The Plastic That Shaped the Future

 

QUESTION: Recently I purchased a box of assorted costume jewelry at a flea market. What intrigued me was the variety of colorful plastic bracelets in the assortment. While these look like they’re made of regular plastic we know today, the dealer told me they were Bakelite. My grandfather once told me that Bakelite was the first plastic. He had an old radio that seemed to have a plastic case. At the time, I didn’t believe it because I thought plastic was a mid-20th century invention. What can you tell me about Bakelite? Who invented it and when?

ANSWER: Without knowing it, you’ve discovered a treasure of the early 20th century. Bakelite was a chemical miracle of the 20th century. It enabled manufacturers to make a variety of items—children’s toys, kitchenware, pipe stems, wall switches, appliance and cutlery handles, colorful radio cases, and yes, jewelry. Dubbed the “Material of a Thousand Uses” by the Bakelite Corporation, Bakelite was versatile and nonflammable.

Leo Baekeland developed this innovative form of plastic in his backyard laboratory in Yonkers, New York, between 1907 and 1909. He attempted to create a synthetic shellac when he discovered that phenol, or carbolic acid, and formaldehyde, when combined under certain conditions, resulted in a molasses-colored resin with unique and exceptional properties.

Once cured, the phenol formaldehyde resin could be ground into powder and mixed with a variety of fillers to create a molding compound that was practically indestructible. Slate dust, asbestos, wood flour and ground walnut shells were all used for this purpose, but because of their dark color, molded Bakelite was limited to shades of black, maroon and brown.

In1911, he founded the General Bakelite Company in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which produced up to 200,000 tons of the plastic each year. Because it was resistant to heat, moisture, and chemicals, it became a component of the electrical industry. It also had excellent insulating properties, making it perfect for use in electrical insulators, switches, plugs and sockets. 

Making Bakelite was a multi-stage process. It began with the heating of phenol and formaldehyde in the presence of a catalyst such as hydrochloric acid, zinc chloride, or the base ammonia. This created a liquid condensation product, referred to as Bakelite A, which was soluble in alcohol, acetone, or additional phenol. Heated further, the product became partially soluble and could still be softened by heat. Sustained heating resulted in an "insoluble hard gum." 

However, the high temperatures required to create this tended to cause violent foaming of the mixture when performed at standard atmospheric pressure, which resulted in the cooled material being porous and breakable. Baekeland's innovative step was to put his "last condensation product" into an egg-shaped "Bakelizer." By heating it under pressure at around 300° F, he was able to suppress the foaming. The resulting substance was extremely hard and both infusible and insoluble. The range of colors available included black, brown, red, yellow, green, gray, blue, and blends of two or more of these. 

Bakelite came in various forms to suit varying needs, including clear material, for jewelry and smokers' articles, cement, used in sealing electric light bulbs in metal bases, varnishes, for impregnating electric coils, lacquers, for protecting the surface of hardware, and enamels, for giving resistive coating to industrial equipment. In addition, there was laminated Bakelite, used for silent gears and insulation; and molding material, used to form items of utility and beauty.

When Bakelite’s patent on phenol formaldehyde expired in 1927, other companies using the chemical came on the scene, including the American Catalin Corporation which pioneered a purified form of phenolic resin that did away with the dense fillers used in molded Bakelite. The company introduced casting resins in 20 different colors.

The Bakelite Corporation quickly developed its own phenolic resin, producing it in thousands of colors. In reality its recipes were exactly the same as American Catalin, except they experimented more with dye saturation and mixing colorants with clear resin to create mottled and swirled effects.

By the mid 1930s, several competitors had begun producing phenolics which forced the price of both Bakelite and Catalin down. One of these other companies, Fiberloid, introduced Opalon in lapis lazuli, mottled red, alabaster, onyx and mottled walnut, fabricated into board game pieces, jewelry, and umbrella and knife handles.

The introduction of electrical power gave rise to a wide range of labor-saving devices that utilized Bakelite and Catalin in one way or another. The modern appearance, durability and hygienic qualities of plastic made it superior to traditional substances.

