Take a deep breath.
Clear your head.
This is going to be one of those things.
Let's start with a happy new year to everyone! Most people get a little lull after the first of the year. We're into the third week of January and we're just now wrapping up all of our post-holiday sale shipping. The sheer volume of orders coupled with the fact that heavy rains here in Southern California took out most of our phone service and all of our internet connection at the factory and we've had a heck of a 2011 so far.
Now let's get to the exciting and confusing news. We've got a new item to introduce to you. Actually, it's not a new item in that it's both a vintage Bauer design as well as a piece we've been selling for several years now. Plus, it's not just one item but six.
We're very happy to finally launch* the Bauer Classic Style Mixing Bowl set on our web site. As you may know, we've been selling four sizes of what have been alternately called "Mixing Bowls," "Nested Mixing Bowls" or "Nesting Bowls." We will continue to make and sell this style, which going forward will be called "Bauer 2000 Mixing Bowls." They will continue to be available in the four sizes (7, 8, 9 & 10 inch) and 15 colors.
Bauer Classic Style Mixing Bowls: #9 Bauer Yellow, #12 Bauer Orange, #18 Turquoise, #24 Federal Blue
Bauer 2000 Mixing Bowls: 10" French Blue, 9" Lime Green, 8" Midnight Blue, 7" Chartreuse
The "new" set of bowls will be called the "Bauer Classic Style Mixing Bowls." This set will be available in six sizes and 15 colors. The Classic Style Bowl sizes are distinguished by numbers on the underside of each bowl. The larger the number the smaller the bowl, thus the #30 bowl is the smallest, and they continue up through #24, #18, #12, #9 with #6 as the largest. The middle four bowls (#24, #18, #12 & #9) are essentially same size as the four pieces in Bauer 2000 set of bowls.
Why are we causing all of this confusion? Well, when we started reproducing the mixing bowl set, the models were not as exact a reproduction of the ringware bowl set as we had hoped. Regardless of how we felt about them, they were still very popular. The Sundance catalog featured them for several years and we still sell many of them every month.
While the original bowls were flying off the shelves, we went back to the drawing board, or rather our model-maker's table, and made a new set of mixing bowls. These bowls reproduced the vintage bowls much more accurately. The rings were thicker, the rim was less flared out and the overall shape was more round and full. Both sets are lovely and most people can't really see much of a difference until they're side by side and we point out them out.
The easiest way to distinguish between the two styles is to turn one over and look at the bottom mark. A Bauer 2000 bowl reads "BAUER POTTERY LOS ANGELES" around the outside with "2000" stamped across the middle. A Classic Style bowl reads "BAUER POTTERY USA" round the ring and is also stamped with a "2000" across the middle, but below the "2000" is the size of the bowl: 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 or 30.
Bauer 2000 Mixing Bowl bottom mark
Bauer Classic Style Mixing Bowl bottom mark
So, why keep the first set of bowls if the second version is a more accurate reproduction? There are a couple reasons. The first being that a lot of people bought the Bauer 2000 set and sometimes want to add to their set or replace a broken or lost piece. We'd hate to leave all those people with no recourse but to buy a whole new set of bowls. Second, the pieces in the two sets cannot be mixed with one another and still nest properly. A Classic #12 does not sit properly inside a Bauer 2000 10 inch bowl and so forth.
Hopefully, this clarifies rather than confuses the situation. We are very excited to finally make these bowls more widely available. Please feel free to give us a call or send email with any questions you might have about our nested mixing bowls.
To shop for either style of Nested Mixing Bowl, click here now.
*Extra points to those who noticed that the Classic Style Bowls have been the header image for the Bauer blog since it launched.
