Russel Wright Residential Pink Deep Candy Pink

This is a deep pink Residential set, photo courtesy of Dust2Den

On the Russel Wright Residential history page, I've talked about how there are solid pink and solid blue issued Residential melmac.  I found examples for you to see at Etsy shop Dust2Den.  The pink is more of a candy pink than it's pale pink Home Decorators counterpart.  I will put two photos together so you can see the comparison:

Left: Dust2Den's Pink residentla and Right, the Home Decorators Pink piece found at  Zen Girl Antiques

The truth is, I never found evidence in Syracuse that these solid pink dishes were authorized by Wright. I've seen examples that they were sold in S and H Greenstamps, only because I have a box that shows the solid teal color and it was shipped to the S and H store.  Oddly, I can't find any catalogs showing these dishes in them.  I can only assume they were packing solid pink as well.

What's even stranger, is the two tone pinks and blues I've found later that match these same colors. Unfortunately, we may never know if Russel Wright authorized this color of melamine or if it was something that Northern did on their own. 

Assembling a full set of deep pink may be a challenge for the melmac collector, and I consider it rare. It was a short lived production run, hence somewhat rare.

Plastic Thanksgiving Wishes

Popcorn Plastic Turkey from Diverse Collectibles on Etsy, $22.95

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Adorable vintage turkey pin from Etsy shop, Roseluv $6

May you wear fun and funky plastic turkey stuff!

Wheat Melmac Dishes, on Etsy, $15

May you eat off super cool vintage melmac!

Northern Melmac turkey Platter on Etsy at RSWVintage, $24

May your turkey lay upon such itself!

and,  may you end the night catching up on great Melmac Central articles!

Site Update: 
We will be updating the site over the holidays, if it looks funny, we are doing maintenance. Check out our new sister blog "AssembageArt"

Russel Wright Flair by Northern

Ming Lace, real leaves in the melmac!

I've transferred the basic information on Flair over from my old site to the FLAIR PAGE, now I'm working on great new photos being added.   If you have FLAIR in your collection and have a super picture and want it displayed, let me know!

Russel Wright Melmac Factory Tour - Northern Chemical of South Boston Residential and Flair Melamine

RESIDENTIAL IS HERE!

Credit: Christies Auction read about it on the Value Page.

Milestone: I've finally finished the "Residential" page of this website.

Thanks to Mr. Ralph Young, whose family owned the King Terminal Property located at Ward 6, South Boston sometime during this period, I was able to fill in the blanks as to where the melmac was made!  That being the Northern Industrial Chemical Company of South Boston, Massachusetts. 



This is a photograph of 11 Elkins Street, from the Co-Star realtor back in '07 when it had been renovated into office buildings.  Most of the spaces remained vacant for 5-10 years which promoted numerous renovations of this industrial area of South Boston.  It is easy to imagine an overpass connecting the buildings.



It took me ten years to fill in all the blanks.  Plastics Society greats like George Sammet, F. Reed Estabrook, and Hans Wanders were just a few "plastic greats" who ran this company way back when.   According to Ralph (whose grandfather and father were directly involved with the property), Northern occupied at 7-11 Elkins Street.  These buildings were circa 1917-1918. (Prior to that, Northern was in a smaller building in South Boston.)  Each building was approximately 60,000 sq. feet with four floors and a basement.  Ralph Young explained to me that there were "wards" or sections of the King Terminal. The buildings were labeled as such but contained building numbers. The 7 through 11 buildings that Northern occupied were actually separate buildings connected by an overhead walkway on the 3rd and 4th floors.  Unfortunately, Ralph's company demolished that walkway in 1985 as he needed to separate the buildings as they were being sold.  No photogaphs are in existance, that we know of.



Note the "#7 King Terminal" as shown on this building, probably the only remains of originality of Ralph's family owning the King Terminal back then. Although the address does not seem to correspond now, I was a bit confused as the whole industrial area is different.



Proof  in my research that they either used Building 22 Elkins Street for a sales office or extra storage, which I have listed below.  In actuality, their boxes had 22 Elkins Street printed on them!  So , imagine how large this company must have been back then to take up all this space.

  



#22 Elkins Avenue , What did Northern use this for?



Although minor renovations this building at #22 Elkins, Northern's headquarters may resemble how it once looked. I wonder how it originally looked in the 1920's?

 Northern was a huge producer of plastic dinnerware and this should be noted. They were one of the first early airline ware manufacturers, dabbled in picnic and RV trailer plates, by the 1950's Russel Wright's Flair, Residential and Home Decorator lines, and later took over molding of Watertown's Lifetime Ware. However, this was only a small portion of the plant's business.  Knobs,electrical components and housings, plugs, parts, and components were other parts of their business. Their contract with Warren Telechron Clock Company in Massachusetts (now General Electric) was just a few of the things they did. Here's an example of what may go unnoticed and I'm proud to report I actually told a few clock collectors about this discovery!!!

This Warren Telechron clock was sold by HappyDashery of Maine.

1946 Modern Plastics Encyclopedia Ad for Northern proves they designed the housing on the Warren Telechron Clock.

So, To read the full history on Northern, and see information as it pertains to Residential and Russel Wright's sordid history with them, make sure to visit that page of my site.

It will be updated regularly and new information added.

Do you know anyone who worked there? I must talk to you so please contact me.

Airline Melmac - Eastern Airlines

I just got these wee melmac shot glasses? in the mail from The Cottage Cheese on Etsy.  I adore them, as they are from Eastern Airlines, but it's not something I normally collect.  There is a reason however....

I can only imagine how many planes used melmac probably from the 40s to the 70s, (some still use it today) but how much of the vintage melamine actually survived.  Think about it, if they changed colors, what did they do with the old sets?  If it got scratchy, where did it go?  Theories are first class had china, the rest had melamine.  This makes it rare and hard to complete whole sets of early airline melamine.  Not to mention you have the "mel-maniacs" and the "airline-aholics" collecting it and so it appears to two different collecting circles.  I would think only airline stewardesses, pilots, and granny with her big purse were able to bring this into the collecting world. 

The reason I bought these wee cups were because I was hoping them to be part of the elusive Northern Industrial Chemical Company's pieces, when they were molding for airlines in the 40's.  I've been trying to find for years. I'll never know of course, because Northern did not mark their airline dishes and it is a proven fact that MANY manufacturers molded for the airlines. 

More on Northern in detail will be on my Russel Wright site soon, so check back.


Information about airline melmac and melamine is found on Christopher McPherson's wonderful site called "Plastic Living."  It is a proven fact that his favorite company, Watertown Lifetime Ware, did a lot of molding for the airlines   and the navy early on, and possibly even beat most if not all manufacturers to the table with melmac dish sets.