[HN Gopher] Pyrex catalog from from 1938 with hand-drawn lab gla...
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Pyrex catalog from from 1938 with hand-drawn lab glassware [pdf]
Author : speckx
Score : 239 points
Date : 2025-10-27 15:04 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (exhibitdb.cmog.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (exhibitdb.cmog.org)
| bayindirh wrote:
| _Beautiful._
|
| I believe it's interesting that these kinds of intricate, hand
| made objects float to the front page of the HN while at the same
| time many people glorify how AI can handle these jobs and can do
| an "arguably better job" in less time.
|
| It's evident that these hand-drawn diagrams or any artifact with
| high levels of human effort (for lack of a better term) contains
| something we lost in today's world.
|
| Maybe we should reflect upon that, _a bit_.
| tokai wrote:
| The quality of layouting and print publications dropped off
| long long before AI slop became a thing. Already in the 80s it
| was mostly lost.
| amonroe805-2 wrote:
| My heuristic is that quality is largely a function of human
| attention during creation. The transition to digital
| layouting etc meant less human attention could be spent on it
| while still achieving "acceptable" results, and so market
| dynamics ensured that less attention was spent on those
| tasks, lowering quality.
|
| Whether or not you personally would make this cost/quality
| tradeoff comes down to the individual, but to me it is also
| quite clear that something was lost in the transition.
| data-ottawa wrote:
| I think another thing is a lot of modern stuff is under
| thought, either in trying to be overly broad or just
| misunderstanding the user.
|
| Google Shopping is an example. It has enforced opinions
| about what a product looks like, so you have to force a
| square peg through a round hole.
|
| They've got a lot of stuff about pricing and loyalty and
| quantities, but if you dig into tons of categories they
| have almost nothing that represents the real categories
| sellers and buyers care about.
|
| Look at the collectibles category. If you sell Pokemon
| cards and collectibles there is zero merchandising info
| that actually matches your products or how they're sold.
|
| That means your analytics, automatic listings, ads, etc.
| are too generic for your customers. All your automated
| stuff is going to come through wrong.
|
| Meanwhile niche and deep sellers who avoid that forced
| genericisation, like McMaster-Carr[1] can have these
| incredibly valuable, useful, and compelling catalogs.
|
| I'd say that deep user knowledge is why Aperture had such a
| strong fan base too.
|
| I struggle with this buying from Lee Valley. Their caralogs
| are fantastic, but I have trouble finding things on their
| website.
|
| This turned into a rant, but maybe a TL;DR is a lot of
| modern software has no skin in the game of specialization,
| and so they inadvertently limit these experiences.
|
| [1] mcmaster.com
| cnity wrote:
| Totally agreed. And as the sibling comment points out, it
| started before AI slop became a thing. I think it's because
| technological progress in typesetting means you don't have to
| "care" as much (it is automatic). Of course as a result, this
| means modern typesetting is "careless".
|
| Extend this metaphor however you please.
| 91bananas wrote:
| I definitely get this often vibe that: somewhat comparable
| things that take a lot more time often end up a lot better than
| things that take less time. It's like that commitment you make
| when you're doing something like this, the amount of effort,
| care and focus that must be exhibited to finish something like
| this document.
|
| We should definitely reflect on that a lot.
| bawolff wrote:
| This is also a catalouge to sell products in an era where
| producing them is expensive and you can't easily change it
| after the fact.
|
| Its quite a different situation compared to your average
| clickbait.
|
| People are more careful when you really only have one shot to
| make a good impression and you can't (cheaply) redo stuff if
| you mess it up.
| ian-g wrote:
| Ironically with glass itself, it's the ones that take less
| time that tend to be better.
|
| Especially any borosilicate glass with a hard edge
| srmatto wrote:
| I had the same thought but I also wonder if these highly
| trained illustrators were happy with making corporate
| renderings or if they had imagined themselves working in a more
| creative capacity?
|
| I also don't think its gone. We still have great illustrators
| but someone somewhere has to decide to use illustrations
| instead of a photo, CGI, or something else and then they have
| to pay the premium for that service.
