Slowdown with the Okay Corelle

[danemodsandy]

Forgive the silly title - I'm so giddy to have an actual Sunday off, I'm delirious!

Anyway, I posted a request here recently, asking list members to keep their eyes peeled for any Snowflake Blue Corelle, because I wanted to collect it.

This is to let everyone know that - with the exception of the small dessert bowls - I have found eight full places, each complete with dinner plate, luncheon plate, bread-and-butter plate, cup (hook-handled), saucer, and cereal/soup bowl. I actually do have dessert bowls that I can use for now; they're plain Winter Frost White, not the Snowflake Blue pattern, but they'll do for the time being, until patterned ones turn up.

I have to thank Ben (swestoyz) who turned up the dinner plates locally, texting me one day to let me know where they were. That find put the collection on its way.

So, while I'm still in the market for the dessert bowls, and some serving bowls and platters might be nice, I've got my everyday service for eight, and very handsome it is, too!

For those who don't know, Snowflake Blue was one of the four original Corelle Livingware patterns introduced in 1970; the others were Spring Blossom Green, Butterfly Gold and Winter Frost White. Snowflake Blue is the rarest of the four, being the first Corelle pattern ever to be discontinued, in 1976. It was replaced by Old Town Blue, which is still made for Corning Outlet Stores, but is not in regular production. Winter Frost White is still in regular production, but its cups are now ironstone, in keeping with the rest of today's Corelle line; they are not Vitrelle or Centura any more.

[this post was last edited: 4/7/2013-20:59]

 

[gansky1]

So glad I didn't buy the stack of Corelle I saw the other day in a thrift store, I thought of you when I saw it but something told me it was the wrong pattern. Small, light blue flowers - not snowflakes. Whew.

Did they make the patterned serving prices to match, or were they just white? I haven't seen a lot of patterned accessory pieces.

I noticed the Corelle on sale at Target a week or so ago, the new patterns don't do much for me but the pasta bowls were very interesting. Larger than their previous offerings, they could easily double for serving bowls. I have all of the Centura I could ever need so I left them at the store, but I always browse the latest in stock. The 28 ounce bowl is nice as well, I had a set of those but went back to my favorite Williams-Sonoma chili bowls and passed the Corelle along.

 

[danemodsandy]

Greg:

I'll bet these were the culprit, hmm?

This pattern is called Morning Blue, and it is the bane of a Snowflake Blue collector's existence, because it's just similar enough to get you all excited when you spot it across a thrift store. As soon as you close in, you realize you're a victim of your own wishful thinking, of course.

Yes, there were Snowflake Blue serving pieces to match. Creamer, lidded sugar, serving platter, one-quart serving bowl and two-quart serving bowl. And that's just Corelle - Corning also made Pyrex Compatibles in the Snowflake Blue pattern, so you can also get a lot of casserole dishes, butter dishes and the like.

 

[danemodsandy]

Here's A Link:

To the excellent and reliable Corelle Corner Website, for its page on Pyrex Compatibles.

Compatibles were white Pyrex in the same patterns as Corelle, to expand Corelle selections beyond what was possible with Corelle's Vitrelle hub-molding technology. Basically, all Corelle had to begin as a flat sheet of glass, and there was no way to join two pieces together. That limited shapes and depth.

Compatibles made it possible to have matching everything, and they used existing Pyrex technology and molds for the most part; only the decoration was anything unique, so they were cheap to produce.

http://www.corellecorner.com/pyrex-overview.html

 

[danemodsandy]

Adding a Pyrex Compatible:

Just ordered a Pyrex Compatible butter dish to go along with the set of Corelle.

This is the same Pyrex butter dish Corning made forever, just with the Snowflake Blue decoration slapped on it. These came in Spring Blossom Green and Butterfly Gold, as well.

 

[polkanut]

Sandy,

If I ever come across any Gemco accessory pieces such as salt & pepper shakers, creamer & flip-top sugar bowl, oil & vinegar cruets and so on, would you be interested?

 

[danemodsandy]

Dear Nut:

Tim:

Actually, I have been thinking about the Gemco oil and vinegar cruets, because they're the one Gemco item in Snowflake Blue that has no Corning counterpart. I'm not sure why Gemco bothered with the rest of the Snowflake Blue items they made, because Corning made all those things in an official version. But not the O & V.

The Gemco story is really unique - they did all these knockoffs, just a hair off the real thing so that most consumers didn't notice, and then they were selected later by Corning to make authorized go-alongs when Spice O' Life was introduced. So, there is Gemco stuff that was actually Corning-branded.

So, yes, if the O & V turn up, I'd be very interested, thanks for asking!

 

[danemodsandy]

P.S.:

Look at these oil and vinegar cruets, and then look at the butter dish above, to get an idea of how Gemco knocked Corning off. The Gemco pattern isn't really the same as Corning's, which kept them out of legal trouble, but it's close enough that most people wouldn't really notice the difference:

 

[polkanut]

Ok Sandy,

Will try to keep a sharp eye out for any Gemco "Gem Blue" pieces.

 

[danemodsandy]

Hoo-Ha!

Four of the dessert bowls turned up today!

Four more, and I'm good.