After a Pyrex Famine....

Well, I haven't been buying much Pyrex lately. Not sure why. Haven't seen anything I wanted. Or worth the space in my inventory. Or in good condition. Or not horribly overpriced. Or all of the above.

Then the other day I saw these:

What was noteworthy is that I was at Value Village which is notorious for overpricing...especially the Pyrex. But for some reason these were not.

And all 4 pieces were there.
After a quick text to Hubby for input, I got them all for less than $10. (had a coupon)

Hubs is the Shipping Department and he's been trying to steer me away from large and breakable. But he gave the go ahead...so I went ahead.

If I wasn't already committed to the turquoise....we'd be tempted to keep them...Hubby likes this pattern too.
At home I found one little chip on the 404. But a smooth one, not sharp. Not a dealbreaker, I don't think.

Ain't they purdy?

Finally!

Here in the Great Northwest, there has been quite a shortage of decent Pyrex.  Sure I can still manage to come across at least 2 yellow Primary 404 bowls in a week along with a never ending supply of Spring Blossom.  But that all changed last week.  I managed to find some awesome pieces and I didn't have to go into one single antique store to get my fix!

My husband brought home the Colonial Mist 404 and I got the Old Town butter dish from a mobile home community rummage sale.  It was only 50 cents!  The Desert Dawn yellow 024 and lid were a steal from Goodwill for 99 cents FOR THE SET!  Crazy.

I got this HUGE 9" x 13" Snowflake Blue casserole dish and this 8" x 8" lime green square browning pan at the same Goodwill on the same day!  All of us Pyrex maniacs know that doesn't happen very often!

And let's not forget about the Butterprint refrigerator dishes and Family Flair dishes I blogged about earlier in the week.

Wow, what a week, huh?  Hopefully this is only the beginning.......

First charcoal snowflake!

There it was, just waiting for me: a charcoal snowflake divided dish! It passed the "finger around the edge check for chips" test, and I gleefully plunked down the $3.00 required by Goodwill.

It wasn't until I was home and washing it in the kitchen sink, that I turned it over and saw:

OMG!! It doesn't say PYREX! A funny logo instead...

Of course I went right to the computer and found out that I had apparently purchased a piece of Crown Pyrex, i.e. made in England.

This piece is marked with just the crown, not the JAJ plus crown stamp, so if anyone knows about these marks, I would be interested to hear.

So now we have Pyrex of three nations: the Canadian-made lime cake dish was recently thrifted for $0.75; it was half-price week at that thrift store.

And finally, here is my January 2012 kitchen display of blues and whites (Snowflake Blue, Horizon Blue, and opal).

Happy 2012, and good hunting!

Hunting for Pyrex

So we went to a wedding for a friend of mine in Lake Charles and tried to Pyrex shop along the way. Lake Charles in general was a giant dud. I found mostly corelle pieces and maybe 2-3 overpriced pieces.

I had lost all hope of finding anything until my hubby spotted a random flea market on the side of the road. It was raining, 9 am on a Sunday morning, and looked at little shady. So why not? LOL

Found some AWESOME pieces.

The Pueblo is finally mine! I really wanted this in time for Halloween but I will take it!

$8 bucks!!!! 

I also restocked my pieces for trade. 

Let me know if you want to trade. See my trade album.

--Lisa

Vintage Vault

Verde, Fridgies, and Philbe--oh my!

My recent finds report!

After hitting up about 8 thrift stores this week {I have a problem} I *finally* found some decent Pyrex! This Verde casserole set is exciting for me because I found it in absolute mint condition. You know when you can just tell that a piece was never used? It's as shiny as the day it was born and there is not a utensil scratch to be found. I picked this set up for $19.99.

To show you how minty this set is, here I have the middle casserole next to an identical one I'd found ages ago, very beat up. I only paid 99 cents for it, though. 

 Speaking of 99 cents...

 I never find fridgies! But just as I was about to leave a Goodwill the other day empty handed, they bussed out another cart full of things to rummage through. After a little digging, I found these two Butterprint fridgies. Score!

Only one had a lid, but, check out these prices!

 99 cents each. Now that's more like it, Mr. Goodwill!

I was expecting to see $5.99 or possibly more, the way thrift stores have started to recognize collectibles and gouge us. So this was a happy surprise. 

Another Verde, another fridgie was destined to find me this past month, also:

 I'm thinking I'm going to use it to pile up my Christmas cards in this year!

This set is promised to a friend since I'm not a huge fan of Colonial Mist, but just one more bowl will make it a complete set. It was sold as a bundle, which I've been seeing more of lately--have you? It came with a sad, destroyed Daisy bowl:

Snowflake Blue, on the other hand, is one of my very favorites. I own almost the complete set of Corelle dishes which I've thrifted here and there. Those have been easy to find, but the actual Pyrex has been more elusive. Finally, I found the large Cinderella bowl recently, and a friend swapped me the casserole for a pink Dessert Dawn that I had multiples of. We both win!

 And I already owned the lime loaf dish, but I was excited to pick up the baking dish this past month, too. I love this color. It's so cheery. I will definitely hope for more of it...

One last thing!

