1949 to 2011

My dear Pyrex-gathering friend surprised me again! About a week ago I received in the mail this newspaper ad from 1949, featuring "Genuine" Pyrex Flameware Percolators. She clipped and framed it for me, and it arrived around my birthday. The historical interest is that it came from newspapers used as insulation in her 1950s house, and she found it while doing extensive bathroom renovations. I'm impressed that it survived the moisture and temperature fluctuations of that area of the house.


I promptly put it on display in my living room.

Fast forward to yesterday. On my circuit of the thrift stores in town, I found this:

The 7756 Flameware Coffee Percolator. It's not the identical percolator to the one in the add (clearly it's newer) but it's the first one I've ever seen completely intact. I paid $5.

I wondered what the original price of $5.25 would be, adjusted for inflation, in 2011 dollars, so I went Googling and found an inflation calculator. That would have been $47.75 today.