Breakfast with Rodney Kent

I don't want to disappoint you, if you were expecting a tete a tete, but this is not about the "designer". Rodney Kent is a figment of the imagination of Krischer Giftware and not a very creative one at that. They looked out a window and  saw the intersections of Rodney and Kent Streets in Brooklyn and said.... well that works!

If, however, you have been aching to see  some lovely kitchen utility sets or maybe a cruet or two... well then you will be quite satisfied.

Basic Butter

In the beginning there was the basic butter dish, and it was good. Please don't confuse the original with the poor quality 1980s reproduction of this item from Southern Living Magazine. The glassware maker is Federal Glass Company. The number is 470.

This butter dish below is from the late '50s. The glassware is from Fire King. It is number 418

The same lid and glassware but a fancier holder. I believe this is part of a collection of cassarole holders and coasters with the trim that is similar to the handles on this piece. One day I will do a blog on this collection as a unit. Again the era is late '50s. I was outbid on this piece and I don't know what the number is.

This butter dish I can date to 1955 because I have a page from a catalog dated 1955 show this and many other pieces.

Napkin holders.

This holder must have come as part of a set as I have never seen any number for it.

This also shows on the 1955 tear sheet as an individual #

The individual toast holder  #405

Condiment jars

This is the individual condiment jar. It sits in a tulip flower tray and has the clear plastic spoon that sits in the notch in the lid.

Notice the difference between the condiment holder on the left and the drink coaster on the right. There is a depression in the center meant to hold the glass. Krischer was very exact in the indentations that held glassware. Nothing in the line is loose and sliding around. If the glassware that you have with your item does not fit perfectly, then you have a marriage and not the original glassware.

The Mustard and Ketchup set . Note the cute color coded spoons.

So, lo and behold, it was good and what was created was the Breakfast Utility Set #447,  butter, preserves and a place for the napkins.

And then an incredible selection of combinations......

The  Twin Preserve Set -notice that the tray is scalloped on the end similar to the two most popular pieces in the line #404 and #406 - bread trays with and without handles.

also notice the lids on this set. the hammered texture is quite small compared to the  lids on the jars above, which has the same texture as the tray it sits on.

#474

#472

Lazy Susan Breakfast Utility

and its design brother. Do go back as see the jam jar lids in the catalog page. My sample may be a marriage. You can never be sure with Rodney Kent.

 Cruets

and cruets and preserves

And no breakfast would be complete without a cream and sugar set.

#479

Finally we have to serve drinks.

 I wanted to show you the two pitchers in the collection together. #481 is the smaller pitcher, possibly for breakfast. #453 is more if the ice tea size. It seems every company made glasses. The ones in the photo  are unmarked and I really don't know if they belong to Rodney Kent.

Note the ice blockers. #453 has a very fine bar with tulips stamped on it, while #481 uses the wider gros grain ribbon motif of the handle.

 My final comment on this blog is on the regularly asked question... so how much is this worth? The answer is... it depends on where you live. On the east coast, where this product was produced many markets are flooded and the price is low. In the midwest, it is sometimes a bit higher. If you want to figure out how much your piece is worth, look on eBay. A rare piece, or one that was stored in a garage or basement for 60 years may sell for as high as $60 or $70, especially if the original box with the number is with it.  I have several pieces in my collection with the original box and its the only way that I know the identification number. For a common piece that has been used all its life, it might be as little as $6. Many people do not know what they have. I have found things in Butter dish searches or hammered aluminum that never appear in Rodney Kent searches. Whatever you want to sell, show lots of pictures and the Rodney Kent mark. Put the number, if known, in the listing heading. Then hope you catch the eye of the collector, like me, who will pay a premium for a piece they don't have. 

Rodney Kent Enigmas

While I haven't written much this summer, it hasn't stopped me from acquiring new Rodney Kent that I've never seen. Now it is possible that like one of my previous blogs, some finds could be copies. SO I have been ever more diligent in examining them before I made a pronouncement.

Exhibit A

 

I picked this up on EBay recently. It came complete with the tag. The person who sold it told me that the tag was on at the estate sale she purchased this from. She has owned it for 12 years. The tag is stamped so that if I am to use it as a marker, it would be pre-1943. Almost nothing on it matches design-wise. I have never seen that decorative  stamping. I have never seen Brass  or gold colored trimmings. It definitely is not hammered aluminum. Yet, the tulip finial is exactly Rodney Kent. The petal detail is all there. I don't know what to think. Anyone have an opinion?


HOT UPDATE!!!
 This may indeed be the real thing with a production date of around 1956 and a number in the 700 series. More on this in a few days

Pyrex and FireKing bowls in Cassaroles

All of those lovely serving pieces that had handles and lid, had a glass liner. It's pretty easy to figure out whose bowl was sold with it, because the shape of the aluminum bowl fits the glass liner perfectly. It doesn't wiggle or rock. And the lid sits on the glass perfectly. The earliest bowls used had tab handles. Tab handles were produced by Pyrex until 1936. So any item that came with that lid, was produced prior to that.

A good example is casserole trivet Rodney Kent #440:

 

There are a lot of the trays floating around and some of the lids, often not together.  This particular item is fitted with 1 1/2 Quart Pyrex Bowl (683-B-023-623-B  *  T.M.REG * PYREX  * Made in USA * B-H). Note how the lid fits perfectly around the bowl slightly flaring upward before folding over the  edge of the bowl. The notched openings for the tab handle fit exactly.

