Corelle Milestone!

[danemodsandy]

Well, folks -

I reached a watershed today; the remaining dessert/berry bowls in my Corelle pattern (Snowflake Blue) arrived today, making my eight place settings complete! I have:

8 dinner plates
8 luncheon plates
8 bread-and-butter plates
8 soup/cereal bowls
8 dessert/berry bowls
8 hook-handled cups
8 saucers

It went a little faster and easier than I had anticipated; I had some good luck on eBay, and Ben (swestoyz) alerted me to the dinner plates in a consignment store, dirt-cheap, as well as a sugar and creamer.

What is great is that the dessert bowls are on the rare side, so finding them all was neat. Snowflake Blue is one of the four original Corelle Livingware patterns introduced in the Summer of 1970; the others were Butterfly Gold, Spring Blossom Green and Winter Frost White. Snowflake Blue was the first Corelle pattern to be discontinued, in Spring, 1976 *, and patterned bowls were only introduced in late 1972 (all bowls prior to '72 were Winter Frost White, no matter what pattern you chose), so there were only about three-and-a-half years where Snowflake Blue patterned bowls were made. Add to that the fact that the dessert/berry bowls were not part of Corelle sets; they were only available open-stock, as an option. So, they're a leetle hard to find.

I'm still stalking serving pieces, but the place pieces are all here. Thanks to everyone who kept their eyes peeled!

* It was always the poorest seller, so Old Town Blue (the "Blue Onion" Corelle pattern) was introduced in 1972, and produced concurrently with Snowflake Blue for a time. Old Town Blue is supposedly the strongest-selling Corelle ever; they still make a little of it for Corning Outlet Stores.

 

[retromania]

Congratulations!!

I love Corelle.

 

[tomturbomatic]

YAY for Sandy! He completed his quest!

 

[danemodsandy]

Not So Fast, Tom:

I still am looking for serving bowls, serving platters and quite a few Pyrex Compatibles items in the pattern, LOL.

The "milestone" was getting the place pieces, which I didn't think I'd amass so quickly.

 

[gansky1]

That was pretty fast to find 8 of each piece, good for you. But you really need 12.

Hee Hee ;-)

(I won't stop watching for it.)

 

[danemodsandy]

Greg:

You are a little more right than you know - I have some extra stuff, because things turned up sometimes in multiples greater than 8.

However, I'm just considering the extra a bit of insurance against breakage. I have some Pyrex goodies to go, so being "through" with the Corelle for the moment feels real okay.

Oh, and the West Bend cookie jar just turned up on eBay, so there's that, too.

 

[joe_in_philly]

That is the same pattern I grew up eating on, and my parents still use.

 

[drewz]

Really like that pattern, is anyone here having the edges of their corelle starting to flake away and become sharp?

I have blueberry morning pattern and I guess it's at least 17 years old now but recently I have noticed the edges of all the plates and cereal bowls flaking awaying and the edges on some are very sharp? I have no idea why this started, they have been used in the dishwasher for years without any problems???

 

[danemodsandy]

Drewz:

This problem could be your dishwasher; it's not normal wear and tear. Basically, if the wash action is too vigorous, the Corelle bounces up and down, and that's what creates the little chips and flakes.

If you did not have this problem in the past, then something has changed - new dishwasher, change in water pressure, vinyl coming off the racks, something. It might take a while to track down what's at fault.

Here's a link to the Corelle Corner page on damage and its causes:

http://www.corellecorner.com/corelle-wear-and-tear.html

 

[ovrphil]

Snowflake

I like your set, Sandy - good luck finding the rest. I seldom see any Corelle, or if I do it's the ugly stuff.

Wasn't there a Snowflake pattern on Pyrex cookware, too? Happen to like that alot , too.

 

[retromania]

Love, love, LOVE anything Pyrex / Corningware!!!!!!!!!

 

[danemodsandy]

Phil:

The Pyrex you show is turquoise Snowflake, which was made for a long time. It came in turquoise on white, white on turquoise, white on charcoal and white on pink.

There was also Pyrex in the Snowflake Blue pattern, to match the Corelle; this was called Pyrex Compatibles. Here's a Pyrex Compatibles butter dish - nothing special about it except the Snowflake Blue design. It was the same butter dish they made forever.

