Russel Wright Melamine Flashback Melmac SFO Museum

Credit: SFO Photos, see them here.  Organized by McKinley Williams

Here is a photo from the past exhibit at the San Francisco Airport Museum (SFO) featuring the wonderful designs of Russel Wright. This is a shot of the melmac, and some the wonderful plastic here belongs to yours truly. The exhibit ran from March 2009 to October 2009. You can read more about it here. I am very pleased that  McKinley Williams included the plastic designs in this exhibit.


Melmac Identification Above:
Flair patterns in Ming Lace and Golden Bouquet.
Residential in Lemon Ice, Sea Mist Grey, Salmon and Turquoise.
Home Decorators in pink Flowertime Pattern. 

Hey! Check this out! 
For those of you who love all things Russel Wright, join his Facebook group "The Designs of Russel and Mary Wright" here.

Branchell Colorflyte and Kaye Lamoyne Originals

By the Wayside has these great Colorflyte bowls for sale!

Deenis Teepe (Rhode Island) has done a ton of research on The Branchell Company and Colorflyte melamine dinnerware. His site, all about The Branchell Company has great 100% free information and photos.  It was in St. Louis, Missouri!  I really do hope you will visit it and drop him a line sometime, and tell him how much you appreciate him keeping the information out there, sort of a free encyclopedia on Branchell!

What you may not know, is that Dennis is instrumental in my love for plastics. I remember in the early days corresponding with him, as he was a wealth of knowledge on plastics. Not to mention he would outbid me on most everything I wanted on ebay.  Come to find out, he used to live right by me --within a few miles. What were the odds of that, considering he could have lived anywhere else in the whole USA?

Ashtrays, getting harder to find,  by GrandmasVintageAttic  on Etsy.

We ended up getting together to talk and see plastics.We decided not to bid against each other and it made acquiring some pieces we liked a heck of a lot cheaper.  I had a room for plastics that was so-so, but Dennis topped the cake by having a whole basement done in 1950's retro kitsch! Complete with an old dinette, old kitchen cabinets, all filled with vintage plastics. From old toy cars to melamine in the boxes,  it was truly amazing.  I had never seen anyone's collection so large and so vast.  Dennis alsohad a love for vintage toys like Puzzles and they were cool too.

Rare Kaye LaMoyne Originals, Kaye was the designer of the Branchell Melmac lines....these offered by JazzyMarie

Now I had been collecting many patterns, but leaning towards the Home Decorators Flowertime because I liked Russel Wright's designs but I had not seen the half of them. Dennis started trading me his Russel Wright overstock for some of my pieces he needed.  I then decided to trade all my other lines just to obtain Russel Wright.I suppose he's really the one responsible for making me the Russel Wright guru I am today. Had I never met Dennis, I probably would not have found all that Russel Wright had to offer and learned so much.  So today, out of my graphics studio, I made a great little icon to link his site too, as I was tired of the old one.

So, I hope you will go to his site, and find out all about Branchell, Colorflyte, and Kaye Lamoyne Originals!!!

Bessemer Modern Australian Melmac Made in Australia

FoxandThomas offers this straight from Austrailia!

I love the designs of Mod Australian Bessemer.  This was a line of plastics and melamine items produced there but much of it landed in the states.  I am completely unsure if the Bessemer of these products is the same of the Bessemer cookware products of today, but their website does indicate they've been around since the 1960's, and that most of their items used to be sold through in-home-party-plans.  Can you imagine having an in-home-melmac party?

Hobart Collectables, probably the largest vintage seller from Australia on Etsy, has this great Ashtray which can bring us some clues if we look close enough. There's a great article on Hobart  Collectables on Vintage Chalet that you may find interesting. 

Clues :  Nylex Corporation made this Melmac Ashtray for Bessemer products.

Now other than great plastic serving items, Bessemer did make melmac dinnerware. I don't know how popular it was in Australia, but it did exist. Here are a few designs.

The above and below designs are available at Vintage Twists.

If you are thinking the platter looks very similar in style to some American designs you've seen, you are absolutely right. I think as far as modern styling goes, they were on the same page as American designers. Now perhaps the best thing I've found recently by Bessemer was on Ebay, by Ridgefield Estate Treasures.  and I am unsure if this Bessemer Plastics is different than the Aussie Bessemer. I was thinking how modern in design it looks, and how lovely it is.

Bessemer Plastics made this mod chafing dish and is available at Ridgefield Estate Treasures, User Id BGilliam

The point is it seems like anything marked Bessemer here and there makes for a good modern home.