Thrifty Fifty

 All these came from antique stores, but I stayed under a 50 dollar budget - which is pretty cheap considering that one of my finds was Jadeite!

 These are Fire King shakers. The lids are pretty roached, but I'm still very pleased to have them. Half the shakers I come across these days are either significantly overpriced or are missing their lids altogether.

Next up, the little 401 Pyrex Butterprint bowl was just what I needed to make this a 3 bowl set. There is still a larger bowl - a 404. I saw one for sale the same day, but they had $37.50 on it. Gulp!

 And finally, the little lidless Pyrex Butterfly Gold refrigerator dish was in a half-off booth and cost 3 bucks. It completed my Butterfly Gold refrigerator dish set. Which, technically, really shouldn't be mine. This is my mom's pattern and I buy it for her whenever I see something she doesn't have. I gave her these refrigerator dishes, but never saw her use them. In her words "I like the round ones better" - meaning the 470 series casseroles. And since these were fridgies (which I love) and she never used them, I took them back and started trying to complete the set for myself.

Oh well, at least when I look at them, they remind me of my mom, so that's all good :-)

Pyrex Butterfly Gold refrigerator dish set

And in the Holy Random Moments, Batman category today, my husband and I were offered to buy an antique store. Or possible management/partnership. Crazy stuff! And way, way, way out of my league. Either I should be utterly flattered or I should be half expecting a nice antique store around here to be going out of business or under new management soon.

Hope you're finding nifty thrifty treasures!

Pinkstravaganza!

Pyrex Pink Gooseberry 480 casserole set

 Now these were from a few weeks ago - an online purchase. I've hit that point where the things I'm looking for just don't seem to be able to be found locally, so I've bitten the bullet and ordered online.

 The whole pink gooseberry family, minus the refrigerator dishes. Of which I'm only missing one. I will be happy and relieved to find it. Prices for pink pyrex seem to be steadily climbing, and I'll be glad when I've got the exact pieces I want, and can be done with buying it.

Just need 1 more! Woo-hoo!

 So close! Just one little fridgie and this set will also be complete. Sqeeeeeeeeeeee.

 I got the smallest pink daisy dish today - an online purchase. Paid more to ship it than I won it for. Buying online is for the birds!

 The smallest round dish here (the 023) was a local find. Had never found an 023 'in the wild' before, and was very happy it was pink. I'm not for sure, but I believe the only other solid colored 023's that are known are turquoise and butter yellow.

And finally, that's not pink! The Spring Blossom green fridgie was a GW find for $4.99. The opal fridgie is unmarked. Found it in a local antique store, with lid, for 6 bucks. Not too bad.

And I was really happy to find the Spring Blossom fridgie. It's the first time I've found Pyrex in the local thrifts in a while. When I do, I'm usually so excited about it that I go home and immediately blog about it.

Lame, huh? Haha.
 

Happy Treasure Hunting!

Bar Keeper's Friend on vintage Fiesta

Went antique shopping today and bought two of the absolutely most utensil marked vintage Fiesta salad plates I have ever seen.

But fear not! Bar Keeper's Friend to the rescue!

Here's the Before shot:

The most utensil'd-to-death plate I've ever seen

A paste of Bar Keeper's Friend was applied to the right-hand side

Hard to tell these guys lived the same rough existence in the hands (and forks) of a dish abuser. But now they live with me, and that's all that matters :-)

Happy Bargain Hunting!

Vintage Fiesta mixing bowls

 This here is my new baby. A #6 original green Fiesta mixing bowl. An online auction win. And of course the shipping ended up being as much as the bowl itself - which is why I rarely buy online.

One of the reasons I decided to go for it is because of this detail:

Inside rings. Which indicates that this bowl was made between 1936, when they began production, and 1938, when they dropped the rings, smoothed out the inside, and changed the backstamp.

Not the clearest photo, but here's an example. These are both #5 bowls. The red is earlier.

Different backstamps. Red bowl has inside rings.

