Putting it all together

I recently moved this cabinet into the kitchen. At first I filled it with mixing bowls and Pyrex I wanted to display. But then I had a change of heart. My 1950's Pyrex dinnerware has never been out on display, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to pull it out.

This is a hodge-podge of 4 colors of Pyrex dinnerware and a whole rainbow of Homer Laughlin dishes. Mostly Fiesta, Harlequin & Riviera.

The Pyrex dinnerware was my first love. I started hunting vintage Pyrex two summers ago. But instead of finding a bowl like I was looking for, I found 3 grey teacups and a serving bowl. And once I researched them, I made up my mind pretty much immediately that I wanted all 4 colors they came in - dove grey, flamingo red/pink, turquoise, & lime green.

Fast forward almost two years later as I am discovering Fiesta and other vintage HLC lines. What crossed my mind then was the idea that I could collect complimentary HLC pieces that were never even made in Pyrex, such as teapots, coffeepots, gravy boats, certain serving pieces, etc. Even the colors line up. Fiesta Chartreuse to Pyrex Lime, turquoise to turquoise, grey to grey - But no real match to Flamingo (Rose is the closest).

Well, come to find out that - of all colors - Flamingo pink may actually be the newest HLC color this year. I think they'll announce it in March. It would be really cool if it is!

And while I think it was a good idea/intention to only collecting complimentary pieces, that's not exactly what's happened. I've bought redundant pieces, like as teacups, creamers, & sugars and also bought plenty of Fiesta colors that are not at all the 4 that match the Pyrex. I think, like plenty of other collectors, if it's nice, and in my price range, it's all mine. LOL!

Valentine's Day loot!

Can you tell from this blog that holidays are mostly just an excuse for the hubs & I to go antique shopping?

And shop we did. And I think I got some killer bargains.First up, this vintage ivory Fiesta ice-lip pitcher might not be a bargain to anyone but me because of its numerous cosmetic issues - the biggest of which is a chip on the spout. Also two chips around the base & scuffing both inside and out. But I fell in love with it. I washed it up with TLC and told it that it was home now, where it could retire with some equally chippy brethren.

Now this brings me to a question: Are you willing to buy chipped pieces? And pay more than just a yard sale or thrift store price?

My personal philosophy is this: I will buy damaged pieces if this price seems fair (takes all the damage into account) - especially and particularly on a piece I otherwise couldn't afford. It's important to me that the price is fair, because I may replace the piece in the future, so I'd like the damaged one to be inexpensive enough I could just give it to someone who might enjoy it and not feel like I wasted too much money.

Also, a replacement piece in my price range may not come along. Soon or ever. I'd much rather have a reasonably priced but damaged piece than have no piece at all. I just wonder how much my philosophy agrees or disagrees with fellow collectors?
Now, I don't understand the dealer I bought these from. They had them marked "New Fiesta" and priced at 10 dollars a piece.

I'm 99.99% sure these are the real deal vintage. There's confusion with turquoise, since it has been around almost the entire lifespan of Fiesta, only to change shades in the P86 era (the new turquoise is greener). But what got me was that this particular dealer had other vintage Tom & Jerry mugs as well as cream soup bowls right there is their own booth to compare these to, and all the others were correctly labeled vintage and were 4 times the price!

These were obviously just for me, then, because turquoise is my favorite vintage Fiesta color (Scarlet in the new Fiesta), and Tom & Jerry mugs are one of my most favorite pieces. So hooray!
A complete set! Outstanding!! I've had the smaller brown-on-white pieces for well over a year now and was just missing the biggest white-on-brown piece (the 503 for those of you who speak Pyrex-ese). Now my Early American refrigerator dish set is finally complete. I also have the 3 non-handled mixing bowls, which are all the pieces I'm collecting for this pattern. I'd love to find the largest bowl (the 404) some day, but it's fairly uncommon, so I consider my bowl set complete without it.

Gosh, I'm long-winded. But I'm almost done. And my final piece is a jaw-dropper!
Ta-Dah!

This is a piece I seriously didn't even think I would even SEE in real life, much less own. It is the coveted and expensive Fire King "Kitchen Aids" pattern!

This baby here is a salt shaker. And I paid...........drumroll please.......

