Collectors scour stores, sales for antique kitchenware

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jan 18, 2002 | by Dru Wilson

Carol Parks was on a treasure hunt at the Antique Mall on West Colorado Avenue, and she struck gold - or rather enamel.

Parks covets old kitchenware and uses it to decorate her kitchen. She's particularly fond of white enamel with red trim, and on this foray she found two enamel refrigerator containers for storing leftovers.

"I love this stuff and I use it, too," she says.

Chalk it up to nostalgia, a desire to connect with the past or just something fun to do. Whatever the reason, antique kitchenware collecting has become a popular way to spruce up modern-day homes.

"These things evoke good feelings," says Donna Barres, a collector/ dealer at the Antique Mall. "I collect stuff I feel comfortable with because it reminds me of my childhood."

It's why Betty Lou Bissonnette held onto an old grinder she got about eight years ago. She remembers her mother using it to can fruits and vegetables.

"She made the best sweet pickle relish," Bissonnette says.

That one grinder, a hand-cranked version of today's electric food processor, now has a lot of company in Bissonnette's house. She has 35 old grinders lined up a balcony rail overlooking the living room.

She also has a large crock (also collectible) filled with wooden rolling pins and kitchen walls covered in hammered aluminum pans, plates and serving trays stamped in various designs. A framed collection of butter knives hangs on a wall.

Bissonnette started collecting the aluminum kitchenware 20 years ago just because she liked it.

"I call it the poor man's pewter," she says.

Parks got into kitchenware collecting after she bought a house with geranium wallpaper in the kitchen. Rather than re-paper, she decided to decorate in matching colors. Among her finds: a red and white enamel kitchen table.

The old-fashioned kitchenware look has become so big that contemporary manufacturers and retailers are marketing new products with a decidedly retro feel. Elmira Stoveworks, a Canadian company, has introduced the Northstar line of '50s-style retro refrigerators in Robin's Egg Blue, Flamingo Pink, Mint Green, Buttercup Yellow, Candy Red, Quicksilver, white and black. The company also offers antique-style ranges and a Victorian trivet. (Check the company's Web site at www.elmirastoveworks.com for product and ordering information.)

Cooking.com and Restoration Hardware, which has stores in Denver and a Web site (www.restorationhardware.com), sell a variety of small kitchen appliances in retro styling, like chrome toasters and blenders.

But avid collectors and dealers are more interested in the real thing - the old appliances and utensils that were staples in kitchens decades ago.

It's not really a cost issue. Yes, there are times collectors can save money buying an antique over, say, a $2,700 Northstar or $68 enameled tinware canister set from Restoration Hardware.

But consider this: At the recent Toaster Collectors Association convention in Branson, Mo., a rare 1929 Commander made by the Mattatuck Manufacturing Co. of Waterbury, Conn., sold for $3,000. And that was hardly a record price for an early electric toaster, the first models of which were made and sold around 1907.

"They are really the most collectible of all the electric appliances," said Victoria Matranga, author of "America at Home: A Celebration of Twentieth-Century Housewares."

The market hinges on how much collectors will pay for something they covet.

Even if collectors are on a limited budget, however, they can usually find enough reasonably priced items to feed their habit. Though most of Bissonnette's grinders and aluminum pieces have come as gifts from friends and family, she has found them at garage sales and thrift stores, paying anywhere from $3 to $20 for one. One grinder, given to her by a family member, cost $50, more than she says she is normally willing to pay.

And if there's ever a shortage of kitchen collectibles in town, Lori Murray will take to the road to replenish the supply. Murray is known as the Antique Mall's "Kitchen Lady" for her large display area of kitchen collectibles, and she travels the countryside visiting garage sales, flea markets and estate sales looking for the things she knows people want.

"I look everywhere. That's the fun part. You get to interface with other dealers to find out what's selling where. We put a lot of miles on the car," she says.

Much of the reasoning behind collecting remains inexplicable, according to New York psychoanalyst Werner Muensterberger, author of "Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives." His conclusion is that collectors are possibly flawed.

"Repeated acquisitions serve as a vehicle to cope with inner uncertainty, a way of dealing with the dread of renewed anxiety, with confusing problems of need and belonging," Muensterberger says.

But true devotees dismiss that as psychobabble.

"Heck, I just thoroughly enjoy it," Bissonette says.

SUGGESTED READING

"300 years of Kitchen Collectibles," by Linda Campbell Franklin, $24.95, Krause Publications

"Kitchen Antiques," by Kathryn McNerney, $14.95, Collectors Books