Kreamer Canisters design patent

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ovrphil

ovrphil

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Today these found me. when I wasn't looking for canisters - 2 sets, missing the middle size canister. For fun, I did a search at the uspto.gov site, for the patent pending number, on the bottom; entered " D102704" (D for design). The inventors George W. Stalling and George W. Walker show their design applied for in May 22, 1936 - exactly 77 years ago this Wednesday - is claimed to be a unique design.

I like that it blends with our Pantry Queen bread box, but will keep looking for some Lincoln Beautyware or addtional Kromex canisters(have but one). Anyone caring to post a photo of their favorite canister sets that they own?

http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair
ovrphil++5-20-2013-21-40-11.jpg
 
These Are My Favorites:

These are from West Bend. This design was popular in the later 1950s; the famous Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episode with Tallulah Bankhead ("The Celebrity Next Door," originally aired December 3, 1957) shows a set in Tallu's kitchen, along with a fortune in Westinghouse major appliances.

These were available in the silver aluminum color shown, with black tops and graphics, as well as a copper-anodized finish with black and copper-anodized with white. In the 1960s and 1970s, the basic shape was updated with a new lid design, new graphics, and fashion colors like Avocado, Harvest, Coppertone and shaded red.

Items available included:

- Basic canister set (flour, sugar, coffee, tea)
- Cookie canister
- This 'n That canister (large, for bulky items like potato chips, which were hard to keep fresh before today's Mylar packaging was invented)
- Bakery Bin (for buns and rolls)
- Grease container with strainer
- Salt and pepper shakers
- Foil/Waxed Paper/Paper Towel dispenser (wall mount)
- Bread box (early and late versions; the Lucy-Desi episode shows the early one, which is super-rare)
- Wastebasket
- Square cake carrier

I own the basic canister set, the grease container, the Bakery Bin and the paper dispenser. I'm looking for the rest of the items. The tricky part is finding items with good, unworn graphics. For some reason, the copper-anodized versions are more plentiful, and their graphics tend to be in better shape.

These are well-made, tight-sealing canisters. The lids are painted, and tend to scratch, but can easily be re-sprayed to look like new.

danemodsandy++5-21-2013-05-58-37.jpg
 
You never cease to disappoint with details - if I come across a canister set or other in that West Bend design, esp. in silver aluminum...will let you know, Sandy.
 
Lincoln Beautyware:

Beautyware is great stuff, if you stick to the right pieces.

While this is not true for every line Lincoln ever made, some lines were available in chrome-plate, aluminum or stainless steel - your choice (extra cost for the last two, of course).

Something is happening a lot on eBay buyers should be very careful about - sellers who don't know any better (I'm being nice here) are calling a lot of silver-colored Beautyware items "Stainless Steel" or "stainless" when they are no such thing. Any Beautyware that is actually stainless will be marked "Stainless Steel" on the bottom, permanently stamped into the item. If Beautyware doesn't SAY "Stainless Steel," permanently stamped on the bottom, it is NOT stainless steel; I do not care what an eBay seller's fantasies, ignorance or duplicitous tendencies move him or her to claim to the contrary.

I personally would not buy chrome Beautyware off eBay without very, very good pictures, because most of it has some rust by now. There are also copper-plated and painted finishes; those would have to be in very good condition for me to consider them, because restoration would not be easy or cheap.
 
The Veddy Best Canisters....

....Were Revere Ware's.

These were stainless steel, with a unique clear plastic knob called the Tel-U-Top. The Tel-U-Top was actually a small container that you filled with a sample of whatever the canister held - the top would tel u what was inside.

They are of a quality not seen for a long, long time, and they are expensive. Expect to pay somewhere between $50 and $100 for a basic set of four (there was also a three-canister set available when these were new). Revere copper canisters are much later, and don't have the following that these stainless ones do. Here's a Revere ad touting the canisters, from 1955:

danemodsandy++5-21-2013-13-17-8.jpg
 
And For the Five-and-Dime Crowd:

There was Lustro Ware.

Lustro Ware - in its original incarnation - was molded styrene. It came in bright, cheerful colors like red and yellow (later, updated colors like turquoise were introduced). Below is a 1952 ad showing the canister set, the bread box and the cookie jar. The canister set was only $3.49 - cheap even by early-'50s standards. It was not an upscale product, but it made new, colorful kitchenware affordable to almost anyone.

Lustro Ware is something I would buy only if I trusted the seller, or if I could see it in person. Styrene is one of the cheaper plastics, prone to problems that have led to it not being used much any more. It is prone to warpage, to stress cracking, and to differential shrinkage - a canister lid can shrink at a different rate than the canister bottom, meaning it doesn't fit any more. It can also become permanently stained by grease buildup such as you find in poorly-ventilated kitchens that aren't kept clean.

Lustro Ware is vulnerable to heat (like being too close to a stove burner) and to fracture if dropped. It can be very pretty stuff, though, so if you find it in good shape and you take good care of stuff, it can be a great vintage look in your kitchen. However, it has gotten very expensive, because it has a lot of fans and because survivals in perfect condition are a little hard to find.

danemodsandy++5-21-2013-13-46-19.jpg
 
Phil - West Bend:

Thanks for the offer!

You should know that I collect only the silver aluminum, not the copper-anodized. The theme in my kitchen (still in progress) is silver and black small appliances and kitchenware, with red and white and black elsewhere.

The piece I'm having the most trouble with is the cookie canister; it's not easy to find in silver aluminum with intact graphics (there are four or five copper ones on eBay right now). All those little hands reaching for cookies, I guess....

