Did You Know…Pyrex Trivia

If you deal in antiques and collectibles, then you know that one of the hot items right now is Pyrex.  Check out the completed listings on eBay and you’ll find Pyrex casserole dishes and bowls that have sold in excess of $2,000!  Somehow, I don’t see those buyers taking those dishes to family gatherings…

So in honor of something that almost all of us have used at some point in our life, here are a few tidbits of information that you may not have known.

• According to The Smithsonian Magazine (www.smithsonianmag.com, 6/5/2015), the story of Pyrex glass began with a problem. In 1914, Bessie Littleton’s earthenware casserole dish had cracked. Her husband, Jesse, was working as a physicist at Corning Glass Works evaluating the company’s formula for temperature-resistant glass for use in railroad lanterns and battery jars. Bessie asked her husband if the glass might work for baking, so he sawed off part of a battery jar and took it home to her. With this makeshift dish, Bessie successfully baked a cake and her experiments, in part, moved Corning to launch Pyrex, the first-ever consumer cooking products made with temperature-resistant glass, in 1915. (Read more: How Pyrex Reinvented Glass).

• By 1919, Corning had sold over 4 million pieces of Pyrex to consumers across America from a line that included 100 dish shapes and sizes. (Corning Museum of Glass, retrieved 7/15/2016)

• Originally, the Pyrex dishes were made by glassblowers blowing bubbles of glass, one at a time, into molds. This slow process was expensive and resulted in high retail prices which caused sales to plumment in the mid-1920s.  After consulting with outside professionals, a new manufacturing process was created that used automated machines pressing glass into molds.  (Corning Museum of Glass, retrieved 7/15/2016)

• In the 1940s, and after merging with MacBeth Evans Glass Company, Corning produced tempered soda lime opal glass for the military. They then began producing products with the same process for the public with the first being a set of nesting mixing bowls in the exterior colors of either red, green, blue, or yellow.  This exterior surface was just right for adding patterned decorations and between 1956 and 1987, they released over 150 different patterns.  (Corning Museum of Glass, retrieved 7/15/2016)

• Want to go behind the scenes at the home of Pyrex, check out John Ratzenberger’s Made in America (Season 2, Episode 2) which features a segment on Pyrex.

• Pyrex patterns are classified as either Standard (marketed for two or more years and comprised of a full range of dishes and bowls), Limited (appeared for a year or more, but only on a specific set of bowls or pieces far less than a complete collection), or Promotional (usually only a single piece with an accessory and offered as part of a grouping of several seasonal items within a single year).

Pyrex comes in many colors, sizes, and shapes.  In addition to your kitchen, it has been used for laboratory equipment, railroad lanterns, and glass insulators.  While it’s not my favorite color by a long shot, I have a three piece brown mixing bowl set in the Old Orchard pattern (Cinderella style) that was given to me by my aunt about 6 months before she passed away.  She told me that she had gotten the bowls when she first moved to Phoenix in the 1980s and she didn’t use them or want them.  She told me that I could sell them if I wanted, but I instead placed them on the ledge above my kitchen cabinets.  After she passed away, I realized that those bowls that I am not attracted to, have a very special place in my home and my heart.

What is your favorite Pyrex pattern or color?  What is the most that you ever paid for a piece of Pyrex or would be willing to pay to complete your collection? What tidbits of information do you have that others may not know?  I would love to hear from you!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Taking Control of My Life

“When in doubt, choose change.” – Lily Leung

It started with a letter from my attorney in late October, 2015.  I was very slowly recovering from not having a paycheck all summer (I’m a teacher) and having had purchased a home for my daughter and myself about 6 months earlier, bills exceeded what financial reserves I had for the summer.  I was budgeting and finally getting close to being caught up and then I checked my mail.  I don’t know about you, but I really hate checking my mail because in general it is filled either with junk mail or some type of bill.  The letter from my attorney was worse than a bill, but in a warped way was junk mail.  He was sending me a copy of the filing that my daughter’s father had submitted to the courts requesting that his child support obligation be reduced.  Not to get into too many details, when all was said and done 8 months and two court dates later, my child support was reduced in half.

I was hurt that someone who has chosen to have nothing to do with his child wanted to reduce his financial obligation.  I was angry that a court system that is supposed to make decisions based on facts chose not to.  I was overwhelmed by the thousands of dollars that I owe my attorney.  I was not in a good place.  Fortunately, at the lowest point in all of this, God steered me to a friend who listened empathetically and then told me that I can either let this eat at me, or I can get the best revenge by being successful.  I chose being successful.

“A year from now you will wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb

To become successful, I need to take back control of my life.  I have been living day-to-day with great ideas, but no plan.  My first step is to stop listening to Dave Ramsey and actually take his advice – I’m going to REDUCE my debt.  This won’t be easy, but by asking myself, “Why do I need this?” before making that impulse purchase, I can take that money and throw it at my credit cards.  I buy and sell antiques and collectibles at an antique mall, but have been full of excuses for not utilizing eBay and developing my own website.  No longer!  Even if I only clear a few dollars, it’s more than those items were clearing sitting in my garage and that money can go toward those nasty credit cards.

“If work were so pleasant, the rich would keep it for themselves.” – Mark Twain

I’m a teacher, and before that, I was a business professional.  I am going to REUSE all of my skills to market my retail business as well as offer tutoring to elementary kiddos who need a little help.  I don’t have to find a job where I am working for someone else and on their terms when I have so many experiences and skills from my past that I can use.  I finally got eBay moving (http://stores.ebay.com/Jordyns-Attic/) and while it is still a work in progress, my website is on its way (www.jordynsattic.com).

“Use what talents you possess, the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” – Henry van Dyke

Finally, I am going to RECYCLE all of the dreams that I had in the past and create a new dream to chase.  I am going to RECYCLE that hurt, anger and feeling of being overwhelmed into motivation to be in complete control of my life and not dependent upon anyone else whether it is an absentee father or an employer.

I’m moving out of my comfort zone to find a better one.  I wish that it hadn’t take something so negative to push me, but it is what it is.

I wonder sometimes if I am the only one that needs something so drastic to happen to them in order to make changes.  What did it take for you to make a big change?