Reunited (and it feels so good)!

There are numerous good reasons to enjoy vintage kitchenware.  There's the knowledge that you're re-purposing and recycling items discarded before their useful lifetime and the understanding that your money is filtering through the economy on a different, sometimes even charitable, level.  There's the daydreams you can easily get whisked off to thinking of the former meals your skillet has cooked or dish has prepared.  And the thrill of the hunt, for sure.  But I get the most extreme pleasure when I piece back together a long torn apart set.

Sometimes while anthropomorphizing my dishes, I think about how lonely a misplaced bowl is separated from its manufactured brethren.  I just want to swoop in and say, "Ah ha!  I have found you!  Let me return you to your kinfolk."  And sometimes I get to.

When it comes to glassware, sets of three are always hard to think about.  I can't help but wonder what awful fate the fourth succumbed to.  Did it break?  Maybe it was lost in a move?  A while back I'd found three colorful automobile glasses: red, turquoise and yellow.  They were bright and cheerful, and scattered throughout an unmanned flea market booth about to close.  Lo and behold if I didn't spot the green one months later and miles away.

Big news too that I also finally completed my set of 1940s Pyrex Primary Bowls with the old elevated foot.  I suppose the italicization goes a bit far - I mean I haven't been looking that long.  But anyhow, my very first set back together at last:

 

When it comes to reuniting sets, I think it is part luck and part patience (and honestly, I think more of the latter).  I'd known of a yellow #404 for a while, but wasn't entirely pleased with either the condition or the price.  I'd walk by it thinking, "There you are, the last piece needed to complete this set" but had managed, for weeks, to pass it by.  Finally I gave in to temptation and splurged on the bowl, reckoning it's a decently elusive find what with the limited production and age and who only knew when I'd see another one.  So I bought it.  And my jubilation and rationalization lasted all of something like three hours until at the next place we stopped, I found another one - reasonably priced, and in better shape (so yes, I rescued that one too.  I know, I can't help myself - luckily that first one has already been re-homed to Japan so I can mark a tally in the win column for spreading the Pyrex wealth).

Just goes to show - patience always wins out.

Then you have lids.  Oh lids - you bane of my existence.  They say there is a lid for every pot but they don't tell you where this lid happens to be.  I broke my rule and purchased this Zodiac lid online, but seeing how happy he is (I think this casserole is a male, no?) back with his proper hat, I understand why rules are meant to be broken sometimes.

 

This little casserole didn't lose it's lid, but the one it had was all chipped and damaged.  Fortunately, not one but two lone lids were discovered a few days ago for a steal.  It's just one big family reunion going on over here!

So tell me, what's your happiest reunion tale? 

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The Thrill of the Hunt

Before I became a "vintage kitchen goddess" (oh hush. I hear those poorly disguised snickers from the peanut gallery. Can almost hear your eyes roll too! But that is okay, let me get to my point) I spent a lot of time thinking about tourism, and the tourist in particular. And in any academic query of touristic motivations, you will eventually get drawn into a discussion on the hunt. Indeed, of the stereotypical "big game seeking" safari hat wearing, rifle toting sort, but also of the camera toting "perfect shot acquiring" documentarian as well. Seems there is something inherently thrilling to hear about the difficulty of catching something, to go questing for it, to catch it, and to bring back evidence as if to say, "Aha! Out of all the possible animals/photos/places/people/things in the world that one could possibly encounter, I distinguished with the aid of my brilliant perceptive skills, intuitive know-how and vast knowledge of worldly things that this was important to make note of." I mean that's really what game trophies and travel photographs are all about right? Physical evidence of something you saw, or did, or achieved that someone else aspires to do.

See I am a hunter of another sort - a treasure hunter; only my rubies and diamonds are Pyrex pretties and collectible cookware. And my open grassland savannah has been traded for the dusty, musty aisle-ways of thrift-stores and random piles of belongings that characterize the neighborhood yard-sale. This is my "wild." And sure, I could find these things for sale at "antique" malls (even though none of these pieces yet technically qualify as antique, don't get me started) and even online, but that would be akin to photographing an animal in a zoo, or (goodness forbid) a pet-store. Don't get me wrong: These outlets have their place! And certainly I am not one to eschew online resale as a matter of principle. But there is a certain je ne sais quoi that is lost when an element of certainty is introduced. The suspense, the anticipation, the long-awaited reward ... that is what makes collecting vintage kitchenware so exciting.

All this to say a part of me drags my feet posting because I understand that this entire endeavor is really about bragging writes (oh yes, that was intentional), and it can feel a little self-aggrandized to say, "Hey there! I found this and don't you wannnt it, nah nyah nah, it's mine!" ;-) So to make this seem more chronological, I'll start off the way all hunters do - with "the first kill."


I love my 403 primary green mixing bowl even more for its imperfections. In fact, my entire primary set (thus far) shares the evidence of years and years of use. The green 403 was the first piece of Pyrex I found at a thrift-store. I grabbed it, debated it for a while, took it home and have adored it ever since.

I found the red 402 and blue 401 later, but they all seem to be from the early 1940s set with the extended foot. We found the red bowl at a road-side flea market, and it was soo grungy that there was a debate as to whether it had been spray-painted (seriously. It was gross). There, however, was no doubt that it was Pyrex and that the glass' integrity had been maintained. The man selling informed us that, "That right chere'd make a real good bowl for $1" and, not wanting to stick around to discover what 'else' it might make a "real good'un of" we took a chance it would clean up nice and I think it did. I have a soft-spot for gently distressed primary bowls; personally I think I prefer the colors with a little wear rather than in pristine condition.

Snagged the blue 401 at a Salvation Army. It wasn't in the best condition but not knowing when (or if) I'd find another '40s footed 401 in the wild I took the plunge. Would refusing to take this home be like refusing to take a picture of a wild cheetah on safari because I thought it looked a little mangy? Probably. Probably, indeed. And who in their right mind would do that. As every hunter knows, you take the shots your given.

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