Call me crazy but I love details like these. There is a similarity here with the earliest Primary Pyrex bowls, a variation that doesn't have a name, but I call the TM REG bowls. These early Pyrex bowls are thicker, have some color variation and aren't numbered on the bottom.

With both the early Fiesta & Pyrex bowls, I think what I like about them the most is that they are actually less perfect than the later bowls. On the early Fiesta bowls, the glaze isn't as even, the Fiesta mark is smaller and plainer. But that's my dream set - to own all 7 bowls with inside rings, inside and outside bowls in turquoise. And I'm not even entirely sure that turquoise bowls are to be found with the inside rings since turquoise did not make it's debut until some time in 1937.

Oh well, a girl can dream can't she?

 I've got a ways to go before I have a whole set. I'm over halfway there if you count my very, very whooped-up tiny yellow number one bowl. Which brings me to a story about what a sucker I am when it comes to Fiesta mixing bowls.

See that little guy to the right? Poor little whooped-up bowlsie. It was a pity purchase, but also, because if I were any more of a sucker, they'd put a wrapper over me and ship me off to the candy store.....

What happened was, I was in a local antique store. This guy here was unpriced. Really, really bad condition. I mean, unspeakably bad. In addition to all the chips, it was absolutely grey, inside and out with utensil marks. Somebody didn't just use this bowl - they used the H. E. Double Hockey Sticks outta this bowl. And they musta been super angry when they when they used the H. E. Double Hockey Sticks out of it, too.

But you get the idea. So I fall for the oldest trick in the book. I inquire a price on this poor, decimated mixing bowl, and I get the whole "Oh, make me an offer".

So what did I say? Why, the first thing that popped in my head (which, if you are in my head, you'd totally know that's never a good idea).

I said "Well, no more than 5 dollars."

5 dollars! You sucka. You lollipop! 5 dollars.....for the worst conditioned thing you've ever seen in your whole life. 5 dollars, why I aughta!

At that moment, if I could have gone back in a time machine, what I would have said was "Well, no more than 50 cents."

But no, the damage was done. And I am the proud owner of a very chippy Fiesta mixing bowl.

He became substantially cuter when I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned on him with Bar Keeper's Friend. That stuff is a lifesaver.

(Get it? Sucker....Lifesaver.)

Yep.

Okay kids, I'm out.

Happy Treasure Hunting!

Happy Junk

 This is just about the best thrift haul I've had in ages.

First up, just about the dumbest thing I spent money on - a divided lid for a Pyrex divided dish. 2.99 just for a lid, and this fool girl bought it. I just don't find stray lids anymore, for practically any size Pyrex dish. They're just not to be found. So I paid the price. Just out of curiousity, I wonder if they thought this was a complete dish since, theoretically, you could use it to serve two separate things. Or were they just knowingly being greedy? sigh....


Still, everything was expensive. The blue Pyrex fridgie with lid was 4.99 at a church thrift. Double sigh. Bought it anyway. The loaf pan is an unmarked Glasbake in a pattern I've never seen, so of course I had to have it for 2.99 from the same thrift.

At another store I bought this small dishwashed-to-death Pyrex dinnerware bowl. I wouldn't have paid good money for it, but it was on a 10 cent rack. At that price it was more of a 'rescue' than a purchase. The woman running the store wasn't going to let me off the hook though. She thrust a glass donation jar in front of me with a look on her face like I would deeply insult the Lord if I did not make a further donation, so I dumped out all my change in to it. I'm a wuss like that.

Next up, I LOVE these guys! These are fired-on color, vitrock Lotus bowls made by Anchor Hocking. I've never seen an original box for these, but I believe they were sold as snack sets, in sets of 4. The color I'm missing altogether is a fired-on jadeite green shade. These were also made in real Jadeite, as well as at least some pieces in Azurite (pale blue), Forest Green & Peach Lustre. I've said before on this little blog that of all Jadeite pieces that Anchor Hocking/Fire King made, I'd like these the most.

