Bex Scott is back for a new season of Pyrex with Bex and in this first episode of the season, she’s diving into the rabbit hole of collectible salt and pepper shakers. Her own collection started when she found lots of them in an online estate sale and discovered that her favorites are the kitschy anthropomorphic shakers. Why were so many made? When were they popular and why? Which ones are most valuable now? Bex reveals what she learned in this episode.
Bex Scott is back for a new season of Pyrex with Bex and in this first episode of the season, she’s diving into the rabbit hole of collectible salt and pepper shakers. Her own collection started when she found lots of them in an online estate sale and discovered that her favorites are the kitschy anthropomorphic shakers. Why were so many made? When were they popular and why? Which ones are most valuable now? Bex reveals what she learned in this episode.
Salt and pepper shakers were easy to collect because of their size, small, and they were also very affordable. They date back to around 1858 though there is some dispute over the exact person who created them. Strangely, the kitschy eye-catching salt and pepper shakers were one of the few things whose sales didn’t dip during the Great Depression. Because they were small and cheap, they were easy to continue producing and still affordable to collect or gift. Bex explores how salt and pepper shaker designs reflected the time periods they were created in, the themes that became most popular, the rarest and most valuable salt and pepper shakers to look for now, and a family who collected 80,000 sets and started a museum just to house them. You don’t want to miss this episode. It will make you look twice at salt and pepper shakers when you come across them.
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Transcript
Bex Scott: [00:00:02] Hey everybody, it's Bex Scott and welcome to the Pyrex with Bex podcast, where, you guessed it, I talk about vintage Pyrex, but also all things vintage housewares. I'll take you on my latest thrifting adventures, talk about reselling, chat with other enthusiasts about their collections, and learn about a bunch of really awesome items from the past. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you love listening to podcasts so you don't miss a beat. Hey, everybody, this is Bex Scott and you are listening to the Pyrex with Bex podcast. And on today's episode it's salt and pepper time. We are talking all about salt and pepper shakers. And for me, this is a super fun topic because I have been collecting salt and pepper shakers on and off for the last couple of years. I don't have a huge collection, but they are one of the easiest things I've found to collect and to unfortunately amass in large quantities.
Bex Scott: [00:01:04] So my salt and pepper shaker collection started back when I found a bunch of huge lots of them in an online estate sale, and I didn't actually know how many I was buying until I picked them up. And I probably had three moving boxes full of them, and unpacking them and cataloging them and photographing them was a massive endeavor. But one of the most fun things you can do as a collector, as you guys probably know, is unboxing and seeing what's inside, what you've bought from a sale or an online auction, and finding the little nuggets of maybe a really collectible item or something that you really love.
Bex Scott: [00:01:53] So most of these salt and pepper shakers that I did buy, I ended up selling online on Facebook Marketplace or on Poshmark and some of them even on Whatnot now. And I've had a few friends on Whatnot who have had full on salt and pepper shaker sales, and it's so fun to watch them go through each of the shakers and to see just how fun they were. My favorite ones, hands down, are the kitschy salt and pepper shakers, and my great grandma had an absolute love of Lefton Bluebird, so I've been lucky enough to inherit some of her bluebirds. I have the salt and pepper shakers. I also have some of the more kitschy anthropomorphic ones. I have little kittens that are sitting on balls of yarn. I have some skunks that are sitting on logs and they're just very fun, cute, and you can store a lot of them in a small place. So this led me down a hole of looking into salt and pepper shakers, their appeal, their history. And I actually learned quite a bit about them.
Bex Scott: [00:03:07] So. Salt and pepper shakers were easy for people to collect because of their size, and they were so affordable and they were just really easy to come across as well. They held on to them or passed them down. And you could, before, get a figural set of a dog, a cat, a bird for 5 to $7. Now the prices have gone up a little bit because they are in higher demand. People are reselling them and there are more that are collectible, some more than others. Salt and pepper shakers, they go back to about 1858 and they were created, some believe, by a man named John Mason who also created the Mason jar. So some people kind of refute this and are questioning whether that's actually true. But this is what I've found so far in my research. And before the salt and pepper shaker came to be, people used a bowl of salt called a salt cellar. And I've come across a lot of salt cellars in my collecting days, and a lot of the really cute ones are the little hens on the nest. I didn't actually know the purpose of a salt cellar. I knew that it was called that and you scooped the salt up with a spoon. People often added rice to it to keep the moisture at bay. And then it wasn't until 1911, when the brand Morton Salt Company introduced magnesium carbonate into salt that helped it to not clump, which is why people don't often put rice into their salt shakers now.
