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Article: GO LIGHTLY ON BAKELITE AND IT WILL LAST DECADES.(Lifestyle)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- January 10, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Q: I've just started collecting utensils with the original early-plastic handles, which are yellow-tan in color. What is this called and how do I care for it? - Lynn Shirley, Broken Arrow, Okla.
MS: It is impossible to identify a piece without seeing it, but it certainly sounds like Bakelite flatware.
Bakelite was invented in 1907 in Yonkers, N.Y., by a chemist named Leo Baekeland. He was trying to develop a new kind of shellac but instead ended up with phenolic resin, the first synthetic plastic, which he named Bakelite. In the late 1920s and the '30s, it was used for jewelry, buttons, billiard balls and radios, as well as for the handles of ...