 

As you can see below, #440 came two ways  -- a flat picot edge and folded edge. Both are stamped #440 with the shield type of stamp ( see blog  on identifying marks).  If you look at the shapes of the indentations you will notice that the one with the folded edge has a much more rounded curve, leading me to believe that it used a later bowl with the "C" shaped handle, which had more of a curve to its bottom.

 

 

This is casserole #461 with  a similar bowl. The handles of the aluminum bottom, which is stamped with the shield stamp and has the arrow tab aluminum handles, which I believe predates the single flower handle, also has the lid that requires a tab handled Pyrex bowl. The bowl for this casserole has the imprint (683-B-023-623-B  *  T.M.REG * PYREX  * Made in USA * B-WW).

 

Below is the imprint of the bowl.

 

When Pyrex changed their handle style to the "C" handle,  Krischer Mfg. changed the lid style to on the still folded over the sides of the Pyrex bowl, but now covered the handles following its contour. The 1 1/2 Quart casserole below on a footed pedestal is #407 with the shield mark.

 

 

 

Krischer Mfg. also made a 2 Quart Casserole #434. There was no stamp on the aluminum carrier because it was stamped on the box. At this point, the lid changed into the dome type with the pie crust edge. It sat inside the bowl, no longer accommodating the glass insert's handle. The maker changed also. Now the glass liner was being purchased from Fire King.

 

This is the stamp from the original bowl that came with this set. Unfortunately it didn't make it through the mail because the glass was not separated from the lid, which was sitting upside down in the bowl and probably tapped it one too many times on its way from the seller to me. the mark is (T.M.REG  * FIRE KING * 7  * MADE IN USA * 2 QT) Having the imprint of the bottom, I was able to replace the bowl after searching eBay and the thrift stores.

 

Not to be outdone in the 2Quart casserole offerings, Pyrex provided a divided 2 quart bowl in another unstamped item,  #491 2 compartment casserole. It came with the domed piecrust lid. This bowl made it through the shipping process in one piece

 

 

The color advertisement was attached to the lid with a hole punched in it's center.

 

 

The divided bowl was stamped ( T.M.REG * PYREX  * Made in USA )

 

 

Below is the Casserole holder #418, which holds a 1 1/2  quart casserole bowl. It also has the domed pie crust lid. The bowl inside is a Pyrex Bowl with "C" handles. It is stamped:

                (023 1 1/2QT* TRADE MARK * PYREX *  R inside circle * B-18).

This also came with a green tag on a string wrapped round the flower finial of the lid, identifying it as  a Rodney Kent product. More about that in another blog.

 

 

 

 

 

The last lid style takes us back to a bowl from Pyrex. I do not have a handle on when this was produced, so maybe someone from a Pyrex group will know more. This bowl had no handles and the bottom had a pressed design of concentric circles.

 

 

The lid fit the opening exactly and it sat inside the rim of the glass. A  Casserole chafing dish also came with this same bowl. The imprint reads ( 595 * TM REG* PYREX * MADE IN USA * A-5)

 

You can see that as the glass insert changed, the lid changed with it.

 

This blog has covered all the known bowl inserts used in the many casserole iterations that were in the Rodney Kent line. There are at least 4 more types of casserole holders that I own. But they use the same glass sizes.

 

 



Rodney Kent and Glass: Pyrex, Fire King, Federal, et al

Recently I have begun to research the glassware that has been used in Rodney Kent. They purchased from several companies. There are more collectors of the glassware than there are of Rodney Kent aluminum, so I have tried to use the glassware to figure out and approximate time for manufacture of Rodney Kent. So here is my first dilemma.

In a previous blog, I posted a page from a wholesaler's catalog. It had a drawing of a cruet set. Shortly after that the metal holder went up on eBay. Alas, the glassware was not with it. the advertisement had the specifications and a clear drawing of the glass cruet. So I scoured various venues for cruet servers. With my  possibilities reviewed I settled on two with the exact same profiles, but they are both 5 3/8" tall and the wholesale ad say 6 3/4" None of the cruet jars  that were this shape were that height. But this is my find.

 

So now I am wondering if Anchor Hocking or Pyrex, but especially Pyrex made cruet jars with this exact handle shape and body profile. What I have here is Hazel Atlas on the right and Hocking?? Glass on the left. Shape is correct. Height is not what the ad says. I would love some input.

I have got my hands on many collectors books...... Depression Glass, Fire King, Kitchen glass of the 30's and 40's, and so on. I have seen nothing that helps me in this category. Now I am waiting for a Fostoria glass book. So we will see.

On the bright side, the butter dish has an identifiable maker.

 

 

This glass butter holder is produced by Federal Glass. Federal makes a full butter dish, which you can occasionally find online and this is used as a lid. It is not to be confused this the  "Criss Cross" pattern sold by Hazel Atlas. Below is the full federal glass butter dish.

 

Notice the three triple rib bars

 

 

and here is the Hazel Atlas butter dish.

 

So for at least one glass item, the mystery is solved. But one more look at a bowl that is identifiable but that I have never seen in books. The Pyrex bowl 592 with the concentric circle bottom. At first glance you might think that it is a Fire King "Manhattan" bowl or the later "Park Avenue", but is it distinctly marked Pyrex.

 

 

So this is my last entry for the night. Again, you can see this on the wholesale catalog page that I previously posted. I believe that this may be item #417, but I am not sure. Something to think about for tonight.