~ Welcome to the National Bread Museum's Treasure Hunt😃 ~

Trail of Treasures - 2026

Southeast Nebraska Byway 136 - Heritage Highway

The day began in a huge hall with dozens of tables.  It took a while to seek & find.

Fundraising Cookbooks for a Cause

When I left this 1st stop, I realized I had already spent at least 45 minutes.  Most of it pertained to the following cookbooks.  There was a table with 80, what are generally known as fundraising, "community" cookbooks, many "spiral bound."  Curiosity piqued, & I did a Google search with, "When did spiral bound, community cookbooks begin?"  Do that & you'll have the history since the "fundraising" idea in the Civil War (1864), then the "spiral, spring-coil" invented in 1932-34, & the specific plastic, book-binding coil, sometime around mid-century. 

For the past 2.5 years, I've been buying many of these when found, usually $1 or less, for historical preservation in order to  document the COOKBOOK CULTURE history timeline section on this website.  You can see the intro page in the link in LIBRARY in the MENU.

Now here before me were 80 of all sorts of women's & community organizations & towns throughout Nebraska & beyond, at $1 each.  It would be a bit of a $$$ layout for my 1st stop of the day!  At some thrift shops near home, & sometimes when a shop just wants to get rid of the 100s of all sorts of cookbooks in their place, I can buy at 3-4-5 for $1.  I made the offer of 4/$1, but it was just the beginning of a 3-day sale.  This man DID offer all at half-price, but my other dilemma is getting short on storage space.  At home I was still in the process of cataloguing & photographing last month's buy of 168 cookbooks (at 4/$1) from a place out in the country -- a ways away from "big city life & higher prices!!"  And this is all in the name of wanting to preserve & document our ancestral grandmothers' home baking history through the 1850-1999 era (on this website & hoping this museum gets on the land).  But I also had to remind myself that I don't need every one under the sun!  So in reality, I had to let all those books behind, & just choose 5 for specific history-timeline reasons🙂. 

BELOW:  Westinghouse, (c. 1917-18), came about at the beginning of WWI, & made kitchen appliances, along with a cookbook as a textbook.  What we usually refer to today, as a stove, was often called a range 100 years ago, mainly because the homemaker could accomplish a "range" of duties with it.  In the photo you'll see the 4 burners on the right half, and a "stove top" (work area) on the left half above the oven.  In the right-hand photo you'll see that the upper right burner is a hollow core which could be used interchangeably for several jobs . . . a burner or a deep fryer or a steamer!  (P.S.  On T.V. from 1949-1960, Betty Furness was the Westinghouse advertising spokesperson.)  

Each of the 50 states has specific identities . . . one of them being its nickname.  And so it is with Nebraska as the "Cornhusker State" since 1900.  This book was made as a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society, Nebraska Division.  It was sold new for $6 + $2 postage.

1954 Red Star Yeast; 1-fold; 2.75" x 3.25"; 3 recipes  ~ ~ ~ This is an example of a small flier that was distributed in some fashion for Red Star Yeast.  It was tucked inside the pages of one of the above old cookbooks.

One of the garage sale vendors mentioned that I shouldn't miss their Thrift Shop because they have good prices, & it was worth the 10-minute stop👍.

BELOW ~ 1957 - Betty Crocker's Cookie Carnival, General Mills, Gold Medal Flour;  6.5" x 9.5";  38 pages; $2.50
(It says the recipes are from the famous BC's Picture Cook Book.),
**The last 2 photos are the back cover of a KC Baking Powder cookbook; Chicago 16, Ill; Index of 32 pages.

~ two tins ~

For a relative's Coca Cola collection above & below - - - just some of the more unique pieces because I've already passed up quite a few tins & everything else "Coca Cola" under the sun at some garage sales!!!  

1st several garage sale stops  . . .  an item here  . . .  an item there!

BELOW:  odd items!  AI says the 1st wire item is an old-time potato masher, and I don't buy that!  I need help from people "pre-1950-60" who grew up with their mom & grandma using this for its intended purpose.
Next is a "Muffin Splitter" of all things!  It says so on the handle.  Research said for English Muffins.  Made in Hong Kong, 3x6".  The owl cookie cutter, 2.5x3.5" seems as if it would cut a lot of the cookie apart.  50c for the 3.

Radio Station Cookbooks  
The price said 3/$1, but I made a 4-for-$1 offer to buy all but 2 (dups), & the lady said, "Why not😉?"  These are all various years by two Nebraska radio stations:  KFOR out of Lincoln (1992-2014), & KWBE-KUTT-KGMT of Fairbury & Beatrice (2010-2023).  All of these recipes are the ones that people have made for most of the last 100 years.  They're the same that are in the "spiral bound, community fundraising cookbooks."  They are tried, true, and tested . . . the best, and with the contributor's name to say so❣ 

Janssen ~ #1 ~ American Legion Hall

This turned out to be my biggest "haul" of the day with a $35 spending spree!   AND the most expensive item of the day was here ~ the PY-O-MY PASTRY MIX baking pan.  (Click to enlarge photos in a row.)    

BELOW:  The pressed tin baking pan says "FREE 49c PAN WITH YOUR INITIAL PURCHASE OF NEW PY-O-MY PASTRY MIX."  Online accounts say that Louis Weinberg, Jr. began the PY-O-MY company in 1947, although his pastry mix product began in 1936.  After his death in 1967, his son sold the company to Gilster Milling - a flour company.  9.75"x13.75"x.58";  $11  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

I am making these photos extra large so you can get a good look at this contraption!  It is solid iron & quite heavy, all for Grandma to core and peel apples!  My goodness!!  It clamps on the edge of the cupboard counter or a table.  It still turns perfectly, given its age, but I have not tried to actually use it. ~ Patented 1898.  8"wide x 9.5" T.  $8

You might enjoy this info:  https://appleparermuseum.com/GalleyTurntableC.htm

(1) Wishing I had a plate lifter for an old wood stove, I was happy at just having found one in Janssen for $1.  Now, all of a sudden, here were 3 more, also $1 each, & all different. 
(2) Deshler is a town west of where I began the garage sales this day. 
(3) This man had loads of boxes priced at $1-2-3 -- just about every old tool you'd want!  This assortment - $1.  This was my kind of place because he's out in the country towns, goes to auctions, & I know that many times you can get hoards of "boxes of stuff" at those auctions for a few bucks.  Everyone who wants or has to get rid of a lifetime of accumulations, is just hoping to find the next one to hold on to & possibly use a piece of history for another couple of generations vs. it going to the dump.

AN OLD TEA TIN

What a treasure of a tea tin!  Here I bought one a few years ago "online" for the Tins of Taste Museum.  Someday I'll come across what I paid for it & think of this duplicate for $1 😊.  On the bottom it says:  PERFECTION TEA CAN  - PATENTED IN THE UNITED STATES, ... GREAT BRITAIN, ... GERMANY, ... FRANCE, ...ETC.  3.38"sq x 7.75"T  
(TTM# 4705)

$1  -  $2  -  $3  -  Boxes of some amazing old magazines  ~  first are 1913 & 1915 Czech calendars  ~
Nebraska has a large concentration of Czech ancestry in the towns of Wilbur (recognized by the U.S. Congress as the Czech Capital of the U.S.), Schuyler, Prague, Clarkson, Verdigre, and the Little Bohemia area of Omaha.