9.99!

I am thrilled to the gills!

My first thought when I saw it was "this has got to be a repro". But it had every characteristic of being real. From rusty lid to brown, nasty salt still inside it! (Come on, dealers!!! Can't you even WASH your wares before putting them out to sell?!)

And here's my insane good luck with shakers. I've got a total of 12 dollars invested in these. No joke.

But, if it makes you feel better, I have wholly and disgracefully overpaid for every single mixing bowl I've bought to match the tulips, so my great bargains are kind of a wash in bigger picture.

It was a great Valentine's day, a great adventure with the hubs (who also found some neat treasures which I refuse to blog about, because he's got his own blog that he never updates! LOL).

Have a great day & great treasure hunting!

My Fire King Charm collection, One year later

I just noticed that it's been almost a year to the day since I first wrote about my
Fire King Charm collection. And I don't believe I've updated since.

Well last night I found - or I should say, my husband rather triumphantly found a Forest Green Salad Bowl at GW for $2.99. Same GW I found the Serving Platter & a saucer at last year.

This is the only piece I've come across at a thrift in all that time. The rest of my pieces have been antique store purchases.

First up, I was very happy to find this dinner plate. I'd never actually seen the gold foil sticker before that was/is the only identifier on most pieces of Charm. This was the only one with a sticker from a stack of dinner plates, all 5 dollars each.

At first all I was going to buy was the one with the sticker. But then I had a change of heart and bought 4 more. I rationalized it as a 20 dollar splurge. I'm too cheap to spend 3 dollars a piece for more Corelle plates from Walmart in my pattern (Memphis), but I'll spend 5 bucks piece on vintage plates that I don't even use. Go figure!

And I didn't know it at the time, but 5 dollars a piece for barely-if-ever-used dinner plates is actually a pretty good price.
And here's the rest of my collection. Not much progress at all on other colors. No Jadeite, only a single Royal Ruby teacup, and a few little Azurite saucers, sans teacups.

Hopefully by this time next year I'll have the same pieces in Azurite as I have in Forest Green!

Tiny red teapot, Big Red Heart

This just arrived in the mail today - a brand new Scarlet 2 cup teapot. It's so tiny! The hubs ordered it for me for Valentine's Day, but of course I got to open the package the moment it arrived, lol! Here it is with my vintage turquoise demitasse (also called AD cup). I love the color combination. Curious to see what the P86 turquoise looks like with these.
Technically both of these are Red! The modern Scarlet teapot is a true red. The teacup and saucer are original, radioactive red - closer to orange. I like how gigantic the cup looks compared to this diminutive pot.
And here's its big brother, Peacock. My husband bought this one for me for Christmas.
I think it's safe to tell the husband that for any occasion, just buy me a Fiesta teapot. A no-fail gift. Well...could be a fail if he ordered me an exact duplicate. Even then, I probably wouldn't mind.

And this reminds me of a story. I almost never go into Belk, but once in a while, I get a masochistic urge to look at their Fiesta selection and maybe longingly stroke a Kitchenaid mixer, haha.

Anyway, I was surprised to see they had a set of Peacock baking bowls. Someone must have returned them, because that's an item they don't keep in stock. They were scratched inside from use & had a handwritten price label. You know what those nuts were trying to get for them?!? $189.00! SURE, I'll take a janked-up set of mixing bowls and pay 50 dollars MORE for them than you can order them directly from Homer Laughlin! Gosh and golly!

And of course, one of their ever-so-helpful employees hovered around me the entire time as though I was a hungry street urchin and their Fiesta section was a buffet. I had gone in wanting to know how much their teapots were. The lady informed me that they don't sell teapots and hadn't ever carried them to her knowledge. Apparently all they carry are the standard place settings and water pitchers. That's a pretty sad selection. I doubt very much I'll be back in there any time soon.

At any rate, I'll be enjoying my new Scarlet teapot every chance I get, and maybe I'll get a different color 3 months from now *ahem* These colors make me think of birthday cake *ahem* Tangerine, Lemongrass, Shamrock, Sunflower, Turquoise, Peacock, Chartreuse. Bright and cheery colors like this make me feel young, as opposed to getting older. *ahem*

(Think he'll get the hint?)