So until recently I've considered myself a "Pyrex Purist." But then I started to fall for Fire-King's Sapphire Blue Philbe pattern. I'm curious if any of you other collectors pick up other glassware, or do you all just stick to Pyrex?

 I absolutely fell in love with this Sapphire Blue Philbe refrigerator dish I found recently! I snatched it up for $5.99. I didn't even know this pattern came in this size.

 I've also managed to thrift a pie dish and a casserole...

I just have a thing for this pattern, I guess! Are there any other Philbe collectors out there???

 I guess I'm a Pyrex Purist no more!

My husband is probably thinking, "Greeeaaat... another thing to collect!"

Merry Christmas!

Heather @ Lark & Lola

pyrex for grandma

So for many of us, Pyrex collecting reminds us of our 

mother's & grandmother's collections

My mom received Old Orchard for her wedding

and it is what I grew up with, but being brown, I never paid much attention

to it as a kid

and it wasn't until I became the full blown collector of pyrex

that I realized my grandma doesn't have a single piece of pyrex

So I asked her what mixing bowls she used to have,

just assuming she must have gotten rid of them along the way

She told me she NEVER had pyrex

when she got married they didn't receive too many wedding presents

and in her words they would have never been able to afford them at the time

Ok, so this made me really sad

Thinking of my adorable little grandma in her eighties

who never got a pretty set of pyrex to bake with

Well, I had to change that.

So for Christmas this year, my grandma is going to be 

getting her first set of pyrex.

Something she should have gotten at 24, not 84

but a wedding present sixty years late is better than never!

Knowing my grandma loves everything blue 

I knew her set also needed to be this hue

Cinderella Snowflake Blue Mixing bowls will be hers soon

Miss Macri @ Educated...not so Domesticated

Labor Day Finds!

Happy Labor Day Everyone!

Hope you all enjoyed a relaxing weekend. We were so happy here in Houston after almost a month of triple digit weather. Tropical Storm Lee brought us some relief in temperature.

My family spent the weekend hunting for Pyrex. I had a ton of luck! Between garage sales, Craigslist, Antique Malls and thrift stores, I found plenty to be excited about!

I went to lady's house who was selling the Autumn Harvest bowl set (in the second picture) and asked her if she was selling anymore Pyrex. She mentioned some kind of Federal glassware. Imagine my surprise when she took me into the kitchen and showed me all of the Butterprint pieces. She hadn't decided on keeping them or not, but eventually quoted a price. Most are duplicates so I will be adding them to my trade set soon. The solid turquoise pieces came from an Antique stores. The snowflake came from two different thrift stores.

LOVE Turquoise!

Some from the lady on Craigslist, some from Antique stores and some from thrift stores. The Friendship piece still had the Goodwill price on it for 3.93 but the Antique dealer wasn't too thrilled about going down on the price. I ended up paying $6 which was still fair to me because I only have one piece of Friendship and never seem to find it. It was covered in black goop. I wish I had taken a before picture. It looks brand new now! Some duplicates will be posted in trades.

Second Friendship Piece!

Some pieces from an Antique mall including my FIRST Delphite bowl. I was so excited and to be honest, I might have missed it. My 9 year old son spotted it. Going Pyrex hunting with my family helps me spot things I might miss on my own. I found the unmarked opal bowls which I love. My MIL gave me the yellow fridgie that is such a a brilliant yellow. This was sold by a dealer in her store.

The Butterprint bowls were found in a thrift store by my hubby. He saw the print from across the store. I couldn't figure out what he was walking so fast toward. He almost bumped a woman out of the way to reach them. I laughed as soon as I saw what was in his hand. I have been looking for the 404 bowl for so long! I didn't even know they made Embroidery in yellow!

404 Butterprint!

Hope you all had some great finds this weekend. I am always happy to scrub and clean new (to-me) Pyrex. Looking forward to your posts!

--Lisa

Check out my new FB page - Vintage Vault

Time to Focus after an Incredible Week.

How do you decide on which patterns/colors to focus your collections on? I am suffering from Pyrexia Nervosa at the thought of swapping, selling or otherwise getting rid of any of my pieces. I have narrowed down my collection to Pyrex only with the exception of the gorgeous Fire-King Tulip Bowl. Don't get me wrong, I still have more Fire-King... I just don't display it.


THIS WAS A HUGE WEEK:

The Forest Fancies, Primary Yellow and one of the Spring Blossoms were all scored from a local online auction where I bid on the entire contents of a cabinet by photo alone. I paid $7.99 and also included were some great pots and pans, vintage rolling pin and other kitchen goodies.

The stacked Daisy set with two lids, one of the Flamingo Pink round casseroles, a Gold Butterfly small casserole, Green primary, several pieces of Fire-King and a Maid of Honor fridgie were all scored on Craigslist for $20. I will be gifting the Fire-King and adorable Maid of Honor Fridgie

A generous friend gifted me the Autumn Harvest set of three, a Yellow primary, Gold Butterfly casserole and two Early American pieces, a 4 qt. Town & Country cinderella AND a couple of Spring Blossom mixing bowls!

I now have over 50 pieces of Pyrex and need to focus and organize. Does anyone have any opinions on which pieces you think I should stay with or does anyone have a trade you would like for me to consider?