video tour of my favorite case at the Bakelite show

That would be the case with all the Bakelite jewelry and sundry related materials in it - like a Bakelite humidor, bracelets, napkin rings, and an uncut extruded swallow (bird) tube.

Our June 2nd visit to the Mark Twain Library in Redding, Connecticut for "Heat and Pressure - 100 Years of Bakelite" -- A display of more than 250 rare bakelite objects and related materials assembled from the Amsterdam Bakelite Collection, owned by Reindert Groot, a professional photographer and film producer living in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The display is supplemented with loans from Jorge Caicedo, (a New York City designer) and personal items owned by Hugh Karraker of Redding, CT, a great grandson of Leo Henricus Arthur Baekeland, who began Bakelite (additional support was given by companies such as the Dutch Corodex, the Danish Pressalit, and the Belgian Vyncolit/Sumitomo).

Here's the other video I took at the Bakelite show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv8QNKtNrRo

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• bakelite
• mark
• twain
• library
• leo
• baekeland
• phenolic
• catalin
• humijar
• bracelet
• jewelry
• napkin
• ring
• plastics
• plastic

[beatgoddess]

@godlesswickedvanian I have an uncut, unpolished tube of red Bakelite swallows. It has the tiny yellow swirls. The swallows are sliced off of the tube, like some rings and other items. These swallows were used in jewelry, most commonly as pendants, but also as light switch pulls and window shade pulls. Your pin sounds less common, by virtue of it being a pin, and by virtue of it being carved. The carving was usually reserved for jewelry and not the pulls. Good stuff!

[godlesswickedvanian]

That swallow must be rare.I have a brooch that's red with tiny swirls of yellow, of that swallow,but it's carved and hangs from a bar brooch.I've asked Bakelite collectors if they've seen it because I can never find info on it, online, and none of them have heard of it or seen it!

[beatgoddess]

Yes, totally. I find it most excellent that there are people who protect and preserve these dwindling resources. Not only are these pieces beautiful, functional, and labor-intensive, but since they are made from the first mass-produced synthetic plastic, they are also direct ancestors of much of the world around us. For better or for worse. It is hard to imagine a world without plastic.

[maleman131]

thanks so much for posting this, have you noticed how rare bakelites starting to get?

-luke.