The Spring Collection. Yup, It's That Time. Had To Swap Out The Salem Northstar For The Franciscan Duet! Status: Displayed...yet Available.

In celebration of the (long awaited!) coming of Spring I've taken down the Salem Northstar I had displayed on the top shelf of the china cabinet and replaced it with this fine collection of Franciscan Duet.

I'm kinda takin' my chances here as I've simultaneously made this 23 piece set available on my

craigslistings! I'm really thinking about selling a lot of the dish collections and concentrating on

acquiring a nice collection of Metlox Free Form Mobile / Contempora. I've already got two berry

bowls in the Contempora pattern and while in New Orleans I bought a pair of 12oz. tumblers in

the Free Form Mobile pattern, not realizing that they were slightly different. They are so close

that they can be mixed together though. I think the big differences are in the colors within the

pattern and the shape of the plates. The Free Form Mobile seems to be more desirable /

expensive too. If I manage to put together a nice set I may have to abandon the seasonal dish

idea and stick to displaying just the Russel Wright, Franciscan Starburst and the Metlox on the

three shelves in the china cabinet.

This is the set of Franciscan Duet that I snatched up from the St. Charles Salvation Army thrift

store a few weeks ago. It's a rather comprehensive set including Berry Bowls! There are lots of

serving pieces too. There's even an ashtray.

I'm diggin' the pattern. Yeah, sure...it's flowers and I don't normally like flowery stuff, but it's the

style of the artwork that saves it. It's got that sketchy choppy style that I associate with

architectural renderings from the sixties and seventies. Anybody got a name for that style

(besides "Cool!")?

Except for the serving bowl, the serving pieces seem to have gone unused. The serving bowl

and most of the plates have utensil marks and were obviously used. That's cool though, cuz

that means that these do not need to be treated as if precious (like my Starburst). This is just a

good usable set that happens to be vintage and pretty good lookin' to boot!

Wit it all spread out like this, it really looks like a massive haul! It must cost a fortune to ship a

full set like this. I've only bought pieces here and there of dishware off eBay. I'll probably be

doing so again as I start piecing together the Metlox.

If you click on the above pics you can see the two little edge chips (one on a berry bowl and

one on a small plate) plus the utensil marks. Like I said, this ain't a collectors set, at least not

the plates. A serious collector might love the covered butter dish, ashtray, chop plate and

gravy boat though! But they'd have to buy the whole set to get them.