I received this package from eBay last week and, as difficult as it was to do, I didn’t open it until today because I knew it contained kitchen ware, and without belaboring the point, our ongoing kitchen renovation has left things in a chaotic mess. I didn’t want to add new things to this and risk the chance of breakage.
The delivery contained vintage pieces made by Corning. (You might be more familiar with their brand name ‘Pyrex’). I have quite a collection of this type of glassware, which can withstand high levels of heat and resists breaking. As the story goes, it was first discovered by mistake when a glass-maker accidentally heated some glass way hotter than he meant to. Then when he dropped a piece it didn’t break. However, while it does prove to be highly resistant to breaking I have ‘lost’ a few pieces. Let’s just say that dropping it on ceramic tile, or putting a hot piece onto some water on the counter, is not recommended! Hello butter dish …where might your under-plate be?
Except for a few hard-to-replace pieces in my collection, we use it everyday. At first Nick was worried about it and asked me to put it away for safe keeping, but the way I see it, we only live once so we should enjoy the beautiful and very handy pieces. After all, Corningware is still readily available new, so if/when the vintage pieces are broken and no longer replaceable, we will move to newer products, which are just as convenient, but not as pretty as the old stuff.
Today’s package contained four dinner plates, in absolutely perfect condition. The pattern is called ‘Crazy Daisy’ (a name which is disputed, as some original packaging indicates the pieces to have been called ‘Spring Blossom’, but I prefer to stick with Crazy Daisy for obvious reasons!) It was made between 1972 and 1986, making these beauties at least 25 years old. A big thanks to whomever kept them safe and sound in their cupboards all these years.
The second item in the delivery was the cutest mini coffee-pot, made sometime in the 60s. Well actually, while it is exactly made like Corning’s coffee-pots of that era, it is actually a syrup jug, distributed with the purchase of Log Cabin Syrup. The lack of much information or many photographs of these jugs on the web leads me to believe that this little number is quite rare. Mine is missing the front label though, which would deter from it’s value to ‘real’ collectors, I assume.
It was originally my intention to clean off the label and incorporate it into everyday kitchen use for a sauce/gravy/syrup-when-we-have-it, type of receptacle, but Nick thinks this is one of those pieces we should use for display. He doesn’t want to take the risk of being the one to accidentally drop it! I’m leaning towards ‘using it and maybe losing it’. What do you think?
Thanks to eBay vendor foxglovefolkart for these treasures, and to you for reading this post.