Bakelite quickly replaced wood and metal in telephones, clock and barometer cases, as well as knobs and handles on small appliances like electric irons, toasters and cookware. Colorful Catalin cutlery handles and novelty napkin rings dressed up the table and brightened the kitchen.

In 1933 the Bakelite Corporation began to produce wood-tone radio cabinets of compression-molded phenolic resin. Thermosetting plastics resisted the heat generated by radio tubes, making Catalin ideal for radio cabinets. It wasn't long before colorful, modernistic Catalin radios began to make their appearance.

By 1936, various companies made two-thirds of all costume jewelry produced in the U.S. by fabricated molding and fabricating cast phenolic resin. The fabricating process, however, was labor-intensive and lengthy.

First, molds had to be made by dipping a steel master into molten lead. Once workers  assembled enough molds, others prepared phenolic resin and carefully poured it into each mold by hand. A technician carefully combined resins as casting occurred if special swirled or mottled colors were desired, the technician needed to carefully combine resins as they were being cast.

Once filled, workers wheeled the molds into a huge oven to be baked  at176 degrees F. until the resin cured. Curing time varied. Dark red and blue cured in three to four days while whites took six to eight days. Once the cast resin cured, workers removed it from the lead molds using air hammers. This always resulted in damaged molds. Other workers tossed the broken pieces back into the vat of molten lead to be melted down for reuse.

To make jewelry components, workers cut shaped or hollow phenolic rods into individual pieces, much like slicing a loaf of bread. Then they carved and machined by hand them for added adornment. Once they completed the decorative carving, they finished the pieces by tumbling or buffing on a polishing wheel.

Bakelite became a symbol of progress and modernity as the streamlined Art Moderne style overtook the chic style of Art Deco. The sharp-stepped sides of skyscrapers softened into curves, while boxy trains and automobiles became sleek, with fluid lines that created the illusion of speed and motion.

By the late 1930s, plastic moldings reflected the streamline design trends. Shiny surfaces, modernistic curves, waterfall fronts and facades, made to look like car grills, all found their way into jewelry, small home appliances and decorative household objects.

Perfectly suited to Bakelite and Catalin molds, the Art Moderne style enabled the resin to easily flow inside a curved mold. In addition, it was easier to mold, fabricate, and polish the resulting casts than the boxy, stepped sides and sharp corners of Art Deco designs.

Cast phenolic resins weren’t as durable as compression molded phenolic compounds because they shrank over time, often resulting in cracks. Catalin averaged a 4 percent shrinkage in the first 10 years. Cracks developed in radio cases because the parts were bolted to the housing, leading to stress as the plastic shrank.

Though companies produced Catalin in 20 opaque and translucent colors, engineers limited the color range because they felt all other dyes would cause instability in the plastic.

Unfortunately, Catalin reacted to ultraviolet light by converting to phenyl alcohol, which was brownish in color. That was why so many Catalin items are amber colored. The effect turned original white to butterscotch, bright blue into drab olive, green into butterscotch, and brilliant red marble into brown.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "folk art" in the 2023 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Festive Fiesta Ware

 

QUESTION: My aunt had a large collection of Fiesta dinnerware which she left to me. I added a few pieces that I found at flea markets over the last few years, but now I want to sell it. Is this pottery worth much and where would be the best place to sell it?

ANSWER: Depending on what pieces you have, your collection of Fiesta dinnerware could be worth a small fortune. But before you get dollar signs in your eyes, there are a few things you should know about it.

The style and bright colors of Fiesta dinnerware look very 1950s. But actually it appeared during the Great Depression in the mid-1930s. Englishman, Frederick Hurten Rhead, designed the simple Art Deco shapes while chief engineer Victor Albert Bleininger fabricated the colorful signature glazes. Both worked for the Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell, West Virginia.

Originally, the company offered 37 different affordable pieces, ranging from candle holders and ashtrays to large serving dishes, each in five bright colors: red-orange, yellow, green, cobalt blue, and ivory. It added turquoise in 1939 for a total of six basic colors.

