The Complete Guide to Corning Ware & Visions Cookware

If you haven't checked out the prices of those simple cornflower dishes by Corning Ware lately, you're in for a big surprise. Although the prices won't be astronomical, they're selling for more than you might expect.

If you're one of those folks who can't pass by a garage sale or flea market you know how often pieces of Corning Ware show up. This is one of those books that will quickly pay for itself, as you identify those rare and hard to find pieces for your collection or later re-selling.

Back in the sixties and seventies, who would have ever thought those simple white and blue flowered saucepans and casseroles would one day be a hot collectible? Well, perhaps they are not hot yet, but they are sought after and selling for more than one might expect. Prices should only go up. Luckily there are enough common pieces to satisfy the casual collector and for those incurable collectors among us -- Coroneos documents those rare and unusual pieces that are hard to find.

As with many innovations, Corning Ware was a lab mistake. First a furnace malfunctioned -- instead of staying at 600C it rose to 900c, but surprisingly the glass didn't melt. Next mistake was when the chemist then dropped the white glass and it didn't break! These mistakes led to the creation of Pyroceram and eventually the first piece of Corning Ware in 1957. Eventually a total of seven generations of Corning Ware were produced and although the Blue Cornflower is synonymous with Corning Ware, many more patterns were produced.

The Complete Guide to Corning Ware & Visions Cookware also includes a chapter on the fairly recent product, Visions cookware. They're great looking pieces, but very hard to cook with. I can certainly attest to that, I burned enough stuff using Visions!

My favorite type of collectible is one that can be used everyday. Corning Ware fits that description and a look at the different styles in this book shows lots of choices that are still affordably available.