Maryellen Attends the Pyrex and Vintage Festival in Havre de Grace

A must do for any vintage fan in the Mid-Atlantic!

Last year, when my parents helped my brother move back to Georgetown to start his sophomore year of college, they drove all the way from Connecticut to DC and back. While making their return trip, they stopped in the cute little town of Havre de Grace, Maryland, which is about half an hour outside of Baltimore and pretty close to the Delaware border. This detour introduced them to one of the coolest stores I’ve ever been to: JoRetro, a shop that specializes in vintage clothes, accessories, home décor, and – you guessed it – Pyrex. 

My mom discovered that they host a biannual Pyrex and vintage festival, and let’s just say as soon as I heard that, I knew I was going to be making the drive come rain or snow or whatever else nature might throw my way. Read on to see some pictures from our trip!

Havre de Grace is a really pretty small town right near the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the head of Chesapeake Bay. It’s home to several museums – including one focusing on hunting decoys, which is pretty neat – and has a beautiful historic town center. The whole place really put me in mind of New England and the various small towns I grew up exploring. That’s one of the reasons why I like living in the mid-Atlantic: it still reminds me of the places I grew up! 

It’s also got a whole host of antique shops and other places to pick up vintage clothing, furniture, accessories… pretty much anything you need! But let’s get back to the Pyrex Fest for now…

Pyrex is a brand originally developed by Corning Glass in 1915. The name itself doesn’t mean anything specific, but the original products were clear, low-thermal-expansion borosilicate glass used in laboratories and kitchens. This means the glass is extremely resilient in the face of temperature changes – ideally, you can take it from out of a screaming hot oven and put it directly into the fridge without it shattering, or vice versa. The brand later expanded to include opaque glass and clear products made out of soda-lime glass. 

Beginning in the 1940’s, Corning Glass started to produce Pyrex bakeware with beautiful patterns on the exterior of their baking dishes and bowls. These patterns have experienced a surge in popularity with vintage collectors, both for people who are into 1950’s and 60’s inspired décor, but also because Corning stopped producing Pyrex made from borosilicate glass in the 1990’s and sold the name to Corelle. Corelle still produces Pyrex branded products – and used to produce their own pretty sturdy glassware – but they don’t make it with borosilicate anymore, meaning new Pyrex is nowhere near as sturdy as vintage Pyrex is. The company that owns the Pyrex brand in Europe and a few other regions still uses the old formula, but that can be tricky to get your hands on in the US. This means even if you don’t care about the pattern on the bowls, there’s some value in collecting the older sets or hanging on to any you might have inherited from parents and grandparents because it’s genuinely better than the stuff being produced under the brand name today. 

Three things got me to drive all the way to this festival: 
1. Now that I’ve got my own place to decorate, I’ve been getting more into collecting vintage or vintage inspired stuff to flesh out our apartment. 
2. The food history connection, obviously! These patterns and equipment are extremely iconic for the midcentury period – Maryellen’s fridge even has a casserole dish that’s clearly inspired by Corning products. 
3. My grandpa worked for Corning Glass! So I’ve always had fondness for the company and its history. He was in finance and didn’t manage anything to do with the bakeware really, but we’re still drawn to stuff produced by the company because it’s a part of our family’s history.

The festival was hosted by JoRetro, and included about three blocks of independent vendors. These folks came from all over with pieces they’ve found from thrift stores, things they were downsizing from their own collections, or with stuff from their antique stores they were hoping to find a new home for here. 

It was super windy out, but the weather was really beautiful, which made it easy to wander around and take a look. Everyone had some really cool stuff, and it was difficult to decide where to spend your money. I was a little worried everything would be really, really pricey, as the reputation in the collecting community is that Pyrex is seen as a hot item you can’t get for cheap anymore, but the vendors I bought from were very reasonable and willing to haggle a bit. 

Most people were reselling vintage items versus crafts, but one of the coolest vendors was a woman who turns broken pieces of Pyrex and other vintage bakeware into jewelry, including necklaces and earrings.

I ended up walking away with a Disney’s Peter Pan serving dish that should pair perfectly with some modern Peter Pan dishes my mom picked up for me at Disney World, a tiki mug for my ever growing collection, and a surprise gift for my mom for Mother’s Day. Jessi picked up some old photographs and we both picked up necklaces made from broken pottery. Mine was made with Corning’s signature blue cornflower pattern, which I was really excited about for the aforementioned family history connection, and Jessi’s was blue willow. 

But JoRetro was the real dangerous stop.

Based on my mom’s description, I assumed JoRetro would just have Pyrex and some other bakeware for sale, but boy, was I wrong and very pleasantly surprised. We went in the back entrance first and immediately discovered a very wide selection of vintage clothing, from shoes to bathing suits to prom dresses to work and casual wear. The prices were extremely reasonable too – a lot of the vintage shops in DC ask for an arm and a leg for vintage pieces, which makes saying yes to the dress (or pantsuit) difficult. I didn’t end up trying anything on because I need another dress like I need a hole in the head, but Jess and our friend Ama both came away with some fun pieces from here. Jess was very excited about finding a suit jacket and skirt set that fit her like a glove because she’s bigger and has wide shoulders, both of which are hard to find in vintage stuff. Getting it for a good price just added to the fun!

The rest of the store is filled with a variety of vintage objects. Lots of knickknacks, cookbooks, toys, home décor including old telephones, and of course, Pyrex and other bakeware are neatly displayed on every shelf. During the festival, they offered 20% off in store from 11:00 to 3:00, and again, the prices on everything were very reasonable. A teacup and saucer set I’ve seen people try to unload for $20 on Etsy was $4, for example. 

There was definitely more midcentury to the 80’s stuff in store that I noticed, but there were a few more modern things tucked about as well, like a basket full of Beanie Babies that I will admit I dug around in for a bit. I still like those silly things! 

The most impressive displays are absolutely the Pyrex and other bakeware. Organized by pattern and brand, they really do look like museum exhibits you can touch. I didn’t pick up any Pyrex this time, but it was a lot of fun admiring the different colors and patterns.

When I was finally done, I had picked up four teacups, two magnets made from US states puzzle pieces, a Pyrex themed dish towel and a magnet with the festival’s logo on it… and two Beanie Babies. Jess bought the suit jacket and skirt set that looks like it was made for her, a brooch to go with it, and a record. Not a bad haul! I was a little disappointed I didn’t come home with any vintage cookbooks, but nothing really was catching my eye, so I decided there was always next time. 

After leaving JoRetro, we ended up going to two other antique stores in town and scored some major finds. Havre de Grace seems to have a huge number of these types of stores, and each one we went into was a lot of fun to poke around in. I thought I was doing good by only picking up something small at the first antique store we went into, but then I found an AG lot in the second that I quickly snatched up with some really exciting pieces in it – Felicity’s trunk and underthings! I had to buy it as a lot, so some pieces I’ll be reselling since I already have duplicates, but it was so worth it for those hard to find pieces from her original collection. They alone can go for between $60 and $100 on eBay, so it was totally worth the hassle of finding new homes for the rest of it! Jess got a hand mirror, a brush, a basket for her Chinese teapot, a shoe beetle, and a bowl that she’s turned into a bird bath for our balcony. 

Overall, this was a super fun excursion and totally worth the long drive up north. (Although I’m sure my bank account had less fun than I did!) The festival is held bi-annually in April and September, and I’m already thinking this might have to be a semi-regular field trip for us and anyone else who’s willing to tag along. Maybe next time, we’ll actually pick up some real Pyrex!

See you in September, Havre de Grace!