Are you seeing a noticeable increase in vintage goods for sale

[gansky1]

Corelle Snowflake Blue

<a name="start_41870.617223">"...I still can use almost anything that turns up, except cups: "</a>

 

LOL!  I know exactly how you feel!  I've saved 8 each of the saucers, teacups, coffee cups and coffee mugs from my Centura patterns and won't even look twice at a stack of them anymore.  I learned very quickly that most people like a larger mug, even for tea, so most of the cups and saucers that were extras went right out.  Saves a ton of space.

 

I see Corelle all the time so will keep an eye out for you, Sandy.  I've not seen either of the rose patterns, Tim, but that Norway Rose is very unique - I like the bold patterned china!

 

[launderess]

"You Don't Have A Clue Do You?"

Some of y'all need to make up your minds.

If persons price a *vintage* item for what they think it's worth there is great noise as to the high price. If the thing is too low they "don't have a clue".

Usually the market will sort these sort of questions out on it's own. We've seen estate sales listed here where goods didn't move (such as a vintage combo unit) because what interest there wasn't happy with the price. OTOH we've seen items move for prices that have left many gobsmacked.

 

[danemodsandy]

Greg:

Thanks on the Snowflake Blue!

It's one of the original four Corelle patterns (the others were Spring Blossom Green, Butterfly Gold and Winter Frost White) from 1970, and it holds the distinction of being the first Corelle pattern ever to be discontinued, in 1976. So, it's less plentiful than some of the others, particularly the dread Spring Blossom Green, which is everywhere, by the carload.

I said what I did about the cups because I only look for the hook-handle cups, which is a little hard to explain to people not familiar with early Corelle. Two hook-handle cups and saucers are actually on the shopping list; I already have six of each. I do not collect cups in Centura or Pyrex.

Launderess, I'm not trying to have it both ways. If people sell things dirt-cheap because they have no appreciation for the past and haven't done their homework, I certainly don't mind. That doesn't stop me from marveling at their lack of initiative; with Google, you're rarely more than a few clicks away from information about collectibles and their value.

 

[maytagbear]

We had

"Butterfly Gold" Corelle for almost 25 years. I got heartily, heartily sick of the stuff. I have one piece of it now, a luncheon plate, and that is more than enough.

Corelle will break, but it takes a lot of doing to achieve that.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[ken]

Orig Corelle patterns

I dont remember ever seeing the Snowflake design before. But then Im not a Corelle expert or follower. Are you sure it was one of the original designs?

As I understand the original patterns were Spring Blossom green, Butterfly gold, Old Towne blue and white. My mother bought the Spring Blossom and my sister the Butterfly which they still use to this day. I have a couple pieces of the Old Towne which were in my house when I bought it.

Was the Old Towne not one of the original designs and maybe introduced after the Snowflake was discontinued?

 

[danemodsandy]

Lawrence:

I don't think I could have taken Butterfly Gold for 25 days, let alone 25 years. It is, however, better than Spring Blossom Green, which makes me shudder when I think about actually eating off it.

Weirdly, there is a sudden epidemic of Woodland Brown popping up everywhere where I live, mostly cups. Woodland Brown was the pattern that replaced Snowflake Blue; it was a design of brown flowers drawn in outline. Very late 1970s - earthtones and all that - a perfect companion for a macrame place mat. I never saw it much until a few weeks ago, and now it's in every thrift I go to.

 

[danemodsandy]

Ken:

Nope, Snowflake Blue was one of the original four, made from 1970 to 1976. It was the least popular, which is why it was dropped.

Old Town Blue dates from 1972; it is the longest-running Corelle design that is actually patterned (Winter Frost White has been made longer, but is not patterned at all). Old Town Blue is officially discontinued, but short runs are still made for Corning Outlet Stores.

The reason I'm collecting Snowflake Blue is that it looks really good with Corning Ware Blue Cornflower. Old Town Blue clashes with Cornflower; it looks like you tried to match them and were really, really bad at it.

If you want a great Website for Corelle lore, I suggest Corelle Corner, which is a very well-researched site with trustworthy information:

http://www.corellecorner.com/home.html

 

[xraytech]

I absolutley LOVE the Butterfly Gold pattern, I've been around it all my life, my gram got it in the late 70s and mother got it for a wedding gift in 1984. I have a full service of it, plus drinking glasses, salt and pepper shakers, baking pans, and pyrex bowl set.

I also only accept the original hook handled cups

 

[danemodsandy]

There's A Story....

....Behind those hook-handled cups.

When Corelle was introduced in '70, the cups were all Centura, not the same Vitrelle glass the rest of the set was made of.

The reason was that Vitrelle begins as a flat sheet of glass, and it's hard to make a cup out of a flat sheet. Centura was used for the first two years of production, to give consumers a familiar-looking cup.

But the drawback to Centura is that it's not microwave-safe. That wasn't much of a problem in 1970, but it was starting to be one a couple of years later, and the situation got worse every year, as microwave sales boomed.

So, in 1972, Corning came up with the hook-handled cup, which WAS made of the same Vitrelle all the other Corelle place pieces were made of, and which was microwave-safe. The problem was, not everyone liked the hook-handled cup, even through Corning tried to market it as something designed with a handle that would not let you burn your fingers.

Over the years, Corning has also tried Pyrex cups, and current patterns often include cups made of regular stoneware from China.

But I'm with you - the hook-handled cup is the one that is really Corelle, and that's what I collect. They're a little hard to come by in Snowflake Blue, because they were introduced in '72, and Snowflake Blue was dropped in '76, meaning there were only four years of production.

In some patterns, like Old Town Blue, it's possible to find cups in Centura, in Pyrex, and hook-handled cups in Vitrelle. Pick whichever you like!

