A few finds and Pyrex makeup storage

This bowl is unmarked, but I know it to be Jeannette by a picture I saved from heaven-only-knows where, on my computer stash of dish images and info. There is an Anchor Hocking set using the exact same colors fired on clear glass that is almost always a source of confusion for its similarities.

I believe these bowls pre-date opal Pyrex, and that the shapes and were colors chosen to compete more with popular, colorful pottery items of the time, like vintage Fiesta.

Here it is nesting with my large red bowl I found very recently as well:

Just need a small yellow bowl now to complete this set. I also have half of the refrigerator dish set from this line - just missing the small, green refrigerator dish.

And here's another oddity I didn't know existed - a Lustro ware 45 record box.

I also discovered while researching this guy that Lustro ware also made a mailbox. Who'da thunk it?

At some point, many Lustro ware items were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, under the Toxic Substances Control Act first passed by Congress in 1976.

Despite this knowledge, I keep bread items in a vintage red Lustro ware bread box. Living dangerously, right? At this point, I've become so cynical about what's safe and what's not that I just assume whatever we are told now will be corrected 20 years later, so I might as well chose my toxicants based on beauty and usability and leave it to God for the rest.

And a few more cheap and cheerful odds and ends:

Two more Hazel Atlas holiday glasses for my collection, and another little tulip glass, which oddly was my second one in as many days. The other was already washed up and in use in my bathroom so it didn't make the photography session, lol.

I also picked up this dark ivory Fire King swirl platter and Pyrex Spices casserole.

And I managed to finally satisfy my hunch/belief that this casserole is indeed a darker color than Sandalwood.

But not by much. I'd say it's halfway between Sandalwood and the lighter Caramel shade in Woodland. Which makes sense, since Spices was produced at the same time as Woodland, in the last days (*sniff*) of opal Pyrex.

And finally, I picked up this rack for 5 dollars. I had the idea a while back to use some of my refrigerator dish hoard to relocate and house my makeup.

ROY G BIV Pyrex love

I don't have a whole lot in the makeup department. My sister-in-law has gotten into makeup with a fervor  - (I guess you could say she's the same way about makeup right now as I've been about Pyrex). And it's somewhat rubbed off on me.

I've stepped foot in Sephora and Ulta a few times this year. I've bought 4 whole things that have set me back a hundred bucks (ouch!) and have watched the frenzy now of the must have palettes/highlights enough times now to feel like I have some idea of what's up, but also know that I absolutely cannot afford much of any of it unless I win the lotto.

My bad joke on the whole thing is: Instead of a Kat Von D, I'm like a Dollar Von Tree.

(Hey, at least the Dollar Tree has some cool Wet N Wild things from time to time, so I'm not entirely out of luck.)


I also think that on some level, the Pyrex popularity surge of the last couple of years has left a little hole in my happiness that I think I'm looking around a bit to fill with something else. I don't know that makeup is it, but it certainly can take up the money and time if you let it.

I just wish I could channel this need into something cheap and useful, like learning piano or Spanish or American Sign Language. Right this minute all I can seem to youtube are horrible makeup tutorials. lol.


Anyways, that's all for now!

Hope you're out finding stuff that is just the Cat's Pajamas!

Happy Thrifting!

127 yard sale

For the last 3 years my husband and I have been making the trip to visit the 127 World's longest yard sale. Most of our trip is just getting to it! But we've found enough on our (too) short treks up and down the way, that we've braved the heat and rain to find some of our favorite things. And this year was no different.

First up, this awesome Lustro ware paper dispenser is something that dreams are made of. Lol! I've admired it for years online, but never seen it in person before. That is, until I bought it for 10 dollars! Yippee!

I hadn't realized how much red Lustro ware I'd accumulated until I set it on a shelf with the small salt and pepper set I'd managed to forget I owned. I also have the four piece canister set and a rolltop bread box. Red would probably not have been my first choice, but everything I've found so far has been yardsale prices or cheaply from antique stores, so I'm certainly not going to complain.