Now, if I changed my name to Hans, one that was MIB would probably follow me home from work, LOL!

P.S.: When I say "intact graphics," I don't necessarily mean perfect. Small scratches on the graphics can be touched up with some black paint and a fine artist's brush. Sadly, most cookie canisters I see have the graphics worn away completely, or damaged so badly they can't be touched up.
 
Understood, Sandy - so, are you keeping away from a shiny chrome accent look?

Lustro-Ware -Omg, $325. You gotta love that look...it's not exactly my taste, but it's mid-century! Yay.

Speaking of old ...I still have a set from the 40's(not sure when my mom bought these; ceramic and they're made in Japan. They've been through the war (wwII possibly), and have seen better days, so they're only displayed now.

Good info and interesting ads, thanks!

ovrphil++5-22-2013-11-40-6.jpg
 
Phil:

Actually, the silver canisters polish up, and therefore coordinate pretty well with my chrome-and-black small appliances, my stainless Farberware cookware and stainless step-on trash can, etc.

My kitchen is possibly the smallest one on the planet, so I like keeping things to a restricted range of colors. It could look unbearably crowded in there without a firm hand to edit things.

By the way, I like your canister set's salt box! I have one in my kitchen; anything that can be wall-mounted is all to the good in such a tiny space. Cory's (cadman) other half, Cara, calls it a "one-butt" kitchen.

She's right - if the butt isn't too big.
 
butt, butt, butt

I can relate to your challenges, there - we lived in my parent's flat for many years - it was more suitable for children with step stools. We had no counter space til I built something next to the windows, that had lower cabinets....had an old white, farm house ceramic/iron sink, one double door metal cabinetand a later-added wood unit built into the space above the refrigerator niche that would accomodate those round coiled headed frig's of the 1927+ eras). It was a one-butt kitchen - like Cara's classification. :-)

Canisters are fun, even if not commonly used anymore. It is hard to find some that actually keep food fresh, but that Revereware set looks like it does the job. We are different in that we've gone from a Spartan look to the countertop to a cluttered one...adding a couple canisters in chrome reflect and disappear on the black formica surface. Who likes canisters anymore, though?

[this post was last edited: 5/22/2013-13:24]
 
Phil:

People just don't cook much any more, at least not in a fashion that requires much in the way of bulk ingredients. Much "cooking" these days involves combining pre-prepared ingredients like stir-fry kits, or putting together prepared foods with something fresh. Not much use for canisters there!

Sugar? A lot of people pride themselves on not having it in the house nowadays - never mind how much of it they consume in prepared and fast food. Coffee? Keurigs. Tea? Tea bags which come in their own package.

Which is fine. Because all the canisters these folks don't want become just that much cheaper for those of us who actually cook to buy.
 
I Stand Corrected:

Tom:

I thought that door looked Hotpoint, but I'm not so familiar with late-'50s Westy stuff as I might be, and there is a heavy ten-year connection between Westinghouse and Desilu. So, that's what I was going on. My bad.
 
Sandy, Didn't you tell us that Westinghouse stipulated Lucy & Desi could not get divorced as long as they were the sponsor? Some of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour shows had WH appliances like the kitchen when Ida Lupino and Lucy cleaned fish at the lake cabin but then there was the kitchen in the house next door to the Ricardo's Connecticut farm house that had HP appliances. Maybe that was revenge on WH. I don't think they ever showed where Fred & Ethel (Ethyl) lived in that series, did they? There were not many shots of the Ricardo's kitchen in CT either.

As for the dishwashers, WH was all rollout from after WWII until 1964 or 65 when they came out with the copy of the KitchenAid with the big plastic filter and the wash arm. They actually kept the rollout as the lower model for a year or two. HP was all drop door for their builtins and portables except for the GE-built top loader portables.
 
Tom:

That might have been Pat Coffey (appliguy) who shared that tidbit; he's a huge Lucy fan.

The reason for the Hotpoint appliances might - and this is a guess, not something I can back up - have been rooted in the increasing interest Washington was taking in "payola" in media at that time (1957). "Payola" was the practice of paying media outlets to showcase something, whether it was a new record that a record company wanted radio stations to play, or undue advertising value given to a product in a TV show. Westinghouse was not the sponsor of I Love Lucy, *, yet Westinghouse products were frequently seen on the show - the Ricardos' range and refrigerator, the vacuum cleaner that Lucy tried to sell door-to-door, etc. "Payola" became a huge scandal, with Congressional investigations into radio's kickbacks being undertaken in 1959. Given that Lucille Ball had already been accused - though cleared - of Communist sympathies in the "Red Scare" witch-hunts so dear to the heartless heart of Senator Joe McCarthy, the last thing Desilu would have wanted was to court another headline-making accusation.

So, it may have been that Desilu was working to avoid giving the impression that "payola" was at work, by using another brand for some sets' appliances. And of course, Westinghouse did later become a sponsor for The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour**. Again, I cannot prove any of this; it's an educated guess.

* Sponsors were:

Philip Morris Cigarettes (1951-1955)
Proctor & Gamble (1954- 1957)
General Foods (1955-1957)
Ford Motor Company (1956-1957)

** The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour wasn't actually the title of the show when it originally aired; this is the syndication title. The first seasons, sponsored by Ford, were originally titled The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show. The last two, sponsored by Westinghouse, were titled The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Presents The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show. Bit of a mouthful, eh?
 

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