Bex Scott: [00:05:02] So with these cute little kitschy and fun sets on home and restaurant tables, there was a high demand for the aesthetically appealing styles, and it was important for homemakers to have these on their table to show them off and to just have fun collecting them. So many people purchased them on road trips back in the day. One of the most popular types of salt and pepper shakers was the souvenir shaker that you got on your road trip that may have said the location it was from and where you got it. Now the Great Depression came along and there was no dip in salt shaker sales because it was one of the cheapest items in the kitchen. And during the 1930s and into the 1940s, the salt shakers went from glass and tin containers to the ceramic or plastic figurines. Most were from occupied Japan after a halt in production during the war. And the kitschier the better. So salt and pepper shakers became more cute, more eye-catching, and the number of salt and pepper shakers sold at local five and dimes and the fancier stores was just increasing. So some of the fun ones that you could find were the anthropomorphic fruit, fish, dogs. There's a set called the Extra Long Daschund that is really cute if you want to look up these funny little skinny wiener dog salt and pepper shakers.
Bex Scott: [00:06:45] So by the 1970s, these cute figural shakers had completely gone out of style, out of production, and they were replaced by what we now have, which is a more standard boring cylindrical-style salt and pepper shaker. Don't get me wrong, there's some beautiful salt and pepper shakers out there now still, but it's just not the same anymore. And some of the ones that they were replaced by that people still collect are the Tupperware salt and pepper shakers, which were really popular during that time and not so much the conversation starters of all the cute, anthropomorphic, kitschy ones that you used to be able to find. So by the 1990s, people started to realize that the salt and pepper shakers were worth something because of the demand that collectors had made for them. And some of the most popular ones are cute little ones hanging from trees that have little baskets. I just sold a set. It was an adorable little dog that had two hanging baskets on the left and the right that you could remove, and those were the salt and pepper shakers. And the baskets were filled with flowers. Lots of kissing and hugging shakers. I have two little bears that when you put them together, their arms wrap around each other. Lots of Christmas ones. And some of the most sought after are from Lefton, Napco, Holt Howard.
Bex Scott: [00:08:18] So a lot of this information that I found from my friend Worthpoint, and in this article that I was reading they went through the most collectible shakers from Lefton, Napco and Holt Howard, which I thought was super interesting because as a collector, I'm always wondering which ones I should be on the lookout for. So if you want to start the hunt, Lefton's most collectible are Bluebirds, Christmas angels, Miss Dainty, which is the girl with the red and white hat, Mr.Tootles the Maltese dog, Miss Priss the Blue Kitten, Thumbelina, The Green Fairy, Kissing Santa and Mrs. Claus, Christmas birds which are green, the Puppy Pal dogs wearing blue hats, and pink poodle chef, which in brackets they say is beyond expensive. I've actually never seen the pink poodle chef.
Bex Scott: [00:09:21] Napco, you have number one, Miss Cutie Pie, two anthropomorphic fruit people, so that would be the artists, musicians, kissing Valentine birds, the bowler and hard hats, devils, flower girls, and long neck animals. And then Holt Howard, you have the Nodder Rock and Roll on springs, merry mice,they are pink and mischievous, Holly Poinsettia girls, winking Santa, Daisydorables, rooster, and pixieware are the most desirable of all the Holt Howard shakers I've seen. Not in person, but on a lot of my favorite collectors Instagrams and some on Facebook Marketplace. The pixieware salt and pepper shakers. They are so cute! Next up we have Enesco. Number one is the Sweet Shop. It says very pricey and rare. Anything anthropomorphic, fruits, vegetables, forks and spoons. I have had some forks and spoons. They're very cute. You can't really hold a lot of salt and pepper in them though, so definitely more for display. Golden Girls, Country Kids, Snappy the Snails, Missy Mouse, Doctor WO Owl, and Jonah and the whale.