Jadeite! None of these were screamin' deals, but they were far enough below retail I felt pretty happy to purchase. The St. Denis mugs have been one of my jadeite grails for a long while. I don't know why I picked out that style, I just like the shape, but I'd never seen any for sale in person. The breakfast set, lotus pieces, and probably Charm have all been the jadeite styles I've admired most, but never seen. Glad to add these to my small collection!

Pretty in pink! The pink Daisy open baker brings me one step closer to having all the regular pink Daisy pieces. Just need the largest Space Saver casserole. And the pink Hazel Atlas Ripple was a sweet deal from a kindly older couple who sold these me these 9 piece for 15 dollars, which I thought was a great deal.

Two more pieces of Pyrex I didn't own. The Garden Medley has been on my wish list for ages. And the hearts casserole is a piece I've seen a few times before, but never for less than 20 bucks, so I'd passed on it. These two pieces were from the same dealer, 10 dollar each, so I finally decided to buy.

The red Friendship bowl is not the greatest shape, but I have a somewhat rough decorated Friendship lid to put on it, so it's getting reunited. This was bundled with my Lustro ware paper dispenser. The other pieces, the yellow shaker was thrown in free from a bundle deal my husband made, and the possibly bakelite utensils were a dollar for the 5 pieces.

I know absolutely nothing about bakelite. It's a collector favorite where I live, so it's always a blue fortune when it turns up, so there just usually isn't a deal to be found. I picked up a bakelite book cheap a while back, so I have some research to do.

I'm also curious if this bracelet is bakelite. Each of these pieces were sold seperately, 50 cents each. One of the santas is in rough shape, but I had to get him. Vintage Christmas is another expensive area I've managed to stay mostly away from, except for Shiny Brites, but I feel a Santa mug collection starting up. Lol!

My husband said that his favorite memory of me this yardsale is that I spotted these glasses before we even got pulled into the place, and in his words, I just said "BOOMERANGS"  and my seat belt undone and was out of the car before he even got parked.

50 cents each. When I got a closer look, they had that dull 'sick glass' look to them inside. When I washed them up, most of that came off with soap and water, but they could use a vinegar soak inside to clean up the rest. The pink is getting added to my pink Ripple collection, and the green is an X factor. I'd seen pics online of these in green, yellow, and white, and I wasn't sure what I'd do if the other colors turned up for me. I thought they'd make good go-alongs for the small collection of Lu Ray pastels I have. For now, the lone green is in with my lonely two turquoise. I also discovered these two are slighly smaller than my others, so I there are at least 3 sizes of these. Only my pink/white combo ones are actually marked Hazel Atlas, otherwise I'd still be unsure who made this pattern.

And a couple more Pyrex pieces. The blue New Holland promo is the larger of the two. Second piece I bought this trip with Hearts in the decoration. The Daisy casserole was 4 dollars. Cheap and cheerful!

Another jadeite mug! But this time it was 50 cents. Cheapest Jadeite I've ever bought. Makes up for the one I bought this trip that was 5 dollars and had a crack in it I didn't see when I bought it.

I think the pink clock can be cleaned up a little more. It was 15 dollars, more than I wanted to spend, so my husband bought it for me. He's my sweetheart.

The turquoise Ripple plate is faded, but still sweet. It wasn't priced, so the dealer just threw it in free when I bought this Friendship casserole for 10 dollars. I had 3 decorated Friendship lids my husband bought at a yardsale many, many moons ago that had just been waiting for lidless Friendship pieces to reunite them with. So I've only got one more now. It'd be lovely if I got the decorated piece next time, so I'd have a complete duplicate set.

A Cosco stool for 10 dollars. It is marked with a sticker underneath. It is original yellow, but has been touched up at some point. I had the idea to paint it, but I may just clean it up and see if I can remove some of the hasty overspray from the previous touchup.

And finally, here's most of my husband's finds. He also bought some toys, a vending machine and some gifts that he's already stashed away that I didn't get pictures of. I think his biggest thrills this trip has been scoring the Star Trek lunch box for 5 dollars and finally seeing Little Blue books for sale.

It had stuck in his mind to hunt for Little Blue books since seeing them mentioned in a Louis L'Amour biography. I can't do the history justice, but from what I understand, these little books were sold for 5 or 10 cents and were some of the very first paperbacks available.

