Join the Discussion "I need help identifying 4 green glass mixing bowls. They are from 1937 or 38. One of [my roommate's mother's] relatives bought her a new set of mixing bowls so she would stop using these!" Jenny

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People buy potato mashers. People buy ice cream scoops. And even more people buy old tin cookie cutters.

For some, simply buying them isn't enough. They want to display them, discuss them and amass hordes of whatever turns their crank. And I mean that literally in the case of eggbeater collectors.

You're getting the gist of this by now. Kitchen gadgets, even olive forks and those little doodads used to make melon balls, have a place in the heart of a collector out there somewhere.

Some folks look for thingamajigs with wooden handles painted red or green. Bakelite (a popular type of 1930s plastic) devotees scour flea markets and antique shops for various utensils with handles in the usual colors of red or butterscotch yellow. Cookie cutter fans try to find the most unique shapes and extra large or small sizes.

Yes, you can find all these useful tools in dozens of styles, colors and handle varieties. But are any of them really worth a dime?

You bet. Cookie cutters range in price from $40-1,550 in Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price List for 2001. Most of those included in the guide date back a lot farther than examples you've got hiding around the house. Or, they're oddly shaped, like Abraham Lincoln or a moose with extra large antlers. But most any tin cookie cutter holds some value; even it's just a few dollars. Examples with little painted wooden handles bring a little more money than those without, even in ordinary shapes.

Potato mashers with red and cream handles and stainless steel implements go for about $10, but I bet that's more than you thought they'd fetch in the right market. Even a metal tea strainer with green handle can bring $20 in some cases. Old ice cream scoops, especially examples marked by the makers and unusual shapes, can sell for more than $500 apiece.

In other words, if your gizmo's used in the kitchen and made in a style that's not readily sold in retail stores today, it's considered collectible. If you happen to dig around and find some things that turn out to be appealing in a vintage way, it might pay to check them out a little further before tossing them in the thrift store bin.

Of course, you can always hang on to your things and add a few more to them as you forage through gadgets offered for sale at local garage sales and resale shops. It's fun, and for most items you'll run across, affordable too.

So you go ahead and accumulate 100 potato mashers, what now? Hang them on the wall or line them up on shelves around the top of your kitchen grouped according to the color of the handle or the shape of the mashing tool. See how many different combinations you can run across before you start hitting duplicates over and over again.

And what about all those cookie cutters in different shapes and sizes? Put them in a big glass jar on the counter so you can see the unique shapes. For a little festivity, you can also tie a thin ribbon on each cutter and make an instant ornament. Combined with child-size items like rolling pins, they look adorable on a small Christmas tree decorating a quaint kitchen corner.

Not willing to retire your culinary tools at this juncture? Simply hang on to your collectibles and continue to use them. Being quite durable, your favorite kitchen implements will likely be around for the next generation of collectors even if you're not quite ready to put them to rest just yet.

Photo by Pamela Wiggins

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