Saturday, May 31, 2014

Hershey's Cookbooks Again, And An Old Find

I have written before about these Hershey's Cookbooks,  back in this post and this one.
But my new thrift store find, a hardcover edition, was "revised and expanded" in 1992, and the best thing about it (for me) is that it has fifteen brand new photos, not used before in either of their previous editions.
The thing I like most about all three of these is that the photos were styled using almost exclusively all wonderful old and antique dishes and props.
Here's one of my favorite examples:
Cookbooks with photos inside of vintage dishes and kitchenware are my favorite kinds! (Mary Engelbreit's gorgeous cookbooks that were published from 1998-2003 have the same sort of vintage stuff in the photographs, too. You should check them out, if you've never seen them. They are great books.)
The one you see below was printed in 1982, and it had some eighteen new photos that were unique to the edition, as well:
 In this one, we have an old radio, vintage glass candle holder, Tom And Jerry mug and punch bowl:
 In the next one , gorgeous cobalt blue depression glassware and a wonderful tablecloth:
The 1982 book had chapters to take you through the decades, up to and including the start of the 80's and on the page below, you see some cool 1970's canisters:
 Oh, how I would have loved to have been a photo stylist for a cookbook like these!
Lord only knows I have enough props, with all of my collections!
Now, to get to the rest of this post: my favorite picture in my newest book was this one.......
.....  partly because it features my all-time favorite type of vintage kitchen table (the search for which has, thus far, eluded me) - the fabulous red and white enamel-topped table.
But also because of that canister you see sitting on the table. Not the big glass one - though it's certainly a nice one, but the other one - the little covered grease jar.
You see, I had found the one just like it, shown below, very recently at a thrift store. Tina has collected these for years, she has a number of full sets including the shakers.
I just happened to have found this one just like the one in the photo, although the red is faded somewhat.
It was super-cheap, considering that it is, after all, very, very old.
Actually, it's only from the 1940's, but Tina and I have a running joke about things being "very, very old", based on something we saw in a shop years ago.
 These Vitrock range sets were made by Anchor Hocking in the early forties. (Complete sets of the six different colors/patterns are shown on page 182 of Gene Florence's book "Anchor Hocking's Fire King And More".)
 We saw a "set" of these types of canisters/shakers (mind you - Tina knew all about them, she'd been collecting them for years) at an antiques store along Highway 49 probably 20 or 25 years ago. The "set" of three items being sold together did not even match. All three were different patterns. NOT a set, by any means. And the person who was selling them had a completely ridiculous price on them, with a little note added, indicating that they were "Very, very, old." Just to make sure you knew that, you see. As though that explained the price. And yet, the person didn't indicate what decade they were made, nor give any further information. This was back before eBay was popular. Well, I'm sorry, but they were not worth anywhere near the asking price on the tag, and we had a good laugh about the description (not out loud, not while we were in the store, we aren't that rude).
So anyway, many years later, and only about 20 miles down the road, I came across this one in a thrift store.
Goodness sakes, can you even imagine?
I mean, if they were "very, very old" back then, they are now very, very, VERY old! (So, they must be worth a VERY high price, right? LOL! )
And I got my little old Vitrock grease jar for $1.29.
So there.

3 comments:

lorlore said...

Great find of a very, very old item!!!!!

Tina Dawn said...

Thank you for a great laugh. I laughed at the first "very, very old" and enjoyed the story very much. I was just telling someone about that last week! Congratulations on finding your little canister. The red flower pots are the most common to find, so maybe you will have a complete set soon. At a thrift store! Wow. I need to dust all of mine, so maybe when I bring them down to clean them I will take pictures and do a post. We'll see...

EM said...

Not fair! I can't enjoy the pics of the chocolate goodies because of all the cool vintage props and I can't enjoy the pics of the vintage props because of the yummy chocolate goodies. It's all distracting from itself! And now I'm craving devils' food cake...