Bex Scott: [00:10:37] So going into more of the research, I discovered as well that people have local chapters of salt and Pepper shaker clubs. I didn't know that, but it makes sense. There are clubs for Pyrex collectors, Facebook groups and pages, many of which I'm a part of. So it would make sense that these salt and pepper shaker lovers would come together and sell and swap stories about their salt and pepper shakers. So after digging into some of this research about salt and pepper shakers and finding out that there was a salt and pepper shaker museum, I looked into this article by the Smithsonian magazine by Derek Workman, and it goes over this family's 80,000 shakers worth of salt and pepper shakers. So they have 40,000 pairs of shakers. They are called the Ludden family. And they have enough shakers to fill two museums. So it's Andrea, her son Alex, and her daughter, and they are in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with all of their salt and pepper shakers. So andrea said she started completely by chance when she bought a pepper mill at a garage sale in the mid 1980s. I'm sure that most of the collectors out there listening can totally relate to this. You find one item at a garage sale and it takes you down a spiral of collecting. I know that that's how things usually start for me with my addictive collecting personality. That's how my Pyrex started with finding it in my grandparents garage. So Andrea says that she had this pepper mill. It didn't work, so she bought a couple more, and she used to stand them on the window ledge of her kitchen, and her neighbors thought she was building a collection.
Bex Scott: [00:12:32] She said nothing could have been further from her mind, but her neighbors started to bring new ones over, and eventually she had 14,000 on shelves all over her house, even in her bedrooms. And her husband Rolf told her that she needed somewhere else to put these or they're going to get divorced. So that's when they decided to create this museum. So you can wander around the museum. It says there's fat chefs, ruby red tomatoes, guardsmen in bearskins, Santas, feet sticking from a chimney, pistols and potatoes, a copy of the salt and pepper shaker cufflinks worn by Lady Diana. That is very cool. And Andrea, she was or is an archeologist by training, and when she moved to the States, she couldn't find work in her field. So she turned her attention to social anthropology, and she studied everyday life since the early years through her growing collection of salt and pepper shakers. And she says here in the article, "there's almost nothing you can imagine that hasn't been copied as a salt and pepper shaker. And many of them reflect the designs, the colors and the preoccupations of the period", which is very true. And when you think about it, when you look at a salt and pepper shaker you don't really think that deeply about it, but a lot of these designs were reflections of what was going on in the time.
Bex Scott: [00:13:58] So they go into how, in the article, it was because people could travel more freely, either for work or on vacation, that the souvenir industry came about. And salt and pepper shakers were cheap, easy to carry, and colorful, and they made ideal gifts. So among the earliest producers of salt and pepper shakers were the German fine pottery maker Goebel. They introduced its first three sets in 1925, and today its Hummel shakers, introduced in 1935, are highly collectible. And ironically, it was the Great Depression of the 1930s that gave a major boost to the popularity of salt and pepper shakers as a household item and a collectible item, and ceramic producers worldwide were forced to restrict production and concentrate on lower priced items, and this helped because salt and pepper shakers were small, easy to produce, bright and cheery, and really could be bought for a few cents at most local hardware stores. Soon other ceramic companies got into the act, and Japanese firms had a large share of the market from the late 1920s through the 1930s. As well, from the late 1940s through the 50s, and production halted during World War Two. So the shakers they produced in postwar years labeled 'made in occupied Japan' or simply 'occupied Japan' are extremely rare and highly sought after. In the 1950s and 60s, they began producing shakers made from plastic. Plastic was very fragile, so fewer of these examples exist, making them extremely valuable. Which is another good thing to know because I have seen a lot of the plastic shakers around.