| iamtedd wrote:
| Who says they're not also being more creative elsewhere?
|
| Plus wouldn't it be a sense of creative pride knowing that
| you can create an illustration that perfectly depicts
| refraction through glass, such that people find it hard to
| differentiate it from a photo? (which did exist in 1938)
|
| To you second paragraph, the output of a CAD model is often
| used for line art of a product, and sometimes for an
| illustrated parts breakdown.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| As a consumer, it is important to note that `pyrex` and `PYREX`
| are not the same thing [0]:
|
| "Corning used borosilicate to produce all Pyrex products.
| However, the company that purchased the cookware products
| switched to soda-lime glass, adopting the name pyrex (spelled
| with all lowercase letters).
|
| Corning continued to make its lab tools with borosilicate,
| dubbing these products to be PYREX (spelled with all uppercase
| letters)."
|
| All of the glass examples in TFA are borosilicate all-caps PYREX,
| while most of what you can buy today in the store is lowercase
| pyrex (Europe is an exception where the all-caps variety can be
| found).
|
| 0: https://www.corning.com/worldwide/en/products/life-
| sciences/...
| aj_hackman wrote:
| Not to be confused with Pyrex, which has been forked into
| Cython.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| Its worth noting that in Europe borosilicate PYREX cookware
| continues to be made and sold.
|
| - https://pyrex.co.uk/pages/a-unique-glass
|
| - https://pyrexhome.com/
|
| It is a source of some annoyance that lowercase pyrex infects
| the market via imports.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Actually as a "consumer" you shouldn't know the difference,
| you'll be a better "consumer" that way.
|
| As an informed human being who happens to buy things from time
| to time you should definitely know the difference though.
| electroly wrote:
| OXO sells borosilicate glass bakeware if you're looking for an
| alternative in America. The original PYREX is available for
| Europeans.
| wyclif wrote:
| Where can you buy uppercase PYREX today in America?
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| second hand stores where i find them.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Where can you buy uppercase PYREX today in America?_
|
| Uppercase is no guarantee:
|
| * https://libanswers.cmog.org/faq/398431
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DKasz4xFC0
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _All of the glass examples in TFA are borosilicate all-caps
| PYREX, while most of what you can buy today in the store is
| lowercase pyrex (Europe is an exception where the all-caps
| variety can be found)._
|
| Using all-lower or all-upper case is _not_ a good indication of
| the type of glass used.
|
| A recent video (Sep 2025) from the _I Want to Cook_ channel,
| "PYREX vs pyrex -- What's The Difference & Why It Matters",
| went into the history of this:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DKasz4xFC0
|
| Specifically, he found the following at the Corning Museum of
| Glass site:
|
| > _The short answer is that the change from Pyrex trademark
| upper to lower case signified a re-branding of the trademark
| Pyrex(r) in the late 1970s but is not a conclusive way to
| determine, historically, what type of glass formulation the
| product is made from._
|
| * https://libanswers.cmog.org/faq/398431
|
| So if someone goes to thrift stores looking for borosilicate
| via the 'old way' of spelling the name, there is no guarantee
| it will be borosilicate.
|
| See 16m11 of the video for advice if you want borosilicate
| glass: in Europe, it is all borosilicate; in US, import it
| yourself, look for "Made in France", or use another
| manufacturer (e.g., Oxo names the glass they use).
| somat wrote:
| I regard this as a prime example of customer betrayal. The
| company set up the brand to promote a specific
| product(borosilicate glass cookware) After many years of this
| specific promotion, to the point the pyrex was interchangeable
| with borosilicate glass in customers minds. That brand stopped
| being made of borosilicate glass resulting in a product that
| looked exactly the same but with distinctly different
| mechanical properties.
|
| Final thoughts: I don't think PYREX vs pyrex painted on is
| enough of a differentiator and my understanding(as the parent
| post pointed out) both types of glass are used with the
| lowercase trademark. I think glass cookware should have a
| standardized indicator stamped into the glass itself as it is
| very tricky to tell otherwise.
