5 Vintage kitchen items to keep your eye out for at Antique shops

Antique handmade dough box table, probably from Italy or Spain, dovetailed – pegged

When visiting your local antique store in Southampton, be on the lookout for some great kitchen items to add to your home décor. Vintage kitchen items never go out of style and they remind us of days gone by. Right now, these following five items are not only popular with home designers, they are relatively easy to find. You can choose to add reproductions to your home’s aesthetics but we think the real deal is much more fun!

Here are 5 vintage kitchen items to keep your eye out for at your local antique shops:

1. Hand mixers

Before electric mixers, there were hand mixers. Small and mighty, often referred to as egg beaters, they featured colorful wood or plastic handles which made it easier to beat eggs, blend dough and whip cream. Brand names like Maynard and Flint remain popular among collectors. Also search for devices made with Bakelite, which include colorful handles in pinks, greens, and oranges.

2. Recipe boxes

Usually made of tin or wood, recipe boxes rose to popularity after women’s magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal launched recipe subscription services in the 1930s. Today we rely on the Internet to house our recipes but these boxes are still holding popular on many kitchen countertops. While the Internet may be an easy place to search, nothing can be easier than pulling out Grandma’s apple pie recipe (in her own handwriting) and getting straight to work.

3. Aprons

Half aprons also referred to as waist aprons or cocktail aprons, these pretty kitchen cover-ups were massively popular in the 1950s and 1960s. They adorned the TV screen on popular stars of television hits like Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy. Lightweight half aprons were designed more for martini making. The more detailed you find these vintage aprons, the more money they tend to fetch. Look for embroidered and rick rack detailing.

4. Cookbooks

Community cookbooks, typically spiral-bound, offer time-honored recipe compilations that feature “the best of” from ladies’ clubs, church congregations, garden clubs and more. One of the oldest cookbooks of this kind still in print is Charleston Receipts which is a Junior League cookbook, is hard to come by but if you can find an original 1950s print, grab it!

5. Confetti bowls

Plastic factories began making speckled mixing bowls, made from rejects and scraps left over from the production of solid-colored melamine dishware, in the 1940s. “Texas Ware,” made through the 1980s from Dallas-based Plastics Manufacturing Company is the most coveted in this category. You can distinguish them from their Texas Ware stamp on the bottom. Unmarked bowls from this era are sought after as well, but Texas Ware is highly prized by collectors.

When you are shopping at antique stores in Southampton, keep these kitchen item ideas in the back of your mind. Nothing adds character to your kitchen than pieces from the past mixed with a modern kitchen!

When you are looking to add some spice to your kitchen, visit Antique Allure and see what kitchen treasure you can find!

Phone: (215) 322-5868

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