The Missing Piece of Pyrex (Or The Highlight of My Honeymoon)

I'm a little late to write about this, but I'm still excited about it anyway. When Matt and I moved into our first apartment year ago, I needed a set of mixing bowls. My mom had two Pyrex sets that she had received as wedding gifts back in the early 80s. Both sets were incomplete but still wonderful. She gave me one of them that was called the "Butterfly Gold II" pattern.

The middle bowl from the set wasn't missing, but she wanted to keep it as it was the bowl she used the most (especially for pie dough). I didn't care as I just needed some bowls to mix stuff in so I was happy to have just the small and large bowls. They were like new in comparison to the bowl she kept that had been used and washed so many times it barely matched anyway. In case you didn't know, years of pastry cutter action can really wear down even the best bowls.

Well, the older I got the more I started to appreciate Pyrex and really wanted to have a complete set. I didn't want the worn out bowl and knew she wouldn't give it up anyway so I started to look on eBay and craigslist. Hah! What I learned was that the "Butterfly Gold" pattern was one of the most common! I thought "Oh good, this will be easy!"

Wrong.

The bowls I had were from the "Butterfly Gold II" pattern that was only made for a very short period of time. Maybe this wound be harder than I thought... It was. There were a few on ebay, but I couldn't see spending 30 bucks on a mixing bowl. Soon I found myself stopping at every goodwill and junk shop for the ellusive bowl.

Flash forward to a few years later and I'm in Peterborough NH. Matt and I are bored and ask a store clerk if there are any antique shops around. "Nope." she says. So we leave and on our way out she calls, "Oh! Wait! There's a white building down blah blah blaah not helpful directions." So we tried to find the place and couldn't. After we gave up and tried to get home, there it was! We went inside and there was all sorts of over priced home decor. We went into one of the rooms, and BOOM, there were the bowls. The whole set. Like new.

I went over and picked them up. The tag said: "$36 - set" on the smallest bowl. Darn it! So close! I knew they'd never split up a set in that condition. We kept browsing and I found some neat old hankies that I wanted. As we were checking out I decided to try my luck and ask if they would consider separating the set. The lady at the counter thought for a moment and said the bowls had just come in last week. Then she said, "$10?" Sold. I didn't even try to haggle.

I have never been so excited about buying a dish before. I had been looking for years and it finally paid off! Seeing the full set all in similar condition was so awesome! I can't wait to find my next target! A medium sized red bowl from my grandmother's 1950s set! Let the search begin!

Here's to Pyrex and the adventures we have while finding it!