|
| There is the mineral oil IOR test, but... the IOR ranges of the
| two glass formula actually overlap so it is very tricky to tell
| for sure. There is the heat shock test, but... that will
| destroy the item if it is tempered glass. I suspect you could
| use a polarized light test to identify if it is tempered glass.
| but none if the threads I have read on the subject have
| mentioned it probably because it requires specialized
| equipment.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| I've seen the new pyrex in stores and it's readily apparent
| just how green it is. My old pyrex is clear. But apparently
| that has nothing to do with the type glass used, both kinds
| can be green.
| MerrimanInd wrote:
| My roommate in college worked at GE's Global Research lab in
| Schenectady. As a bit of a relic from the heyday of US corporate
| research they still had an in-house glassblowing department for
| producing all the necessary glassware for all the labs and
| chemical/material research!
| mattkrause wrote:
| This is surprisingly common at big research universities! My
| classmate even managed to take a course on glassblowing--and
| have it count for her PhD!
| pumnikol wrote:
| Probably more for repairing than producing, in my experience.
| That stuff's expensive and breaks easily. An old lab joke:
| Which daily sound scares a chemist the most? - Krk.
| coreyp_1 wrote:
| I love the hand-drawn illustrations, but I really love the
| typography.
|
| Does anyone know which fonts (or, probably more importantly,
| which modern-day equivalents) are used to get this feeling?
| landl0rd wrote:
| It's not precisely the same but you may enjoy Berkeley Mono:
| https://neil.computer/notes/introducing-berkeley-mono/
|
| I enjoy using it for reading and writing code.
| graypegg wrote:
| For the body copy, I think it's a version of Rockwell. [0] It
| fits the time, as well as the lower case "g" always looks
| quirky to me in rockwell-flavours. Stubby tail + serif on top.
| The heft on the headings also matches Rockwell Extra Bold with
| a couple tiny variations. Plus, just simply... slab serifs.
|
| Things working against that are:
|
| - % is wrong. That really looks like a different typeface all
| together. Not unheard of, might be worth seeing if it matches
| any other monotype fonts.
|
| - Bolded headings have some differences. Rockwell Extra Bold
| should still have circular tittles, but unless it's a scanning
| artifact, the few lowercase "i" examples I can find in those
| headings seem to be square.
|
| - The Rockwell favour in the tables is tweaked, with no
| descenders and uses tabular digits. This is pretty common, but
| the digital copies of Rockwell I have laying around don't have
| those exact forms... doesn't really say much when we're talking
| about what specific hot-metal type casts did monotype sell them
| 90-odd years ago.
|
| ---
|
| On the title pages (like page 13), my best guess is Memphis.
| [1] The R is wrong for Rockwell, but also the lower a in
| "Brand" is totally wrong for Memphis, and the quote is totally
| different. Going to take lunch, and possibly come back to this
| in a bit because now I'm intrigued haha.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_(typeface) [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_(typeface)
| graypegg wrote:
| Comment got deleted, but Gallatin isn't the title page font.
| That was a digital font released in 2019, which is meant to
| look like Memphis with a two storey a.
| https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/128627/gallatin
|
| That does mention that Linotype had a Memphis flavour with a
| two-storey "a" though... so maaaaaybe it is Memphis! Most
| likely their Rockwell typeface was also supplied from
| Linotype in that case, probably under a different name.
| munificent wrote:
| Agreed, the design is really strikingly beautiful.
|
| The typography is part of this, but I suspect you may also be
| undervaluing how much the overall _design_ contributes here.
| The layout, use of whitespace, use of different fonts and sizes
| to convey hierarchy. It 's just really good design made with
| care and attention by a skilled practitioner.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Old tool catalogs have similarly great illustrations
|
| https://archive.org/details/stanley-catalogue-34-1929/page/6...
| georgefrowny wrote:
| Machine tool manuals too: https://motolab.ru/SIP%20MP-1/
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| I raise you a Whole Earth Catalog - Fall '69:
|
| https://archive.org/details/wholeearthcatalo00unse_7/page/62...
