The latest Depression-era item to turn ”collectible” is Bakelite jewelry, which may be worth 100 times what it cost in the 1930s. Bakelite costume jewelry that sold for anywhere from a few cents to a ...

That question, asked of Times Square visitors, opens a new documentary that provides the answer: it was the first synthetic compound, which led to plastics. Invented in 1907, the heat-resistant, ...

Anaheim, Calif. — A bit of Hollywood excitement came to the Society of Plastics Engineers annual conference — a continuous screening of the documentary "All Things Bakelite," produced by Leo Baekeland ...

Made of a combination of phenol and formaldehyde, Bakelite is a type of plastic that became popular during the 1930s and 40s as a material not only for jewelry, but for other consumer goods like ...

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In all the hoopla about the opening of the Science Museum's Plasticity show, coinciding with the centenary of the invention of Bakelite, everyone seems to have failed to notice that Britain has its ...

Bakelite - or phenol-formaldehyde - is famous because it was the first synthetic plastic material that could be mass-produced. The Victorians discovered natural plastics - such as shellac and gutta ...