He picked these up from all from one dealer who, for us, had the best items and best prices of the whole sale. It's funny how just one booth can make the whole trip worthwhile!

***

Just some thoughts in general about the yard sale. We've just been going for the last 3 years, each year a little earlier on. Friday and Saturday seem the busiest days with the worst traffic by far, but had the least stuff worth buying, so the early bird does seem to get the worm.

Each year seems to have themes. This year I saw Mantiques everywhere. An abundance of tools, advertising, garage and mancave stuff.

Last year was all about chalk paint. Chalk paint everywhere and mostly everything painted turquoise! But this year, hardly a painted piece to be seen. Original finish wood seems to back in fashion again, which I'm not at all sorry to see.

Last year, I hardly saw a piece of Jadeite. This year it was more abundant. But last year, I saw tons of Depression glass, this year hardly a piece. I was told, repeatedly, and I mean - REPEATEDLY, by helpful dealers that the only glass they seem to be able to sell these days is Pyrex, which is just going up and up.

I just smile and nod and act dumb mostly. Since I've been collecting Pyrex for the last 6 years, it's discouraging to be told by dealers who seem to only have jumped on the Pyrex bandwagon in the last little while, how this or how that my thing I collect is. I can tell most of them are trying to be helpful, but it's helpful in that same clueless way it is when dealers tell you about stuff they sold the day before you came in.

And on the Pyrex front, there is a dealer that specializes in it at least every hour or two's worth of travel down the road. And they are all insufferable. Of all the resellers, it's the dealer/collector who is usually asking the highest prices of all.

You can't look at a single piece in their Pyrex booth/prison without hearing some speech about what it is, how high demand/popular it is, and/or how many dozens of that exact piece they have at home in their personal collections.

At some point maybe they loved Pyrex. But not anymore. Now they just lord over it. They turn it into Beanie Babies. They become a part of the problem. They help create unsustainably high prices that exclude regular collectors and cater only to the truly obsessed (who seem to be made out of money).

No thanks.

And I'm not thrilled to share the title "Pyrex Collector" with them either. Because I suspect, in ten years time, this brand of "Pyrex Collector" will have long since cashed out of their collections and moved on to some other inflated thing they can get in on the ground floor of, when I'll still be here, Lord willing, just trying to decide which pretty dish I'm going to use to bake today's dinner in.


***

Anyways, I had lots of fun. Got a sunburn (despite much sunscreen), and feel like a need a week's vacation to recover from a single scorching hot day. I mean, I really feel like my eyeballs got bleached, I got so much sun. Whoever picked the first week of August for this thing must have really liked 100 degree temps!

And crazy as it is, I can't wait for next year!

Hope you're having a blast so far this Summer!

Happy Thrifting!

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!

Yardsale Extravaganza 2012

This weekend has been a big annual (semi-annual?) yardsale weekend. Unfortunately, instead of great deals there were lots of folks who were using this as an opportunity to host Antiques by-the-side-of-the Roadshow. 

I did however find a few cute things for just a few dimes, including this little unmarked plastic napkin holder. As you can see, I've got two butter dishes from the same line. Wonder how many more colorways are available?

This purchase made me supremely happy. It's a Lustro ware Crisper. And it's huge! I've shown it here with my tiny pink Lustro ware fridgie dish.

The story is, I was walking around trying to find a deal when I came across this box. I'd never seen one like it, and had no idea it was Lustro ware. Anyway, the lady was not trying to sell it, she was simply using it as a container for vintage dolls she was trying to sell for 4 bucks apiece. When I asked her if she'd sell the container, she looked like she was at a loss, quoted me two bucks, and said "You know, these are probably collectible now."

 

This was my Pyrex haul. I didn't see much of it this weekend, but what I did manage to find were pieces that I did not have, and at reasonable prices, so I can't complain. I had to spend 8 dollars to complete my opal bowl set, but that was for 3 bowls, so now I have a complete set and two spares. These are the unmarked bowls that Barbara Mauzy said were rare and only produced in 1954. The thing is, I'm beginning to doubt that's the whole story. This makes the 4th unmarked opal bowl set that I've seen just this year, and I definitely don't live in an area that's known for rarities. You never know!