Pyrex Compatibles were made for a number of the early Corelle Livingware patterns, including Snowflake Blue, Butterfly Gold, Spring Blossom Green, Old Town Blue, Woodland Brown and Spice O'Life. There were mixing bowl sets (regular and Cinderella), casseroles, all kinds of stuff. [this post was last edited: 5/30/2013-05:18]

 

[combo52]

Corelle Dinner Ware

Yes you can never have too many place settings of a pattern you use and like. I was always attracted to the practically of Corelle Ware but I never found a pattern that I thought I could live with around 20 years ago. Then once while at the Corning outlet store in Martensburg W Va. I saw a pattern that I liked [ I don't know the name of it and could not even find it on the site you referenced Sandy ] the dinner plates have a 1/4" black band around the edge broken into 10 segments with 5 Vs with a little pink flower with a thin black and a green V below each of the 5 flowers.

 

My partner Michael and I both decided we liked this pattern so I went up to the register with 4 sets of 4 place settings [ I figured for everyday use 16 place settings would be a minimum number to have ] The lady at the register was amazed, she said you must have a huge family!, I said it is just the two of us but I didn't like running out of items before the DW was full. Since I bought this Corelle I have found more of the same pattern at thrift stores etc and now have over 40 dinner plates and at least 20+ peces of everything else in this pattern. I need to post a picture of this pattern so someone can figure out the name of it.

 

Corelle dishes that are deteriorating on the edges, I have seen this happen with any type of dishes that are used everyday and run through the DW on almost a daily basis, any glass, ceramic, or type of plastic dishes will eventually deteriorate to some degree, however if you tend to over wash your dishes this happens MUCH faster. Pre-rinsing dishes, using water too hot, using too long a cycle, using too much detergent and of coerce if water is soft deterioration will occur much faster. These same conditions will cut a dishwashers life in 1/2, so when my customers ask me about this problem I also see how long they have been able to keep a DW alive.

 

It also helps to have 40 dinner plates in your set to even out the inevitable wear, LOL.

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

It sounds like your pattern might be "Zenith."

The most comprehensive reference I know of for discontinued Corelle patterns is the "Discontinued Showroom" page on the official Corelle Website, www.corelle.com. The page is at:

http://www.corelle.com/corelle-discontinued-patterns

Even here, though, there are omissions and misspellings, so you may or may not find what you're looking for, but this page usually is helpful to those with a discontinued pattern.

 

[combo52]

Corelle Dinner Ware

Sandy you are amazing, I looked through some of the Corning and Corelle sites and never found it, and I once knew the name of this dinner ware but would not have been able to remember the name if my life had depended on it, but you found it, YAY. If anyone finds anymore of this pattern in good shape I will buy it.

 

Thanks, John

 

[gansky1]

I remember this pattern in the stores. I don't recall seeing it at your house, John, but I was likely too enamored with the stacks of odd and rare CorningWare. (he could build his own space shuttle - heat shielded with Corning bread pans and casseroles - LOL)

I haven't been in a Corning outlet/factory store for a long time. The one near us closed a couple of years ago. When I was in there last, the prices were not all that interesting and I, too, was dismayed by the lack of pattern choices. I do like the square plates, though. Sandy's pattern is growing on me, I've not seen much of that over the years and would have to surrender any found to him, naturally.

 

[danemodsandy]

Greg, John:

John:

Glad I nailed it. Having a pattern name is the most valuable tool you can have to replace pieces and save money.

Greg:

Go get yourself some Snowflake Blue - I've got what I want, plus a little cache of extra pieces to cover a bit of breakage. Unless it's serving bowls or platters, then I'd be pretty interested, LOL.

The reason I like Snowflake Blue is that it's one of the original four patterns, and it has hook-handled cups available. The hook-handled cups are my favorite, and they are the only Corelle cups ever made that are the same Vitrelle glass laminate as the dinnerware itself. Before the hook-handled cups, there were Centura cups (I have eight of those as well), and after the hook-handled cups, there were Pyrex cups in some patterns, though Snowflake Blue had been discontinued by that time. Just for confusion's sake, there were Snowflake Blue MUGS in Pyrex, but never regular cups.

All Corelle cups now are mugs, and they're earthenware. Saucers are NLA.

 

[retromania]

This has been a fun thread!

 

[drewz]

Sandy,

Thanks for that information and site! It is greatly appreciated, it seems the condition can be blamed on the KitchenAid dishwasher washer replacement which happened about 3 years ago. These dishes are at least 17 years old and I never had this problem before so after they get too sharp I will have to get replacements for them.