But I'll settle for these, for sure. They were GW purchases, 99 cents per plate, 79 cents per bowl. Also, one of the things to look out for with vitrock is that it just doesn't look like glass. Anchor Hocking made a number of these types of pieces in vitrock, and they can look downright ceramic. But they are definitely glass.

And finally, super mega ultra Happy Dance. A cool vintage table. It's dirty, rusty, and possibly stained forever, but it is mine, and was totally in the budget at a sweet $12.99. Now that's more like it, Mr. Thrift Store. LOL

It's small enough that the tiny vintage tablecloths I have actually fit on it. God help me if I start tablescaping....

Yes, the wonky angle was intentional. This is my very disordered laundry room, the temporary home of this fabulously junktacular find. And I am trying to hide my mess, yes sirreee.

Hope the Junk gods are being kind to you this week! Happy Hunting!

Pyrex Glamour Shots

Yesterday I broke down and bought two pieces of Pyrex from a local antique store - a Town & Country fridgie & a Daisy bowl.

The daisy bowl completed my set.
 

I'm sorta surprised by the fact that after 2 years of collecting, this is only the 3rd Cinderella bowl set I've pieced together.

And sadly, I can't say that I totally love this set. Meaning, it may end up for sale. My 'Antiques Sensei' would tell me "love on it for a little while, then sell it" - which is exactly what I plan to do.

And finally, only the top right fridgie is new, but when I saw how vibrantly yellow the pattern is, I thought it would make a cute Pyrex Glamour shot with a Daisy yellow fridgie below it. They really are the same color.



Happy Treasure Hunting! 

July thrifting

Thrifting has been incredibly disappointing lately. That's why when I found these guys here, it felt like the sky opened up and the Hallelujah Chorus was playing.

Or maybe it has something to do with the top guy being called "Blue Heaven". Lol.

The top dish is an unmarked Fire King cake pan. I'm not sure that it even had a lid originally, but the thrift store paired it with a domed Pyrex lid that fits it. Makes it look rather bulbous and space-y, so I'm going to keep them together. And at $3.99, I was pleased with the price.

The dish below is a divided Pyrex dish - a promotional pattern called "Dandelion Duet". Despite the fact that it's a gold-leaf pattern, it was high on my wishlist. It was a tad pricier at 5.99. But I was still very pleased to find it. At this point, it's getting harder and harder to find Pyrex that I want that I don't have at a price I can afford. So I'm pretty overjoyed the now rare times that actually happens!

This thrift score was a couple of weeks ago. Oh my childhood! I'm hangin' tough with this absolutely fantastically amazing slumber party/overnight New Kids bag. And I only paid 49 cents for it! Yep. You heard me right. You got the right stuff, there, thrift store!

That's the right stuff.

(I'm so punny today!)

And finally, a cool score from an antique store. These are the 3 smallest measuring cups from a set of 4, made by Jeannette Glass in the Depression Era.

Depression Era Jeannette Glass measuring cups in Delphite

These are delphite - which, to my knowledge, hasn't been reproduced in this style. Same CANNOT be said for these same measuring cups in Jadite. At the time I bought them, I wasn't sure they weren't repro's, not totally. But they were only 15 dollars. And they had some giveaway hallmarks that they were the real deal - some flea bite chips on the smallest measure as well as some general dirtiness and staining that convinced me on the spot that they were the real deal. I'm almost certain I've handled a repro Jadite set of these measuring cups before, and for one "tell" they are always very shiny and clean with no apparent damage. Now dirt doesn't necessarily mean age, but when it comes to vintage kitchen glass, dirt and wear is usually a very positive indicator of authenticity!

The dealer who sold me these practically apologized that they weren't Jadite, as though they were the only ones that had value. For the last few years, I've been under almost the opposite impression - blue kitchen glass from this era can be just as valuable as green glass, and sometimes even more so. Such as in the case with a special shade of blue called "Chalaine", which is even more of a Robin's Egg blue than the delphite pictured here.

At any rate, these are a real treasure to me. Something I definitely would not have been able to pay "book price" for.

Hope you are finding thrifty treasures!