It looks like party is over
Collectors brace for demise of Tupperware
About eight years ago, Deborah Glassman-Gretano, 64, and a former Tupperware Lady, bought a butter dish from the company for her home in Florida.
Glassman-Gretano, who divides her time between Brooklyn and the Sunshine State, has a large collection of Tupperware from the 1980s when she sold the iconic food-storage containers, but the butter dish has been an outlier.
“It does not snap close, so I never use it,” said Glassman-Gretano, an artist, a wife and a mother. “I’m thinking maybe that’s why Tupperware is going to close.”
Earlier this month, the Orlando company announced in a regulatory filing that there is “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue.”
Ladies and parties
Launched in 1946, Tupperware was the creation of chemist Earl Tupper, whose seal-tight design was inspired by paint cans. The brand was soon a household name.
In the late 1940s, a single Detroit mom named Brownie Wise began hosting get-togethers to peddle Tupperware, inspiring other women to do the same.
Tupperware Ladies and Tupperware Parties became an icon of midcentury suburban living and an early form of multilevel marketing.
In the decades that followed, numerous other brands entered the seal-tight container market. Tupperware enthusiasts have a deep love of the brand, but they admit its best years are in the past. (Tupperware did not offer comment for this piece.)
“[I] rarely deal in newer stock,” said passionate collector and eBay seller Karen St. Esprit, 68, of Beaver County, Pa. “I really love vintage and not the new Tupperware.”
St. Esprit’s interest — or what her daughter would call an obsession — in the colorful containers began in 1977 when she became a homemaker and started attending Tupperware Parties. She never hosted any parties due to the time commitment but enjoyed attending them.
In 1989, she was working as a real estate agent when she discovered shelves and pantries full of unwanted Tupperware in the homes she was listing and her collection started in earnest.
In 1989, she began auctioning off the containers — including a 1970s pie-wedge container and a 1950sera cupcake keeper — on eBay. Some months, she was selling hundreds of dollars in stock, purchased at yard sales and in consignment shops.
Certain items, such as the Picadilly — a pickle holder from the 1970s with a handle you pull to drain the juice — are especially easy to find buyers for.
Most popular piece
“[It’s] by far the most popular piece out there,” St. Esprit told The Post of the Picadilly, which typically fetches about $15 on eBay.
Vintage modular “mates” are also rare and highly sought after.
St. Esprit is currently selling a trio of “new condition” container mates for $24.
Domestically made pieces are considered to be of higher quality. In recent years, many items have been manufactured in 12 countries across four continents.
Some have blamed Tupperware’s recent troubles on its reliance on the direct-to-consumer model: In 2022, it began offering select products in Target stores.