Homer Laughlin pioneered a whole new concept in dinnerware with Fiesta. When it first introduced the dinnerware at the annual Pottery and Glass Exhibit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in January 1936, its line was the first widely mass-marketed, solid-color dinnerware in the country. It was also the first dinnerware that consumers could purchase by the piece instead of in complete sets, as was the custom at the time. This allowed customers to mix and match, perhaps choosing a different color for each place setting, or have all their dinner plates one color, their cups and saucers another, and so on. This concept became instantly popular with the public, and soon Fiesta dinnerware became a runaway hit.

At its introduction, Fiesta dinnerware consisted of the usual place settings of dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, and cups and saucers, plus occasional pieces such as candle holders in two designs, a bud vase, and an ash tray. A set of seven nested mixing bowls ranged in size from five to twelve inches in diameter. The company also sold basic place settings for four, six and eight persons. But the idea from the start was to create a line of open-stock items from which the consumer could pick and choose based on their personal preference.

The Homer Laughlin Company quickly added several additional items to their line and eliminated several unusual items—a divided 12-inch plate, a turquoise covered onion soup bowl, and the covers for its set of mixing bowls. The Fiesta line eventually consisted of 64 different items, including flower vases in three sizes, water tumblers, carafes, teapots in two sizes, five-part relish trays, and large plates in 13- and 15-inch diameters. 

But with the onset of World War II, the company was forced to reduce the number of items in the Fiesta line as public demand declined and companies cut back non-war related production. By the end of the war, Homer Laughlin had reduced the items in its Fiesta line by one third. 

The design of the original dinnerware pieces remained unchanged from 1936 to 1969. However, the company did change its colored glazes to keep up with home decorating color trends. It introduced four new colors—rose, gray, dark green, and chartreuse, replacing the original blue, green, and ivory. Yellow and turquoise continued in production.

By the end of the 1950s, sales again dropped, so the company reduced its offering of items and changed the glaze colors once again. This time, it introduced a medium green, to distinguish it from other green glazes which the company had produced. This shade of green is in high demand by collectors, and certain pieces in this color command extremely high prices.

Homer Laughlin removed the original red-orange color, the most expensive glaze to produce, before 1944 because it contained uranium oxide which the government needed to construct the atom bombs. Therefore, red pieces also usually command a premium price in today’s collectible market.

By 1969, the company restyled the finials on covers, handles on cups, bowl contours and shapes to give them a more contemporary style. 

Fiesta dinnerware became popular once again as baby boomers began establishing their own homes. Not long after Homer Laughlin discontinued the brightly colored dinnerware line in January 1973,  collectors began buying up what remained at garage sales and second-hand shops. Prices for it hit the roof and by the mid-1980s, prices of Fiesta items reached $100 for scarcer pieces. 

Generally, serving pieces such as casserole dishes, carafes, teapots, and water pitchers almost always have higher values than normal place setting pieces. As mentioned earlier, certain colors are also priced higher, no matter what the piece.

It’s also important to look on the back of each piece for the familiar “Fiesta” backstamp,  followed by 'HLC USA', 'MADE IN USA' or 'H.L. CO. USA.' You may also discover some pieces with the word 'GENUINE' stamped near the Fiesta signature.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about old-time winter objects in the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Edition, with the theme "Winter Memories," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Fulfilling the Need for Warmth and Comfort

QUESTION: On a recent road trip through the Southwest, I stopped at a flea market in Arizona where I found an old Indian blanket in black and white on a red background which I purchased for my bed back home. It looked to be in good shape and the price was right. Can you tell me which tribe may have made it and perhaps how old it is?

ANSWER: While your blanket may look like it had been made by one of the Native American tribes in the area, it actually wasn’t. Contrary to what most people think, blankets like this—known as American Indian trade blankets—were commercially machine-woven for the Native American market. Prior to the production of these blankets, Native Americans provided  warmth for themselves using natural materials and traditional weaving techniques.

