Rogaska, for a beautiful bar

In researching yesterday's post about bar carts, I fell down the rabbit hole and chanced upon Rogaska barware, which is perfect for staging your very own "rolling party." The company has a nice variety of modern decanters, pitchers, carafes and stemware...definitely some of the prettiest I've seen.

All images from rogaskausa.com

Aurea carafe

Groove decanter

Serendipity pitcher

Tilt decanter

Manhattan collection

Barrel collection

Juliet champagne flute

Romeo wine glass

Motus martini glass

Black and blue

I have a weakness for smalls, and there are a number of them in the store right now that I wish I could find a place for. Although I usually gravitate to oranges and yellows and greens, all the ones currently grabbing my attention happen to be blue and black. And, with the exception of the Wirkkala piece, they are all quite large. Here are some of the new pieces that are my current favorites.

Bottle picture - 22.5" x 19.5"

Blenko decanter - 22"

Murano vase - 16"

Tapio Wirkkala Kingfisher (also called Ice Diver) - 8"L x 4"H

Murano bird - 9"L x 6"H

Cleaning glass decanters

We asked Karin and Tim Alonzo, the Blenko collectors we bought several pieces from recently, to give us some tips on cleaning glass, especially decanters. and the answer we got was...(Are you ready for this?)...BBs.  Just plain ol' Daisy BBs like the one the mother in the classic movie A Christmas Story was sure would shoot out her son's eye.

The process is somewhat time-consuming but yields amazing results. You first put a handful of BBs and Windex into the decanter and shake gently, letting the BBs remove the build-up. You then empty the decanter, clean the BBs, and repeat with alcohol. Again empty the decanter, clean the gunk off the BBs and repeat with water. The final step is to go one more round with alcohol, which will help the water evaporate faster and prevent spotting. (I read that uncooked rice can be substituted for the BBs, if that saves you a trip to the sporting goods store, but I can't imagine that being nearly as effective.)

Here's one of our thoroughly dirty Blenko decanters before the process. See how cloudy and gunky it was?

Pretty bad, huh?

Add a little backlighting,, and it's really obvious how badly it needs cleaning.

And here is the same decanter after the BB treatment, looking all bright and shiny and looking like new.

And she scores!!!!

The big estate sale was today. My daughter and I went with my grandson in tow, which is no mean feat. She took the first leg of shopping in the back yard and two outside sheds, while I watched Holden. She found a teak coffee table base and matching end table base for $4 each. She also picked up two great suitcase-style album cases for old 33 1/3 LPs for $3 each.

When she paid for those purchases and loaded them into the car, I passed the baby off to her, and I started shopping indoors. I bought a great wire magazine rack for $3, a Frankoma bud vase for $2, a Van Briggle bud vase for $7, a West Bend Penguin Hot & Cold server from the 1960s for $4 and the piece de resistance, a #5815 Blenko decanter designed by Wayne Husted with a sandblasted logo that was only used between 1958 and 1961…for only $22.50. I came straight home and found three identical decanters online, priced at $335, $375 and $395.

My $38.50 purchase is probably worth in the neighborhood of $425-500. You’ve just gotta love estate sales.

1950s wire magazine rack for $3

1960s West Bend Hot & Cold server for $4

Frankoma Plainsman bud vase for $2, Van Briggle bud vase for $7
...and 1958 Blenko decanter for $22.50

Update: The table bases turned out to be by Adrian Pearsall, so I underestimated the value of our purchases just a tad.