Recently, my son Matt gave me two new Fiestaware egg plates made by the Homer Laughlin Company of Newell, West Virginia.
I currently have 22 different colors of Fiestware egg plates. The number of colors available in the Fiestaware line is amazing and makes it easy to coordinate the eggplates with different foods, various event, and other china patterns and colors.
Fiestaware Sunflower Egg Plate
One of the two new colors, well, new to me, is Sunflower, a bright yellow, much more vibrant that the original yellow of the 1936-1969 run, as well as brighter than the reintroduced yellow, which can photograph as almost white, that was in production from 1987-2002. Sunflower was introduced in 2001 and remains a current production color as of 2015, although if history is any indicator, Sunflower will someday meet the same fate as most all of the reintroduced colors, retirement!
Flamingo Fiestaware Egg Plate
The other “new-to-me” color is Flamingo. Flamingo represents a completely new direction in Fiestaware colors. Pinks were never a big part of the Fiestaware line, although Rose was a color briefly produced in the original line from 1951-1959. The short life of the original Rose would seem to indicate that it wasn’t well received, especially when compared to colors such as original yellow or turquoise, colors that would run for over 30 years.
Fiestware was reintroduced in 1986 in four colors, White, Black, Apricot, and Cobalt Blue. A new Rose was added shortly thereafter in 1987 and some collectors therefore consider Rose to be one of the original colors of the reintroduced line. This version of Rose was dusky, not bright at all, and frankly not very attractive compared to the other brighter colors. Rose was discontinued once again in 2005 after an almost 20 year run. By 2005, reintroduced yellow and apricot were already gone, and Sea Mist Green, introduced in 1991 also went out of production in 2005. Periwinkle Blue, first produced in 1989 would disappear a year later in 2006, marking the end of all of the early reintroduced colors from the 1980s except white and black. Black went out of production, finally, in 2014.
Sunflower and Flamingo Fiestaware Egg Plates
So, we can see that pinks, called rose in the past, have not been popular or long surviving colors in the Fiestaware line. So, it was with some surprise that Flamingo burst on to the market in 2012. Flamingo is a vibrant, bright, unapologetic, pink. You just can’t call this one rose, it is pink, albeit a deep pink. Perhaps not surprisingly, if you liked Flamingo went away in 2013, having been produced for less than a year. If you liked Flamingo, I hope you bought up a good deal of stock. Colors produced for such short times will command top dollar on the resale market.
We don’t know if the quick disappearance of Flamingo was planned, which it could have been as Homer Laughlin has introduced limited run colors on multiple occasions. As examples:
- Lilac: 1993-1995,
- Sapphire: 1996-1997 (This color was exclusive to Bloomingdales for its entire run, a few months spanning the holiday season)
- Chartreuse: 1997-1999,
- Pearl Gray: 1999-2001,
- Juniper: 2000-2001,
- Heather: 2006-2008
Some of these colors were known to be limited runs and were advertised as such to promote rapid sales to collectors who had limited time frames to purchase. Other colors just weren’t popular and were withdrawn. Homer Laughlin is also not afraid to produce a color that exists on only select items, such as the introduction of Marigold in 2008, for the 75th anniversary, that was originally only applied to mixing bowl sets and select commemorative items, although it was popular enough to later be used as a glaze for the entire line. Make no mistake, Homer Laughlin is well aware of the collector frenzy that can exist around Fiestaware and they will, on occasion, explicitly exploit that market segment. It is entirely possible that Flamingo was made and then withdrawn quickly for the very purpose of exciting collectors, and therefore sales, around a new, very unusual, and limited color. Only Homer knows for sure, and he just isn’t saying one way or the other.
Flamingo and Sunflower Fiestaware Egg Plates
Enjoy your eggplates!