Funny story, an Antiques Dealer selling by the side of the road had a Pyrex bowl set in the Sandalwood pattern for 46 dollars. I need the smallest bowl to complete my set, so I was especially sad that these bowls were nowhere near affordable. Anyway, it sat for two days for that price, unsold. But Saturday? It suddenly was marked 60 dollars, and had a neighbor, 3 bowls from a Butterprint bowl set that they were asking 70 dollars for.

Dealers like that give me a bad case of the grumpies.

These mugs are cuties my husband spotted for me on Thursday when I wasn't with him to shop. But the real crazy score was the deep rim mauve blue Riviera plates. I'm so proud of my husband. He recognized Riviera without me being there!  His humble commentary on it was: "Well, I should recognize something that is hanging on the wall in my house." (I have so little Riviera that every piece I have is hanging on a plate rack in the kitchen, lol!)

This was actually a set of 6 - for only 2 bucks! Just 1 is in especially good shape, the rest have damage in varying degrees, but every one of them is still useable. I put the 3 in the best shape in the cabinet with my Fiesta and Fire King, and put the 3 most damaged in the cabinet to use.

And finally, this is the rest of my loot. Most of this was from one particular stop where we got things for a song. It was one of those where you made a pile and they said, 3 bucks, 5 bucks, etc. I felt like we bought everything that was even vaguely interesting to us.

The yellow Tricolator teapot would have been the score of the century for me if  (A) it had a lid and (B) in my haste I hadn't failed to notice that the whole bottom is ruined. Looks like someone poured very hot coffee or tea into it without scalding the pot first, and the whole thing cracked around in a perfect ring. It's still a pretty 'shelf sitter', but that's about it :-(

Most of this milk glass is going to my mom who collects it. Her real love is the hobnail patterns, but I've found so much grape pattern for her that it far outnumbers the hobnail pieces in her collection.

And finally, some love for Goodwill, who despite all the yardsales, still had some sweet stuff for sale this weekend. First up a banded ring glass that is considered a Fiesta go-along. I have 9 of these now, thanks to various thrift stores.

And finally, I thought for a second that I had stumbled onto what would have been the jadeite score of the millenium - for me, at least. But this one mug is all I have from it. 2.99 and the only jadeite mug I have.

What it was, in their locked case they had 3 chili bowls and 3 jadeite mugs - 14.99 for each grouping. In other words, 5 bucks a piece. I was going to pull the trigger and buy all 6 pieces for a whopping 30 bucks until they got them out of the case. DBD. Death by Dishwasher. Oh the humanity!

Before I could let loose with a torrent of tears, I noticed that one of the mugs wasn't dishwashed. The manager just happened to be around, so I asked her if she'd sell me the one that hadn't been dishwashed to death, and she said sure, she'd let me have it for 2.99. Very cool! I'm curious to know the fate of the other pieces. Chances are good that they'll turn up in the antique store in town.

Thanks for hanging in there with my very long blog. Hope you've found lots of treasures this weekend!

Wares

Pop quiz. How many of these objects end in the word "ware"?

If you glanced at the picture, counted 5 objects and made that your guess, you get 3 points.

If you glanced at the picture and suspected that these were 5 different "wares", you get 5 points.

If you glanced at the picture and thought "This girl needs to learn how to use a camera a/o Photoshop" you get all the bonus points you want.

But of course one of these is my much beloved Tupperware. Hint: think orange. But the other "wares" in question I had never even so much as heard of until they hopped into my cart at Goodwill.

(Yes, vintage objects can move about at will. Much like people, getting older has caused them to realize that they can do what they damn well please.)

The green lidded pitcher is Lustro ware. God, I love that name. So far, I haven't been able to ID it on the webs, so I don't know much about its age, but it has the same texture and 'feel' as 50's era polyethylene Tupperware.

These 3 pieces, as best as I can tell, are melmac/melamine. Don't laugh, but the term melmac is a new one on me. As far as I ever knew, that was Alf's home planet.

The red cup is Oneida ware. Yellow cup below it is Boontonware, and finally, the little blue bowl is Mallo ware.

Who knew there were so many wares? Who knows when I'm going to make the next bad joke? Here goes: Am I gonna need a warehouse to start storing all my thrifty wares?