Pyrex Butter Dishes

​Corning introduced its distinctive style butter dish in the fall of 1960 when it added a butter dish to the Butterprint product line. For the next 25 years, the company offered the dish in a variety opal patterns, clear glass, and amber glass to match its Fireside line.

Box for Butterfly Gold butter dish.

Packaging for Old Town Blue butter dish, marketed as "Pyrex Compatibles."

​The base of the butter dish typically includes the same information on the back stamp: “Trade Mark, PYREX, Made in U.S.A., Ovenware” along with the model number (72-B) and mold number. The lid of the dish is unmarked, but replacement parts lists reveal the model number for the lid was 72-C. The suffix “-B” stood for “base” while “-C” was the cover.
 
The longest running patterns available on Corning’s butter dishes were Spring Blossom Green, Butterfly Gold, and Old Town Blue. All three were offered for over a decade from 1972 through 1983. The shortest-lived standard pattern was Snowflake Blue available from 1972 through 1975. 

​​​Two butter dishes are particularly hard to find. Corning tested the Sandalwood pattern on a butter dish, but only a few prototypes were produced. The other elusive butter dish is plain opal. The opal butter dish is not listed in Pyrex catalogs and appears to have been offered exclusively through a promotion with Kraft Parkay margarine in 1980. An advertisement for the opal butter dish, marketed as “Winter Frost White,” appears in the April 1, 1980 edition of Woman’s Day magazine (pg. 131).

​In mid-1983, Corning introduced the butter dish in amber glass to match its Fireside product line followed by the clear butter dish from mid-1986 through 1989.

Butter Dish Timeline

Butterprint  (Fall 1960-1968)
Advertised as a “Serve ‘N Store Butter Dish.”


Sandalwood (ca 1961-1962)
Prototype design. Never put into full production.


Spring Blossom Green (1972-1983)
The butter dish spanned both versions of the Spring Blossom Green bake ware pattern and outlived the bake ware by two years.


Snowflake Blue (1972-1975)
Released as a “Pyrex Compatible” to match Corelle Livingware of the same name.

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Butterfly Gold (1972-1983)
Like Spring Blossom Green, the Butterfly Gold butter dish spanned both versions of the bake ware pattern and outlived the bake ware by two years.

​ Old Town Blue (1974-1983)
Released as a “Pyrex Compatible” to match Corelle Livingware of the same name.


Woodland (mid-1978-1983)
Released as “Pyrex Tabletop Ware” to match the Corelle Livingware Woodland Brown pattern.


Winter Frost White (Opal) (1980) 
Available exclusively through a promotion with Parkay margarine.


Autumn Harvest (1979-1983)
Released as “Pyrex Tabletop Ware” to match Pyrex bake ware of the same name.


Fireside (fall 1983-fall 1985) 
Offered to match Fireside bake ware. (Not shown.)

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Clear (fall 1986-1989)
The clear butter dish was the last Pyrex butter dish released in the familiar style.