There are so many. For no reason, I just thought about those "dripping lamps" that used to be everywhere. After a bit of typing & clicking, I think they are called rain lamps. What's even funnier, the 1st pic I saw that I might like to use as an example is from 10 yrs ago talking how these were forgotten relics.


https://www.collectorsweekly.c...

Does this make you remember anything?

I have never heard of that.

Fat wine bottles with candle wax dripped down the sides. Used to be so ;bohemian: !!

Yes, those are similar! ; ) Don't worry about not being old enough to remember these lamps.

Hey, your comment reminds me, I was in a hippie shop in Idaho Springs, CO, and they didn't have an lava lamps. I told the owner lady that was the only thing I could tell that was missing but I'm not really old enough to know first-hand. I was born when the hippies were hipping. In any case, the store was slammed with people MUCH younger than me buying things as fast as they could run the cash register.

Oh, that awful lamp! I bought a house in 1978 from an older couple. Everything in it was tacky -- avocado green wall-to-wall shag carpeting, paisley wallpaper, avocado green linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms, bright orange drapes with pompoms, fake knotty pine paneling, and other monstrosities. The worst thing, though, was that lamp, the very one in the photo, hanging prominently by the entrance door. They took it with them when they moved out, thank goodness, but after I had moved in, their children came to see me and said their parents were so pleased with my good-natured behavior during all of the negotiations leading up to the sale that they had sent me a gift. Yes! It was that lamp! Luckily, I had a relative with an appreciation for kitsch. She loved it and was happy to take it off my hands.

That's quite a story! I bet most of these lamps now have a similar story attached.

I was never a fan of that avocado/celery/pumpkin/sunflower/brown color combo of the 70's either. Or the corduroy pants - ugh! My mom still has some of the tupperware though. LOL!

I have a lot of the pyrex and tupperware from that era. We also own a home from that era that still has the harvest gold stove and oven. It works so well we haven't changed it out. We did get rid of the avocado carpeting!

Vintage Pyrex is great, as long as it isn't so old it contains lead. But I would seriously dump old Tupperware 😵

Sally, I remember the candles in Italian wine bottles, the ones with raffia holders. Required decor at the time. Along with the macrame plant hangers!

It was fun when there were so many giant combs sticking out of so many back pockets with interesting things to read. In retrospect I think of them as "rumper sticker" combs.

I don't remember those combs. That's a hoot.

Yes the raffia!!

I have mom's 3 piece Pyrex bowl set with the turquoise blue amish figures- somewhat worn off
https://www.bonappetit.com/sto...

NMoasis said:Vintage Pyrex is great, as long as it isn't so old it contains lead. But I would seriously dump old Tupperware 😵

Sally, I remember the candles in Italian wine bottles, the ones with raffia holders. Required decor at the time. Along with the macrame plant hangers!

True Pyrex, the stuff made by Corning, never contained lead: in fact Pyrex was developed before WWI precisely to have a low expansion glass that didn't contain lead, like the then-existing Nonex. The only metal contained in classic Pyrex borosilicate formulations is aluminum (about 1%). Some industrial-grade formulations also included iron and magnesium, but they were never used to manufacture casseroles.
Corning changed consumer-grade Pyrex from borosilicate to tempered soda-lime glass in the early 80's, effectively cheapening it out, and that's what makes older Pyrex so valuable.

Lesson for today: never as much mention some things in front of a pedantic chemist.

Another glass thing: the Italian bottles used as candleholders are technically called "fiaschi". They went out of fashion because modern day wine bottles invented by Vauxtrot (now Verallia) started becoming available in Italy at much cheaper prices and as wine consumption plummeted starting in the 60's, effectively ending the old tradition of having large bottles refilled once or twice a week for which the fiaschi had been invented.
As Vauxtrot type bottles became widespread, fiaschi manufacturers got creative and started marketing themselves to different markets, such as candle holders. They never had much success in Italy, outside perhaps very tourist-oriented places, but like many other similar stuff they got exported in mass abroad. Kinda like the chequered table cloth it's part of the "Italian restaurant" image, and image that doesn't exist in reality, just like "Italian cuisine" is an artificial creation.

And since we are on a gardening website, does anybody remember tha Poulan Wild Thing "chainsaw"? I always get a kick out of it.

that was interesting, about Pyrex and wine bottles

Poulan...or "Pull On" as we referred to them because we sure did a lot of that. Had to be tuned up every time they were used.

Thanks for the Pyrex primer, EPD. I was trying to recall what I learned when I was researching my ancient British mother's collection and unfortunately the info has faded from the grey cells. I have some vague memory of reading about metal content in the old stuff...was there an old, original British pre-Corning firm? I do recall that some of the pieces I had were Pyrex-like but a different brand. Seems we unearthed endless iterations of individual custard bowls, both glass and ceramic. I use some for soap dishes.

I just went to an auction recently for the first time in years and saw some old corn shucking pegs (evidently they are really called husking pegs, but my dad called them shucking pegs). They are still made for the old order communities, but mine just sits in my hutch as a fond reminder of my dad.



Certainly don't want to hijack the thread or anything, but I wasn't aware of the controversy surrounding old Pyrex, and since I have a LOT of old Pyrex/Corning/Corelle, I did some checking because I am very interested in this. I found a response from World Kitchen (which is now Corelle Brands Holdings Inc.) in a Snopes article that has confused me.

Here is their response: https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...
"World Kitchen did not change the product composition of Pyrex glass bakeware. For more than 60 years, Pyrex glass bakeware has been made – first by Corning Incorporated and now by World Kitchen – using the same soda lime composition and heat-strengthening process at the same soda lime plant in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Corning Incorporated began making Pyrex glass bakeware from borosilicate glass in 1915 and in the 1940s began making Pyrex glass bakeware from soda lime."

It seems their response is referencing only to the composition of the glassware itself, not the paint used on the outside designs of the glass, which I believe is the issue. This makes me think World Kitchen might have skirted the issue of lead being used on/in their old glassware and leaves me to wonder if I am getting lead from the paint on my hands every time I use them.

Since I have the butterfly gold pattern of mixing bowls and Corelle plates, I found this article interesting.
https://tamararubin.com/2019/1...

Vickie, thanks for those informative links. Way back when microwave ovens were new, I discovered I was using lead-glazed bowls when they caused a pyrotechnic display inside the oven, complete with lightning bolts and loud pops! It was a valuable, illustrative lesson.

😯😯😯

I've recently learned in Japan fax machines are still a thing.

I don't think I haven't used a fax machine in a decade, and even in my work dealings with Japan I've always used more modern communication methods so I have asked around if perhaps Japanese regulations require companies to have fax machines or something.
Apparently this is a case of "I'll buy yours if you buy mine": for whatever reason Canon and Brother still manufacture an absurd amount of fax machines every year, and since it's pretty much useless to try and sell the things on export markets, other Japanese companies with business/corporate ties to Mizuho (Canon) and Brother still regularly buy fax machines from them, all the way down to their fourth/fifth tier subvendors and contractors.

I have to wonder how much money Brother alone must be blowing in the wind to manufacture a product that has pretty no much market left at this point of time...

Hey, I work in the public library, trust me, plenty of people are faxing here.

Still faxed a few things at work when I was there in January. Especially for associates who did not have an office and did not have access to a scanner. We even had a few older associates who didn't even have an email address and had no desire to get one.

For me personally now that I am retired, I will fill out a form, scan it to a file, and email it. Any home printers I have in the future will have to have a scanner.