Native Americans had long engaged in intertribal trading for useful items, but it was the colorful European goods that caught their attention. Over time, traders upgraded their goods from beads, looking glasses, and fish hooks to more practical items such as metal axes and cookware, flintlock rifles, and blankets. To trade a beaver skin or two for a durable woolen European blanket seemed fair to 18th and 19th-century Native Americans. Making a robe from an elk, deer, or buffalo hide was a time consuming, labor intensive process.

It was the French traders who began trading blankets as a result of their insatiable need for beaver pelts in the early l7º-century in the St. Lawrence River area. By 1780, the British Hudson's Bay Company soon followed suit.

Blanket trading soon spread across America. The Hudson's Bay Company shipped hundreds of blankets to St. Louis, the last supply outpost for those venturing westward in the 1820s and 1830s. While those heading to the Rocky Mountains trapped their own beavers, those going north into the Upper Missouri region traded for beaver pelts with the Native Americans

The early Hudson's Bay Company trade blankets were a solid color with a wide darker band near each end. They sold their thick, striped blankets to trappers who, in turn, traded them to the Blackfeet and Northern Plains Indians.

Like any successful product, Hudson's Bay Company trade blankets attracted imitators. While some copied the Bay's blanket style, especially the bright multicolor pattern introduced around 1820, other companies duplicated geometric Indian designs.

By 1845 there were dozens of woolen manufacturers in America, but only 11 who made blankets, and just one, the Buffalo Manufacturing Company, which made Indian-style blankets.

The introduction of the Jacquard loom in the 1880s created a boon to the blanket business. It enabled blankets to have two sides and launched what historians and collectors call the 'Golden Age" of the American Indian trade blanket that lasted from 1880 to 1930.

Eventually, five major woolen mills began making Indian trade blankets in the United States during the latter part of the 19th century—J. Capps and Sons, Oregon City Woolen Mills, Buell Manufacturing Company, Racine Woolen Mills, and Pendleton Woolen Mills. Another, the Beacon Manufacturing Company of North Carolina, made Indian-style blankets for the American consumer.

Of the above makers, Pendleton is the most familiar label. It’s also the only one still in existence. The company credits its early success to marketing its blankets directly to Native American reservations through trading posts and producing colors and designs acceptable to specific tribes.

By the late 19th century, most Native Americans had settled on reservations. Trading posts became the distribution points for food, jewelry, clothes and, of course, blankets. Through the trading posts, the English and American woolen mills found a built-in market for their blankets, the quality and designs of which Native Americans appreciated. Eager to please their Native American customers, many mills sent designers to live among the Indians in order to learn what designs and colors would appeal to the different tribes and pueblos across the United States and Canada. From the beginning, Pendleton produced high-quality blankets that eventually became the favorite among Native Americans.

Unlike Europeans, many native people became bonded with their blankets day and night. The fact that they were made by someone else made no difference.

They gave blankets as gifts to celebrate births, marriages, and christenings. They also used blankets to pay off debts, to show gratitude, or to indicate status. And some used them to provide temporary shelter, as curtains or awnings, or for warmth and adornment. Native Americans cradled their babies in blankets, danced in blankets, and were often buried in blankets.

The name Pendleton became a universal and generic name for any of these distinctively patterned blankets, even those made by other mills. Today, collectors seek out pre-World War II blankets for their light weight and warmth.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about  the Industrial Age n the 2020 Winter Edition, "The Wonders of the Industrial Age," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Nothing to Get Depressed About

QUESTION: My mother loves Depression Glass. She’s been collecting for over 20 years. I love the colors, but all the patterns confuse me. Other than being made during the Great Depression, why did so many companies make this type of glass and why is it so popular with collectors?

ANSWER: Of all the collectibles out there, Depression glass is one of the most popular with collectors, most likely for its rainbow of colors and its myriad of patterns. Depression glass is far from a depressing collectible. In fact, companies made it in such bright colors to raise the mood of people going through one of the worst times in their lives. They also made it affordable so that this little bit of joy could reach as many people as possible.

