All of your guesses were simply great yesterday. Your comments here and on the MaryJanesFarm Facebook page ranged from hog-bristle scraper, ice shaver, something that turns bulls into steers, vintage light-saber, kegel exerciser, old-style razor, vegetable peeler, cheese slicer, light magnifier, fancy cattle prod, colonoscopy tool, to cleaning item.
What fun! Then there were the smartie-pants that knew it all along (must be a generational thing).
Turns out … it’s a …
vintage Pyrex handle. Mom has a small glass frying pan that it latches onto like a magnet to metal, like a teenager latches onto an iTune gift card, like my mother latches onto computer technology, not:)
I really do like that design. I own a 20 year (+) Corning-ware set that I bought from Woolworth & Lothrop shortly before they went out of business years ago; I use those pieces, a lot. My CW set has handles which you can clip on for stove top use & remove for oven use but your handle looks like it could actually go into the oven(?).
For years now, I have searched for a true Corning ware shop (we use to have an outlet just across the bridge here) but cannot locate one here or online now? If I had my way, all of our food would be cooked in glass or glazed ceramic. Hubby only uses our small stove top CW pot for cooking his oatmeal:-) I’m using our CW sauce pans for oven use today & their glass domed lids. I love that you still have that nice sauce pan MaryJane & that it is in such great condition! Thanks for sharing Megan & happy treasure hunting:-)
Oh, P.S:-) I believe hubby mentioned recently that they will soon faze out Pyrex…? I really hope they don’t do away with Pyrex too. My husband bought another (just-in-case) Pyrex measuring cup for us when he first heard the news about Pyrex but this new cup already looks different & the glass is a tinge yellowish~not pristine & clear like they made them before?
How very cool !! The photo makes it so plain as to the function. It was a great idea for providing a flexible item to use with many existing dishes! Too bad they still are not readily available today.
Wow! That is really cool!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!! What a relief to finally know it has a mate :o)
Here’s information from Wikipedia on Pyrex (and it explains why recent Pryex doesn’t hold up the same).
Older clear-glass Pyrex manufactured by Corning before 1998, Arc International’s Pyrex products, and Pyrex laboratory glassware is made of borosilicate glass. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, borosilicate Pyrex is composed of (as percentage of weight): 4.0% boron, 54.0% oxygen, 2.8% sodium, 1.1% aluminium, 37.7% silicon, and 0.3% potassium.]
According to glass supplier Pulles and Hannique, borosilicate Pyrex is made of Corning 7740 glass, and is equivalent in formulation to Schott Glass 8830 glass sold under the “Duran” brand name.[11] The composition of both Corning 7740 and Schott 8830 is given as 80.6% SiO2, 12.6% B2O3, 4.2% Na2O, 2.2% Al2O3, 0.04% Fe2O3, 0.1% CaO, 0.05% MgO, and 0.1% Cl.
Pyrex glass cookware manufactured by World Kitchen is made of tempered soda-lime glass instead of borosilicate.[12] World Kitchen justified this change by stating that soda-lime glass was cheaper to produce, is the most common form of glass used in bakeware in the US, and that it also had higher mechanical strength than borosilicate—making it more resistant to breakage when dropped, which it believed to be the most common cause of breakage in glass bakeware. Unlike borosilicate, it is not as heat resistant, leading to an increase in breakage from heat stress.
The differences between Pyrex products depending on manufacturer has also led to safety issues—in 2010, the Consumer Product Safety Commission received several complaints by users reporting that their Pyrex glassware had shattered at high temperatures. The consumer affairs magazine Consumer Reports investigated the matter after obtaining copies of the complaints, determining that the complainants had in fact been using World Kitchen-produced Pyrex products, and had incorrectly assumed that they would have the same characteristics and strength as their borosilicate counterparts.
Thanks for the information on Pyrex, Vivian! It seems nearly everything nowadays is being made with cheaper quality material. I truly do not mind paying extra for a product that will more than likely last a lifetime & won’t poison us in the process.
Most of the knock-off Corning-Ware products in my home have cracked at oven temperatures higher than 350 degrees. The cracking in & of itself is dangerous enough but there is also the possibility of the interior materials (most likely made with poisonous products) seeping through the tiniest of cracks & into our cooked food.
…Now, I’m just waiting for our recycling center to post a day for accepting this kind of…garbage.