Ruth's Pyrex Story

Update: 2024-02-16

Description

Host Bex Scott talks with another Pyrex collector in today’s episode, but this time it’s a conversation with her first Canadian guest! She welcomes Ruth from Periwinkle Collectibles to the show and they talk all about Pyrex, thrifting, and the life cycle of secondhand items. Ruth also shares her greatest Pyrex finds with Bex, finds from out in the wild.

Ruth has been an avid thrifter for years but her “gateway Pyrex” happened in 2012 or 2013 when she discovered a 404 Poinsettia bowl in a church thrift store for $10. That led her into what she calls “Pyrexia” and she became a knowledgeable avid collector. Ruth tells Bex what the local market is like in her part of Canada, how thrifting prices have changed, and how she enjoys bringing dishes to family potlucks in some of her treasured Pyrex pieces. Ruth collects a lot of vintage items aside from Pyrex and Bex learns what they are. She also identifies which ones she needs to research because Ruth’s many passions include names that aren’t known even to Bex. Ruth has words of advice for all collectors about passion and joy.

Resources discussed in this episode:

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Contact Rebecca Scott | Pyrex With Bex:

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Transcript

Bex Scott: [00:00:02 ] Hey everybody, it's Bex Scott and welcome to the Pyrex with Bex podcast where, you guessed it, I talk about vintage Pyrex, but also all things vintage housewares. I'll take you on my latest thrifting adventures, talk about reselling, chat with other enthusiasts about their collections, and learn about a bunch of really awesome items from the past. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you love listening to podcasts so you don't miss a beat.

Bex Scott: [00:00:30 ] Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Pyrex with Bex podcast. And I'm very excited because today I have my first Canadian guest on the show. We have Ruth with Periwinkle Collectibles. You can find Ruth on Instagram at Periwinkle Collectibles as well. Welcome, Ruth.

Ruth: [00:00:49 ] Hey, thanks for having me.

Bex Scott: [00:00:51 ] Thanks for joining me. It's awesome to have another fellow Canadian on the show.

Ruth: [00:00:56 ] Yay! Go go, Canada! Yeah.

Bex Scott: [00:00:58 ] Yeah. The snowy Canadian weather we have now, it's cold.

Ruth: [00:01:05 ] And the place where when people complain about the cold, you just go, but I live in Canada.

Bex Scott: [00:01:12 ] Yeah. So I wanted to start off today with how you got into Pyrex and vintage collecting.

Ruth: [00:01:20 ] That's a great question. I've been thrifting for a very long time, and so I was buying vintage things before they were vintage. But I'd say that my real gateway piece of Pyrex was a 404 Poinsettia bowl with lid and cradle that I found at a local church thrift store. It was behind the glass. It had a $10 price tag on it, which at the time - I think it was about 2012, 2013, you know, somewhere in there - and I literally did not have $10 cash in my pocket because at that point, that thrift store was super cheap, and I would often go with a $5 bill and buy things on my lunch hour from the day job. So they had this $10 piece of Pyrex behind the glass. I thought it was really pretty and that I could use it for Christmas serving. And so I ran across the street to the ATM, paid a ridiculous fee to get $10 out - I think it was at the time, I think it was like $2 or something, and I thought it was crazy - and ran back and bought that piece of Pyrex, took it home and started researching it because I bought it because it was pretty, it was a nice shape. And I had been buying, you know, like I said, vintage and thrifted goods for several decades before that. But that was the piece that really led me down the rabbit hole of Pyrex, was that $10 purchase. Little did I know what that, you know, I'm complaining about the $2 ATM charge. Little did I know what it was really going to cost me.

Bex Scott: [00:03:02 ] That's amazing. I wish that would have been my first Pyrex find because I love the Poinsettia. It's so beautiful.

Ruth: [00:03:11 ] Something about the gold on the red is just so pretty. And since then I have found the large casserole, the 045 with the designed lid. You know, the Christmas one also, I think some people call it Poinsettia as well. I can't remember off the top of my head what the name for it is. And I actually have the box. That's one of the few pieces that I have a box for. I'm not as much of a cradle and box collector as some people are, but I have found that one with the box and the cradle, paid a little more than $10 for it, but I think I paid like, I don't know, $30 for it back in like 2014. And I thought that was a lot of money. That progression of what I think is a lot of money for Pyrex has slightly changed since those days.

Bex Scott: [00:04:02 ] Oh no kidding, I would have loved to find it for 10 or 30. Now that would be a steal.

Ruth: [00:04:08 ] That was back in the day when I could go on Kijiji, for the non-Canadian listeners is like what Craigslist used to be. But you would go on Kijiji and I would hunt for Pyrex. And of course, you know, you find a lot of things labeled Pyrex that weren't, but you know, there would be a lot of things listed for $10, $20 that wow, you know, if I had a crystal ball, there's a few more things I would have bought back then.

Bex Scott: [00:04:35 ] No kidding. I was looking through Facebook the other day in a city close to me, and there was a collector that was liquidating his whole collection of Pyrex. He had everything, and I messaged him and he said, oh, I have got probably 380 messages to get through. And there were a few pieces that I really wanted that he had, but it ended up that he was asking for like $450 for a set of pink bowls and turquoise bowls, and it's like, sorry, I can't pay that much for them.

Ruth: [00:05:08 ] Yeah, it's funny when people want online world market prices on a local marketplace.

Bex Scott: [00:05:18 ] Yeah, yeah.

Ruth: [00:05:20 ] People don't necessarily drive those things, you know. Or they go, oh, but I found that on Chairish it's worth yadda yadda yadda. But that's like the highest level of where designers go to buy things like don't ever base any price on Chairish. And so many people who don't even know how to look up an eBay sold or look and see what did it actually sell for on Etsy. Oh, but it's on Etsy for $682. Yes, it's listed for that.

Bex Scott: [00:05:51 ] Yeah. My favorite is when you go into some of the smaller thrift shops and they have the printout of the eBay listing and not the sold, and then they've priced their item based on that little printout that they have. I just want to go up to them and be like, no, this isn't the price.

Ruth: [00:06:08 ] Have you been to garage sales where they do that?

Bex Scott: [00:06:10 ] No.

Ruth: [00:06:11 ] Yeah, I've been to a few where they do that. And it's just, I'm just like, well, good luck. You're still going to have it all at the end of the day. Not necessarily a well received comment. That's usually when my garage saling partner pulls me by the hand and goes, Quiet, let's just leave.

Bex Scott: [00:06:31 ] Not today.

Ruth: [00:06:33 ] Not today, not today. I've been known to tell a thrift store manager or two what I thought about certain prices, and what the difference is between an online worldwide market and their little thrift store in the corner of Darkville, southern Manitoba. But anyhow.

Bex Scott: [00:06:53 ] Oh that's great. I wish we lived closer so I could take you with me. I need someone like that.

Ruth: [00:06:59 ] Oh, I've been known to embarrass people, but, I mean, in reality, if they don't get the appropriate customer feedback, if everybody just shakes their head and goes, no way and walks away, how do they know?

Bex Scott: [00:07:13 ] Yeah.

Ruth: [00:07:14 ] The sad part is there's almost always, in the end, somebody who will pay that price. I mean, not always. Sometimes you see it sitting on the shelf or in the cabinet for weeks or months on end. And then what happens? It goes in the trash.

Bex Scott: [00:07:27 ] Yeah.

Ruth: [00:07:28 ] When nobody buys it, I don't kno