Hope you're having a colorful day!

Fire King repro update

Update on my previous post about Fire King Reproductions

Check out the Jadeite repros, Red Dot Fire King bowls/grease jar, and Fire King Vitrock:

Found here

Trying to find out more about J.S.N.Y.

As you may have guessed at some point from either my blog name or the items I've written about, I primarily collect American made vintage kitchen items. High quality, abundant, good ole Made in the USA.

Well, these items are about as far from that as possible. They are basically the very definition of cheap 1980's import goods.

But still, I couldn't stop myself from being charmed by them! Over a period of time, I've picked these items up very, very cheaply from thrift stores. I've been surprised by the range of items. I never intended to collect these, but that's how it always starts, isn't it? ;-)

I forget which one of these lead me to researching J.S.N.Y. (The mug, I believe.) Most of these items are not marked in a way that is easily describable. I'd bought two different tile trivet sets before I came across one this one that's marked 1984. I was surprised. From the style, would have guessed these as being older.This is what I've been able to gather about J.S.N.Y. It's a import novelty company (Etna Products Co. of NY), filed in 1975 by Jeffrey Snyder. J.S.N.Y = Jeffrey Snyder New York. Clever, yes?

Unfortunately, I have no other information to report beyond this here
And finally, I noticed that the 1 lonely plastic duck measuring cup I have is also a J.S.N.Y item. I believe it is actually a nesting set of 4 measuring cups (mine here is the 1/2 cup). I have no idea if it's actually related to the duck from the tiles, but they sure look like they are at least cousins.

This is what I've found so far. Do you have any cute, cool, or otherwise nifty J.S.N.Y items to show off?

Thrift & Auction Roundup

Woo-hoo, thrifted Pyrex! A very few & far-between occurrence these days! This divided dish set me back $4.99. It came all taped it up with this cradle. I'm not positive the cradle is original but it definitely appears to be.

I can't find much out about it. It isn't listed on the reference sites. Several people in the flickr group have it & call it "Black Scroll" - which is an abundantly appropriate name for it. I'm going to guess from the design that it's an early-to-mid 1960's piece.
And these two pieces would be the only other Pyrex & Fire King that I've bought in a thrift store in months!

Very surprised to find a piece of Fire King Jadeite. This chili bowl was in the 'fancy-pants section' of GW and cost $3.99. I did not want to pay that for it, but that's still quite a bit cheaper than antique store price.

Also, can you believe they put this tiny little Pyrex dish in the collectibles section? Seriously? I was very surprised to see it there. It was lidless and also priced at $3.99. Gulp!

Again, I forked out the dough because it was a cute little piece I did not have. I found the lid over 2 weeks later! 59 cents, same GW. I imagine it had been floating around in the back for that long.
And finally, these were very much NOT thrift store items. My husband & I went to some antique stores & an auction preview. I was not thrilled with the prospects, but my husband wanted to stick around for some box lots, so he took me home and went back.

After being disappointed at the auction preview, I consoled myself by spending too much money on a yellow vintage Fiesta Tom & Jerry mug. FYI, Tom & Jerry does NOT refer to the cartoon characters :-) It's actually an alcoholic beverage similar to eggnog that was popular in the 1930's & 40's.

The bowl here - an 8 1/2 nappy - was from an auction box lot. It has a chip & isn't in the greatest shape, but it cleaned up pretty well. For 5 bucks, I'm not complaining. As usual, it came with a bunch of other stuff I didn't want. My mom doesn't know it yet, but she's about to become the proud owner of a very tarnished silverplate teapot. LOL!I also learned something about these Tom & Jerry mugs. They are only 1 of 2 pieces of Fiesta that don't have the trademark rings. (The other being the rare and valuable syrup pitcher). The reason is, these pieces were pretty labor intensive, hand-turned and shaped after coming out of the mold. Because of this there can be significant variation in the the thickness of the walls and the inward curvature.

My rose mug has thinner walls and a more pronounced inward curve than the yellow. It was "screamin' deal" I got from the 'little old man store' some months ago. 5 bucks! Wish I could find more of them for that price. It figures that the cups I'd like to have for everyday use are expensive and hard to find.

Hope you have a lucky, thrifty week!