|
| Where and when else could you mail $1 to Rolling Stone's
| original hq and have them send you a longer Bob Dylan
| interview, and then on the opposite side, the publisher reveals
| their costs?
|
| https://archive.org/details/wholeearthcatalo00unse_7/page/12...
| yapyap wrote:
| What a treat to see hand drawn stuff in the days of AI slop.
|
| You don't know what you have untill you lose it.
| tokai wrote:
| 1120 looks suspiciously like a beer glass.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Most of the people in my college dorm drank beer from various
| sizes and shapes of pilfered labware.
|
| To me, they all look like valid beer vessels.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| If it fits I sips
| cnity wrote:
| At 250ml it's not far off a half pint.
| b33j0r wrote:
| Can anyone explain the concept of "oddly satisfying" in this
| context? These drawings are like... cozy or something. Is it
| nostalgia that I'm feeling?
| layer8 wrote:
| I don't think it's nostalgia, skillful hand drawings are just
| nice.
| pugworthy wrote:
| I recall seeing similar glassware illustrations in catalogs from
| the 70's?
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Yes, I would not be surprised to find most of these drawings
| were direct reproductions of the original art from when each
| particular item first became available. Some dating back from
| decades earlier, others not so much since they all didn't exist
| that many years earlier.
|
| >Within its 128 pages will be found 2353 individual items, 737
| of which have not been listed previously. From the many
| advances made in the field of glass laboratory apparatus during
| the past few years, we have attempted to select for listing in
| this catalog those items of proven worth, and for which there
| is a definite demand on the part of chemists.
|
| A lot of the same PYREX items used for routine lab testing
| today are also identical to the ones in this book.
|
| At Florida the original Chemistry Building was from 1917 and
| when I got there in the early 1970's the full glassblowing
| department was still there from when most of the specialized
| items were not available commercially.
|
| Plus research always needs custom work.
|
| Starting my career I always had big old kilo-sized hard-bound
| catalogs from suppliers of more generalized apparatus, in
| addition to being PYREX dealers, where plenty of the random
| illustrations were the same decades-old original art. And that
| was well into the 1990's.
|
| It was just not that unusual for art like this to remain
| unchanged for decades.
|
| In the early 1970's the UF labs themselves had never been
| rebuilt since original construction [0], no air conditioning of
| course, and as a freshman there were still quite a few pieces
| of glassware having the old logo about this age or older. Right
| in some of the drawers of each undergrad's PYREX, stocked for
| that semester's "experiments".
|
| The old logo is basically exactly as shown on the cover of this
| catalog, as that baked green colored circle containing fine
| print around PYREX, strongly marked onto the glass.
|
| I would estimate about 10% or more had survived for decades
| under assault by butterfingered freshmen without breakage.
| Anecdotal statistics tell me that a sizable percentage of those
| had been dropped more than once, and survived. IOW, they
| bounced :) Overcame the same type impact that had destroyed
| many of their less-robust brethren.
|
| Last but not least:
|
| >Type 930 Tubing "CORNING" Brand Electrode Glass No. 015
| (Mclnnis & Dole)
|
| >Furnished in tubing form with a wall thickness of about 0.5 to
| 1.2 mm, depending on diameter, and in 3 foot lengths. Of proper
| composition for use in the fabrication of thin glass membranes
| for measuring the hydrogen-ion activity or pH. Reference: The
| Determination of Hydrogen-ions, W. M. Clark, William and
| Wilkens, Baltimore, 1928; Industrial and Engineering Chemistry,
| Analytical Edition 37 (1929); Journal of the American Chemical
| Society, 53 , 4260 (1931); Public Health Reports, Vol. 45, No.
| 38, Sept. 19, 1930.
|
| >Since " CORNING " Brand No. 015 Glass is not a stable glass ,
| it has a tendency to deteriorate when stored. For this reason
| it is advisable to purchase this particular glass only in such
| quantities as are required for current needs.