 

[tolivac]

Goodwill,Salvation Army places-and perhaps others---if you want to buy or donate there-look behind the store or place-if you see dumpsters and or a compactor-go elsewhere.sadly unwanted items go into the dumpsters or the compactor.After that they are no good to anyone.And they won't let you fish things from the dumpster.Things in the dumpster get compacted later on when the dumpster is emptied into the FL trash truck.It has a packer ram in it just like the stationary compactor.Hate to imagine the fate of that Magnavox Hi-fi console if no one wanted to buy it!And at these places-very nice appliances,clothes,toys go----to the dumpsters or compactors.Its like they get too much to sell-or they don't want to make the items into "saleable" condition.So they end up being "donated" to the landfill-or baled for the recycler without going to a wanting home.Toys and clothes often get "baled"Besides the compactor and dumpsters-some of those places may have balers behind them,too!

 

[vintagekitchen]

I suppose I may be partly to blame, lol..

I have noticed a major increase in vintage items for sale, mainly because as others have mentioned, a great deal of older people are passing away or going into retirement homes / downsizing. This means most of their goods tend to be sold at estate sales by their children and/or heirs, who have sorted through them, rescued what items they wish to keep, and are selling the rest.

While I often see items that I cannot beleive they are parting with, I can understand, as one cannot keep everything, and though they probably have modern style homes, who knows? Maybe they are selling Mom's Frigidaire Flair because they kept Gramma's Hotpoint. Maybe they are parting with Gramma's sewing machine because they kept Great Aunt Emma's. Or maybe their Mother-In-Law was so awful they wouldn't let a thing from her home enter theirs, (I actually was told this was the exact reason for a sale by the daughter in law a few years ago).

Either way, I try not to judge people for why they happen to be selling items. Especially since while I am shopping for myself, I usually manage to pick up at least a few vintage items, that although they are not things I collect, they can be re-sold on ebay to generate a bit of income for myself.

I look at it this way, from what auction agents have explained to me, (most local estate sales are auction type), items which do not sell are generally thrown out at the end of the day, as the heirs do not want them. Some actually have a truck waiting for just that reason. So by purchasing items which don't interest me or others, (I dont buy expensive items, as I cannot afford to be part of a bidding war), and re-selling them, I am sending them on to someone who does want them, rather than letting them go in a landfill. I don't expect to ever get rich this way, but doing so helps to offset the money I spend on the items I do collect.

 

[chuffle]

Wandering back to Corelle for a minute...

I also have a set of Corelle, and it is the ubiquitous Butterfly Gold pattern.

I know that everyone seemed to have it, and it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I am quite fond of it. Like a lot of collectors, where a particular color or pattern brings back memories of another time, BG holds such memories. I got the bug for it in the early 2000s. While living in Pittsburgh, and having three Red White and Blue thrift stores that were my favorite haunts, I found it quite easy to amass enough pieces for a nice set. I too, prefer the hook-handled cups. While I have my parents' sets of Currier and Ives, Golden Wheat, and Color-Flyte Melmac, and my set of Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne, the Corelle is what my hand falls upon for my daily use.

One of the things that I have found over the years, is that one needs to check the edge of the pieces, mainly the plates - a lot of them feel rough to the fingernail test, not smooth. So many of the plates that I have run across have staining to the edges, what looks to be rust stains. No amount of Corningware cleaner removes these stains. I always wondered if it had something to do with folks having ragged dishwasher racks that have rusty spots, and leaving the Corelle in the machine after a wash would cause the rust to stain the edge. I could be way off on this...

The one piece of BG that I don't have is the covered sugar. In all of my searching, all that I have found are sugars with either yellowed lids, or missing their lids completely.

Joe

 

[vintagekitchen]

Corelle

Up until a few years ago I had a complete setting for 12 in Spring blossom green which I had collected a few peices at a time, along with all the serving ware, casseroles, mixing bowls, cruets, salt and pepper, butter dish, the works. I began collecting it at a time when I had avocado green appliances in the kitchen (Frigidaire stove, GE fridge), and matching green Club Cookware, so I kinda had a theme going, lol.

My grandmother was constantly attempting to talk me out of the set (even offering to buy them or to trade me her stoneware dishes for them), so after the old stove gave up the ghost, and the fridge was painted almond to match the replacement stove, I carefully packed all of it, dishes, mixing bowls, every peice of spring blossom green I had, and took them all to her.

You would have thought I gave her the Hope diamond. It turns out that when she was a young bride, she wanted a set of Spring Blossom Green Corelle like her sister in law had very very much, but they could never afford it. All these years and she had never forgotten how badly she wished they could afford that set of dishes, and thats why she wanted them so badly. Had she told me the story before, I would have sent them home with her immidiately. Until I took them over and she told me the story, I had just assumed she noticed them and thought they were pretty.

Now anytime there is a family dinner at her house, she makes sure everyone knows where the dishes came from, and that when she passes away, those dishes go to me, lol.

 

[danemodsandy]

Roughness/Rust

That roughness on the edges of Corelle pieces is microscopic chipping from being in the dishwasher. If your dishwasher's racks are good, with all their Plastisol, you generally won't have the problem. The darkening at the edge is, as you suspect, rust sublimated off dishwasher racks onto the roughness.

Some roughness doesn't hurt anything, though if it ever reaches the stage of discernible chipping, you need to retire that piece. The rust can be removed by CLR or Lime-Away or Zud.

 

[chuffle]

Vintagek...

That's a sweet story. Always interesting to hear why folks click with certain patterns, certain items.

Joe

 

[launderess]

@danemodsandy

You know I love you more than my luggage! *LOL*

Comment was in general not aimed at anyone in particular.