Make Way, Pyrex: The Beautiful Antique Plate Pattern We'd Be Thrilled To Find

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Collecting Pyrex bowls and casserole dishes may be popular among vintage dishware enthusiasts, but there are other secondhand dishes that can be just as fun to hunt for and collect. Plus, colorful mid-century modern patterns are certainly fun, but they won't blend perfectly with everyone's decor. When you're perusing the shelves of your thrift store or the tables of an estate sale, keep your eye out for distinctive dishes that are not Pyrex. If you're very lucky, you might find Meissen Blue Onion dishware — one of the high-demand dishware patterns to find at a thrift store. For use in our own homes or for reselling to net a tidy profit, we'd be thrilled to find this pattern, and we bet you'll feel the same.

Meissen is one of the brand names you won't want to ignore on thrift store plates. Both a place name and dishware manufacturer, Meissen has produced fine porcelain since the early 1700s in the Saxony region of what's now known as Germany. The Blue Onion pattern was created around 1730 and was influenced by Chinese design. The dishware collection that bears this distinctive motif in cobalt blue includes a variety of dish types, including plates, platters, trays, handled serving dishes, salt cellars, and gravy dishes. The Blue Onion pattern was one of the brand's most popular patterns and still is, with the Meissen company continuing to produce this famous design today.

You'll recognize this pattern if you see a bamboo and floral design on the inside of a plate, combined with melons and peaches on the dish's rim. Since the pattern was a stylized version of a pre-existing Chinese design, some of the elements were misinterpreted by the first European owners of this pattern — the fruit was mistaken for onions. In addition to looking for design elements such as these in the pattern, another way to spot valuable Blue Onion plates by Meissen is to look for a pair of cobalt blue crossed swords on the bottoms of the dishes. This trademark is painted on and appears under the porcelain's glaze.

Since some of these pieces of dishware are centuries old, you probably won't expect to find true antique Blue Onion dishes priced for mere dollars at your local thrift store. That said, you may still be able to find some true antiques, or at least vintage versions of this design since the Blue Onion pattern has been produced for so many years.

Most collectors of this porcelain will be more likely to obtain Meissen Blue Onion dishes through online resellers, so if you do nab some bargains and don't want to keep the dishes for yourself, you can always try reselling them. Meissen is one of the valuable brands of vintage porcelain that are worth looking out for — antique dinner plates with the Blue Onion pattern have sold on eBay for $200 for a set of four. Meanwhile, a full dinner service set with this design was auctioned off in 2014 at a starting price of $7,000, and some sets have sold for over $10,000.