieces were available in all 9 colors it was produced in. But I was quite mistaken. I owe a great deal of this information to a forum for all things HLC, appropriately named Medium Green.

By Color:

Dark Green (also called Forest, same as the 50's Fiesta color) - all 5 pieces are available and considered common.

Gray (same shade as 50's Fiesta) - all 5 pieces, all common

Turquoise (same as Fiesta) - all 5, all common

Harlequin Yellow (a brighter, more vibrant yellow than Fiesta yellow) - all 5 pieces, all common.

Cobalt (same as Fiesta) - This one is trickier. Reportedly, all 5 pieces exist but only the saucer is considered easy to find. I've seen conflicting reports that plates are both common and scarce.

Green (same as light green Fiesta) - Similar to Cobalt in that all 5 pieces are reported to exist, but here the cup is considered the rarity. I've also seen it said that the fruit bowl is scarce. It was amazing to me to see that the cup was considered hard to find, since it was my very first piece of Carnival. I had very good fortune there!

The last 3 colors here, only certain pieces are known/reported to exist.

Ivory (same as Old Ivory Fiesta) - only a cup & the smaller sized fruit bowl are known, but if you check on replacements.com, they have had at least 1 of the 6 3/4 plates before. A mystery!

Red (same as radioactive Fiesta red) - only a saucer & a fruit bowl are known to exist, but again Replacements.com has an interestingly mysterious "dinner plate" listed, with a photograph, but no measurements.

Fiesta Yellow (a more autumnal, harvest gold shade than Harlequin yellow) - only a 6 3/4 plate reported, and the larger size cereal/oatmeal bowl.

and a final note: Replacements also has another mystery photo - a "dinner plate" with 9" measurement in a lovely, multi-colored decal. How many of these pieces exist, I can only imagine. I've seen references to other Carnival cups with decals, but these are considered rare.

Also, there is a "rumor" of the existence of a red cup, but no one has ever seen it. Wonder how long this "rumor" has been circulating. Many of these tales seem to go back to pre-internet days!

And, of course, there's always the possibility that other unknown pieces could pop up, but at this point it is considered unlikely. And of course I could be missing all kinds of information just because my collector's book is several years (and editions) out of date, so please let me know if any information here is incorrect. I'd love to hear from fellow collectors!

Another thing I've almost forgotten, Carnival is sometimes confused with a similar line called "Deanna" by Knowles China. Click here for a close-up comparison of the two.

Happy treasure hunting!