About eight years ago, Deborah Glassman-Gretano, 64, and a former Tupperware Lady, purchased a butter churn from the company for her home in Florida.
Glassman-Gretano, who splits her time between Brooklyn and Sunshine State, has a big collection of Tupperware from the Eighties when she sold iconic food storage containers, but the butter dish was an exception.
“It doesn’t snap shut, so I never use it,” said Glassman-Gretano, an artist, wife, and mother. “I feel possibly that is why Tupperware will shut down.”
Earlier this month, the Orlando-based company announced in a regulatory filing that there have been “serious doubts about the company’s ability to proceed as a going concern.”
Launched in 1946, Tupperware was the brainchild of chemist Earl Tupper, whose airtight design was inspired by paint cans. The brand quickly became widely known.
In the late Forties, Detroit single mom Brownie Sensible began holding meetings to sell Tupperware, inspiring other women to do the same.
The Tupperware Ladies and Tupperware Party became an icon of mid-century suburban life and an early type of multi-level marketing.
![Brownie Wise (left) throws a bowl filled with water at a Tupperware party in the 1950s.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009617866.jpg?w=1024)
![Earl Tupper](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009622668.jpg?w=1024)
In the a long time that followed, many other brands entered the airtight container market. Tupperware enthusiasts love the brand dearly, but admit that its best years are in the past. (Tupperware has not offered commentary on this piece.)
“[I] rarely trades in newer merchandise,” said avid collector and eBay seller Karen St. Esprit, 68, of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. “I actually love vintage, not latest Tupperware.”
Interest in St. Esprit – or reasonably what her daughter would call an obsession with coloured bins – began in 1977 when she became a housewife and commenced attending Tupperware parties. She never organized any parties because of the time commitment, but she enjoyed attending them.
In 1989, she was working as an actual estate agent when she discovered unwanted shelves and pantries stuffed with Tupperware in the houses she was listing and commenced collecting in earnest.
![Karen St. Esprit](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009622101.jpg?w=877)
In 1989, she began selling containers — including a Nineteen Seventies pie container and a Nineteen Fifties cupcake container — on eBay. Some months she sold tons of of dollars in stock, purchased at sales and consignment stores.
Some items, like the Picadilly, a Nineteen Seventies cucumber container with a handle that you simply pull to empty the juice, are especially easy to search out buyers.
“[It’s] by far the hottest song in the world,” said St. Esprit in an interview with The Post of the Picadilly, which usually sells for around $15 on eBay.
Vintage modular “friends” are also rare and highly wanted.
![Container advertisement from the 1980s.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009622672.jpg?w=760)
![Tupperware party in 1989.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009617863.jpg?w=1024)
st. Esprit is currently selling three containers in “latest condition” for $24.
Her list doesn’t include the era the containers are from, but St. Esprit said it normally lists the mold number and anyone who knows can use that to further discover the origin of the product, including whether it was made in the US.
Works made in the country are considered higher quality products. In recent times, many items have been manufactured in 12 countries on 4 continents.
Some blame Tupperware’s recent troubles for counting on a direct-to-consumer model: in 2022, offering chosen products in destination stores.
![The iconic brand appeared in](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009622693.jpg)
Glassman-Gretano recalls the days passed by with nostalgia.
She said that when she hosted parties in her Brooklyn dining room in the Eighties, there was no pressure to purchase, but “everybody felt they should purchase something because the product was excellent.”
Her favorite item is celery, which she bought in 1986.
The long, rectangular, two-tone green bin has a removable fresh vegetable tray to maintain the stems fresh.
Other beloved items include her blueberry-colored breakfast plates, cutlery, and a six-chamber ice cream maker that Glassman-Gretano received from her mother in 1985.
The latter allows her to make her own frozen treats with orange or grape juice and costs much lower than going to the ice truck.
They were the first to make Glassman-Gretano hooked on Tupperware.
“It’s generational,” she said. “It’s going to never die in my memory.”