Bex Scott: [00:15:49] Sometimes they're not in the greatest shape, but knowing this, that they are more rare and collectible, definitely makes that a bit exciting for me to try and find the plastic ones over some of the other ceramic ones that you can find. So they go into how, at first glance, the museum seems bright and happy, if a bit haphazard. The displays are well thought out and organized, especially considered the many models on display. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it would be to categorize and organize that many salt and pepper shakers. And because you can work by style, age, subject matter, color, Andrea says they try to do it in a way that combines all of the elements at the same time. There are hundreds of themes, and in those themes there will be many colors. But her mom has a way of laying out displays that are highly planned so that the colors within a theme are displayed together. For example, she continues, all the greens, yellows and reds of the vegetables are arranged in vertical rows. You get bright color bands, but all the shakers are on the same theme. It's a lot more complicated than it sounds because there are so many. A large number of the shaker sets are humorous. There's an aspirin salt shaker, a martini glass pepper shaker, and when they're all set up, there's sometimes an opportunity to create a visual joke. Andrea says that you see what looks like models of the southwest US Adobe houses of the style found in New Mexico with cactus and cowboys and Indians but behind them are two UFOs that have crashed and two aliens that glow in the dark.
Bex Scott: [00:17:33] It's amazing how many of these shakers tell a tale that isn't obvious to everyone. One of her favorites is a chef holding a cat in one hand and a cleaver in the other. I always thought it was just a fun item, says Andrea, but her mom explained that it was very significant to older people who had been through the Depression and major wars. Food was short, but you still had to eat, so if a cat strayed by, it went into the pot and came out as chicken surprise! Oh my. As they continue the tour, they're absorbed by all the weird and wonderful shakers. Coca Cola cans, Dolly Parton's photo on a souvenir from Dollywood, the Smokies most fun place, Mickey and Minnie in chef tucks and aprons, the Beatles with the cropped hair and collarless jacket of the early days, a turquoise TV with Lucie Arnaz and her neighbor Ethel Mertz on the screen, and a sofa with an I Love Lucy heart shaped cushion, alligators with sunshades from Florida, bullfighters and bulls from Spain, kangaroos from Australia, a bobby and double decker bus from London, before and after versions of Mount Saint Helens made from the actual volcanic ash. Very cool. There are also familiar ones, shakers your grandmother used to have, or you saw when you went on vacation somewhere, or you gave as a gift once.
Bex Scott: [00:18:48] "People come back over and over again and think that we are adding to the displays," says Andrea, "but we aren't. It's just that they didn't see them the first time around." The museum doesn't display all the shakers it owns, but it does exhibit a few Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom shakers, the cook and butler stereotypical characters from the 1950s, knowing some people might be offended by the negative portrayal of African Americans. They are part of the history of salt and pepper shakers. We display them, but we do it discreetly, she says. You can't change history by simply pretending it didn't happen or ignore it. So that article, if you want to read more in-depth, Smithsonian Magazine, 'Would You Like Some Salt and Pepper? How About 80,000 Shakers Worth?' by Derek Workman. And diving into the world of salt and pepper shakers has definitely been a fun one. I would love to know your favorite salt and pepper shakers, how many you might have in your collection, where you find most of them. It is a super fun topic, and if you do want to find salt and pepper shakers out there, I would highly suggest looking at Facebook Marketplace. A lot of the Canadian sellers that I know, including myself, we sell them on Whatnot, so find us there and also on eBay.
Bex Scott: [00:20:11] They can get a little bit pricey, but I really find that the thrill is in the hunt. So check out garage sales. Even ask your family members. I'm sure your grandparents, your parents might even have some stuffed in their china cabinets that they're not using. It's just fun to see how many were produced, how many different kinds are out there, and just to see the evolution of them over time. And if you are buying them to resell them, it is really important to look for damage on them. They, I've found, are one of the easiest things to chip and to break, even the smallest little bump. They chip quite easily, especially if you have, like the little Lefton bird shakers, looking on the ears of animals and the beaks. And just anywhere where there's a corner that they may have been hit against something, just keep an eye out. But if it's for your own personal collection, then it's a lot easier just to pick them up in any condition that they are. So I'd love to connect. You can find me on Instagram @PyrexWithBex. You can find me on Whatnot. Selling weekly on Fridays at usually around 2 p.m. Mountain Standard, and my username on Whatnot is Pyrex with Bex. I sell a variety of vintage items, including Pyrex, of course, but a lot of smaller items and jewelry as well. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of salt and pepper shakers. And when you're sitting down at dinner tonight, you might think of the shakers on your table in a different light.
