The Rainbow of Fiestaware

A major hallmark and selling feature of the Fiestware line of dishes and serviceware from its introduction almost 80 years ago has been the wide range of vibrant colors in which the pieces were glazed.  The appearance of Fiestaware was significant, especially coming out of the Art Deco movement, in that it made bright, vibrant, colorful dishes available for the first time at a low enough cost that most every household could afford to add bright accents to their table and home.  Fiestaware was intended as a low-cost solution to serve daily family meals.  I shouldn’t think that its original designers and producers could ever have imagined the astronomical prices some will pay for rare colors and pieces on today’s collector’s market.  Unfortunately, many early owners, and even some descendants who inherited such pieces, also frequently failed to recognize the value in the Fiestaware pieces owned by themselves, parents, or even grandparents, and therefore many such pieces have been lost forever.

While comprehensive histories of the line are available from a number of resources, including from the manufacturer, Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell, West Virginia, I will mention some brief highlights of the history as relates to color specifically.

The line originally consisted of five colors, mostly primary colors, including: Red (orange red), Blue (cobalt), Green (light green), Yellow (deep golden), and Old Ivory (yellowish cream).

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 1938, two years into production, a sixth color was added: Turquoise (robin’s egg blue). With the exception of the Red, this color assortment remained in production until approximately 1950.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional colors would be added, including Rose (pinkish brown), Gray (medium), Forest (dark green), and Chartreuse (bright yellowish green).  To make room in the line for these new colors, Homer Laughlin discontinued three of the original glaze colors, the original Blue, Green and Old Ivory.  the remaining two existing glaze colors, Yellow and Turquoise, continued in production, so the company offered six colors through the 1950s (Yellow, Turquoise, Rose, Gray, Forest, and Chartruese).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original Red had been discontinued before 1944 because the United States government blocked the private sale of all uranium metal and its compounds.  The original Fiesta Red was made using a type of uranium oxide and once this colorant became unavailable, the original Red color could not be produced.  While original Red Fiestaware pieces continue to be sold through antique dealers, buyers should be aware that they do emit measurable amounts of radioactivity, as does the Old Ivory glaze as well, but the original Red glaze is the most well known for this phenomenon.  At the time the original Red glaze was introduced, there was not a great deal known or understood about radioactivity or its potential health effects.  Indeed, some people believed that radioactivity was good for you and many devices that emitted radioactivity were therefore successfully marketed and sold, sometimes with horrific consequences.  However, the amount and type of radioactivity emitted by Red, or Old Ivory, Fiestaware is not likely to be harmful to anyone.  Some authorities caution against using the original Red pieces for cooking or serving food but the realistic risk is probably quite low even when used as originally intended.  Pieces kept strictly as collectibles to be enjoyed visually will emit no more, or likely much less, radiation than we are daily exposed to by simply living on Earth which is naturally radioactive due to radioactive elements and minerals in the soil as well as due to cosmic radiation coming in from space.  In other words, Red Fiestaware is not a significant source of radiation risk!

Eventually, it became possible to produce the original Red once again and it was reintroduced along with a color known to collectors as Medium Green, even though it was never referred to in this way by Homer Laughlin since it was a replacement for the original green and there was no other competing green color being manufactured at that time that was remotely similar.  The term Medium Green is strictly used to differentiate between the original 1936 green and the color introduced in 1959.  Some people refer to the Medium Green as being similar to a John Deere tractor, in other words a bright Kelly Green.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over time, only Yellow, Turquoise, and Medium Green would survive with Forest, Rose, Chartruese, and Gray being retired in 1959.  Finally, in 1969 even Yellow and Turquoise would disappear as the Homer Laughlin China Company tried one last ditch effort to keep the Fiestaware line alive by renaming it Fiesta Ironstone and introducing glazes that matched the emerging color palates of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  These glazes were: Antique Gold and Turf Green.  Amazingly, the original Fiesta Red, despite disappearing from 1943-1959, would continue on as the third color of Fiestaware still available.  I personally think of Antique Gold as the “Harvest Gold” and the Turf Green as the “Avocado” appliance colors so unfortunately popular during the era of the late 60s and early 70s.  However, despite this last effort, Fiestaware would disappear, presumably forever, in 1972.

 

 

 

 

 

The Fiestware line was reintroduced in 1986 to mark the 50th anniversary of the original line.  This new product was designed and manufactured with the commercial market in mind, so the pieces were made thicker and with different glaze composition to be durable enough to withstand commercial food service use and cleaning.  As was true of the original line, the new line was introduced with five colors: Rose (true pink), Black (slightly chocolate under bright light), Cobalt (dark navy blue), White (bright stark white), Apricot (pale pinkish tan).  A pale custard yellow was introduced in 1987 and a slightly greenish Turquoise was introduced in 1988.  Periwinkle, a slightly lavender blue came in 1989, and Sea Mist Green, a pale mint green, made its debut in 1991.  The trend of introducing new colors continues to this day, with Slate, a very dark gray that is almost black and Sage, a muted grayish green, scheduled for release the late Spring of 2015.  Between its reintroduction in 1986 and 2015, Fiestaware has been produced in a whopping total of 34 different colors, some of them for very limited time frames, as little as one year.  On one occasion, with the introduction of Sapphire from 1996-1997, a color was made for strictly one vendor, in this case as an exclusive for Bloomingdale’s.  Over time, similar arrangements would be made with some other retailers such that only one company would have the rights to market a specific shape or piece although there was never again a color made that was limited to one seller.  Some limited run colors and shapes were available only from Homer Laughlin directly however.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To make way for new colors, existing colors are discontinued almost every year, with Black and Peacock both being discontinued this year, 2015, as the most recent examples.  If there is a particular color of Fiestaware you enjoy, you should buy it while you can because it might disappear with no warning at most any time.  I look forward every year to the introduction of the latest color of Fiestaware and continued to be delighted and surprised by the seemingly limitless inventiveness of the color creation experts in West Virginia!  In future posts I will highlight specific color combinations and ranges that appeal to me for use together when more than one egg plate is called for, so stay tuned to MyEggPlates.com!