Bitter Sweet Wheat - W-57 Deluxe Tea Kettle

This was another one of the "difficult to verify" pieces.   Unlike the W-23-EP percolator, however, I actually knew this one existed.  I guess that would make it more of a "difficult to get my grubby hands on" piece.   Posession of this piece has taunted me for years.  I had been SO close; and yet so far.  I had no idea how many were floating around out there.   I discovered the existence of this piece on eBay in May of 2014.  It was located in Wisconsin, but I went ahead and purchased it (shipping was a little cheaper back then)  Sadly, the trip to Oregon did not go well....

at...

all...

 (sigh)

Even though the seller issued a full refund, I was very depressed about it.  I would much rather have had the piece.

After much searching (almost 3 years of searching), another one finally appeared... This one only had to travel from Lacey, Washington and arrived completely intact.  WHEW!

This piece is more often found in Blue Cornflower but, surprisingly enough, appears to be the most common in the Cookmates version (TK-2) with the flat ground bottom.  Don't ask me why.

Where is your Corning Ware??
~~

Early American - Corning Ware, not Pyrex

Most of us that collect anything even remotely connected to Corning Glass Works are familiar with some of the Pyrex patterns.  Early American Pyrex Ware, in it's lovely shades of Brown, White and sometimes Gold was a fairly common pattern in it's day. (1962-1971).

There was, however, another Corning product by the same name, though not nearly as common nor well known.  Corning Ware also came in an Early American pattern.

Granted a much simpler pattern, featuring a lone bald eagle in black, and devoid of superfluous accoutrements like weather vanes, cats, coffee grinders, bellows, kerosene lamps and ears of corn.

Very little is known about this pattern, but thankfully some of the original boxes have shown up, so the correct name has been verified.  All the pieces seem to be unmarked, however, the saucepans have P-series handle lugs, so production was prior to 1972.  The fact that there are 2 percolators in this pattern (P-119 and P-116) suggests that date should be lowered from 1972 to 1970, because Corning discontinued the P-119 in lieu of the P-149, which made it's debut in the Renaissance Limited Edition Gift Line from 1970.  Recent developments have also revealed the existence of a P-23-EP (1st generation Electromatic Percolator)... Since these were discontinued in favor of the P-80-EP model in 1966, this firmly places this pattern to a 1962-1966 production window.

There is a variation on this pattern where the eagle has a solid black head.  (As seen on this MW-11 piece)

Whether it was a test pattern or not remains a mystery.

Where is your Corning Ware??
~~