How To Tell If Your Vintage CorningWare Is Valuable

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Could there be $10,000 hiding in your kitchen cabinet in the form of your grandmother's casserole dish? Listings on sites like eBay and Etsy say yes — there's never been a better time to boost your knowledge of vintage cookware, especially CorningWare. The brand began producing casserole dishes, Dutch ovens, loaf pans, ramekins, coffee pots, bowls, serving pieces, and more in the 1950s from a specific material called Pyroceram. Now, especially with a resurgence of retro styles in kitchen design, people are clamoring for original CorningWare pieces. While you can get an entire 18-piece bakeware set made today with the CorningWare name for under $140, a single casserole dish from the 1960s iteration of the brand goes for thousands of dollars. So how do you know if the CorningWare you have is valuable?

The material that CorningWare is made from has been switched up a few times; the Pyroceram pieces are the ones sought after today and were produced from 1958 through the late 1980s. Pyroceram can go right from the freezer to the oven safely; its ability to withstand extremely high temperatures makes it safe for stovetop use, which is marked by a small flame emblem. These vintage pieces will also have a script CorningWare logo, which was used until 1998, and will say "Made in the USA." You can also check model numbers and make sure that your CorningWare has a smooth rim rather than a flanged rim, which a newer design development. Finally, look for the popular patterns of older CorningWare, from blue cornflowers to earth-toned vegetables.

Vintage CorningWare stands out for both its function and form. An oven accident led to the invention of CorningWare: Stanley Donald Stookey was experimenting with photosensitive glass in an oven in the early 1950s. He accidentally heated the temperature up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit and expected to find that the heat had destroyed the glass, but it had instead created a milky white color — and it didn't even break when dropped. The material became known as Pyroceram and defined CorningWare when the line debuted in 1958 as the rare cookware that could go into the freezer, the oven, the microwave, or onto the stovetop. That early CorningWare was white with blue cornflowers, still the best known and most desirable pattern today. In addition to that and the vegetable motif, red-and-white checks and snowflakes are vintage favorites, as are solid hues like avocado green and harvest gold.

CorningWare stopped making its cookware with Pyroceram in 2000 and switched to using glazed stoneware, which is not stovetop-safe. The heartier material did return in 2008, when Corelle took the brand over and had it produced in France by Keraglass, the rare factory able to make Pyroceram. Today's CorningWare is among the best cookware brands, but without the flame stamp, cursive logo, "Made in the USA" mark, or smooth rim, it won't fetch high resale prices. Treasure vintage CorningWare if you have it, and keep it in peak condition by storing it wrapped in moderate temperatures and hand-washing with gentle detergents.