|
| By the following year (1939) Beckman would commercialize his
| first instrument, a pH meter, ushering in the era of electronic
| pH meters using glass electrodes where the glass itself is the
| high-impedance electrochemical contact.
|
| [0] Remodeling was long overdue after fifty years, even the
| stairs in the stairwell were halfway worn out. There was an
| excellent new building right adjacent to it though :)
|
| Edit: Not my downvote, btw, corrective upvote instead :0
| supernova87a wrote:
| It is mind blowing to see the prices of the complex spiral
| distillation condensers at $5-10 each.
|
| Today these are like $300 at least, and I'm guessing they cannot
| be made in the USA. (I would be glad to be wrong)
|
| edit: ok with inflation from 1938 it's not so incomparable. But
| still.
| brulard wrote:
| In 2025 dollars that is around $230.
| ian-g wrote:
| Assuming you aren't looking for an exact millimeter-for-
| millimeter version of the spiral condenser, I bet you could
| find someone to make it in the US quite easily.
|
| It's still one of the major glassblowing countries. In fact, if
| you remember when folks were worried about those two quartz
| mines in Spruce Pine, NC that are the only place with pure
| enough quartz for chips? That's also the home of Spruce Pine
| Batch, one of the big glass suppliers in America.
| wyclif wrote:
| I almost didn't click through to the catalog, but boy am I glad I
| did! Some of those drawings are so aesthetically pleasing.
| strictnein wrote:
| I've always wondered: is there a term for the process that
| brought those hand drawings into a printable form like that which
| then enabled it to be mass produced? I understand how it can be
| done with computers and scanners, but I've struggled finding what
| tech/process was used back in the day.
| ThePointed wrote:
| Lithography is the general term. There are numerous methods
| depending on the desired result, for instance using an offset
| can produce full colors pressing one at a time.
|
| https://gallery.lib.umn.edu/exhibits/show/pre-separated-art/...
| bri3d wrote:
| Lithography, usually - still widely in use today. Drawings were
| made or transferred to an etchable surface (initially
| limestone, then metal) using an etch-resistant substance. Then
| etching agent (acid, usually) was applied to the surface.
| Everything was washed and voila, a plate was produced which had
| a positive image which could be inked and pressed just like
| letters. By 1938, offset printing might have been employed,
| which is basically the same thing but with a rubber drum as an
| intermediary between the plate and the paper.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Nice, page 13 has the 'standard' chemical labels which happened
| to also be the contents of a 'standard' chemistry set (minus a
| couple for me, like no concentrated sulphuric acid and only
| dilute nitric acid.)
|
| One of the things that has always impressed me was mid 20th
| century laboratory equipment, lots of clever ways to achieve the
| required accuracy.
| robk wrote:
| After college I got a Pyrex 5L erlenmeyer flask as a wine
| decanter and it's served me well two and a half decades later.
| Always a fun topic when people see it for the first time.
| mNovak wrote:
| I got a set of 25ml Erlenmeyer flasks to use as shot glasses.
| Also fun, and with the bonus feature that if you can't pour
| into the very narrow neck, you probably don't need a shot.
| NoSalt wrote:
| Beautiful drawings like this are a lost art.
| jmonty900 wrote:
| It's not lost. People can draw like this today. It's just that
| nobody wants to pay for it.
| nickgray wrote:
| This catalog is by Corning. Randomly, they have an absolutely
| incredible museum called The Corning Museum of Glass
| https://home.cmog.org/ located about 5 hours drive from New York
| City.
| ian-g wrote:
| You might notice that this link isn't from Corning. It's from
| the Corning Museum of Glass' excellent library
| gwbas1c wrote:
| 1300 and 1320 look like drug paraphernalia.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| My new theory, developing for a while, is that as technology
| makes things easier, the perceived average quality goes down over
| time. I've yet to fully understand the factors that drive this
| trend, but feel certain AI will put it in overdrive! I'm not a
| luddite or hater actually - but this trend is pretty apparent...
| gjvc wrote:
| Pyrex != PYREX
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(page generated 2025-10-27 23:00 UTC)