The common belief is that this clear, colored translucent, or opaque glassware got its name because it was made during the Great Depression. This is a bit of a misnomer because decorative glass of this type had been around since as early as 1914 and as late as 1960. However, the production of Depression glass did indeed reach its peak during the years of the Great Depression.

During the first half of the 20th century, the Ohio River Valley was the epicenter of glass production. Companies like Westmoreland and Fenton Glass had access to the raw materials and power they needed to keep their glass production costs down. Over 20 manufacturers made more than 100 patterns of Depression glass, some in entire dinner sets.

Although mass production of this low-quality molded glass made it fairly inexpensive at the time, not everyone could afford it. Everyday essentials were far more important, but thanks to glass companies like Indiana, Imperial, Federal, Jeanette, Hazel Atlas, and Anchor Hocking, the wares were available to everyone for a few pennies or nothing.

For instance, a bag of Quaker Oats flour might include a premium piece of dinnerware. The company also made laundry detergent, in which it packaged “a little extra something” to make the drudgery of  wash day more bearable. The pattern, size, and color were a mystery to the user until she opened the box. Collecting the pieces to use became a common pastime and made people’s lives a little brighter.  Other companies followed Quaker Oats’ lead and began using Depression glass as a premium to help sell their products.

Depression glass pieces also lined the shelves at five-and-ten-cent stores like Woolworth’s or if people went to the movies on Tuesday or Wednesday nights when patronage was low, they might win a set of dishes. Some theater owners handed out small pieces just for attending a show.

The Cherry Blossom pattern, made by the Jeanette Glass Company from 1930 to 1939, came in both pink and green. While most collectors of Depression glass favor the color green, it also came in a rainbow of other common colors, including crystal (clear), pink, pale blue, green, and amber. Less common colors included canary (yellow), ultramarine, jadeite (opaque pale green), delphite (opaque pale blue), cobalt blue, ruby (red), black, amethyst, and milk glass (opague white).

Later Depression Glass, made during the 1940s and 1950s, included American Prescut, sold only in clear crystal, and other patterns in ruby and forest green. The top-of-the-line pattern has always been Pink Miss America, made by the Hocking Glass Company from 1935 to 1938.

While over 100 companies made Depression Glass during the Great Depression, by the time it had ended, only half that many were still producing it. And of these, only seven—Federal, Hazel-Atlas, MacBeth-Evans, and U.S. Glass—produced this glass exclusively through the mid-1940s.

The Imperial Glass Company produced the first pattern, Fancy Colonial, in 1914, well before the Great Depresssion began. Westmoreland Glass has the distinction of making the English Hobnail pattern the longest.

The most colors made for any one pattern are 11, done for Moondrop and Rock Crystal, followed by English Hobnail by Westmoreland, Lincoln Inn by Fenton, and Floral by Jeanette, all with 10 colors each. 

Identifying Depression glass by mark can be difficult because few of the companies marked or labeled their wares. The only way to identify a maker is to know which company made the pattern. Using the numerous books and Web sites on Depression glass available today, it’s a fairly easy process. Some of the most common include Adam, American Sweetheart, Block Optic,Cherry Blossom, Dogwood, Floral, Georgian, Hobnail, Lake Como, Manhattan, Starlight, and Windsor. While some of the names reflect the style of the glass pattern itself, most do not. 

The best way to determine a genuine piece of Depression glass is to learn the pattern, dates of manufacture, colors the pattern, and any other known identifying marks. One example is the Cherry Blossom pattern by the Jeannette Glass Company, introduced in 1930 and made until 1939. The set consisted of 43 pieces different pieces, and the company made it in seven different colors—green, pink, crystal, yellow, ruby, jadeite, and dark green.

Depression glass was never made to be durable as it was only made to meet people’s immediate needs. Due to its popularity as a collectible and its breakability, Depression glass is becoming harder to find. Rare pieces often sell for several hundred dollars. Popular and expensive patterns and pieces have been reproduced, and reproductions are still being made, which has watered down the market for some patterns.

A Pen in Hand

QUESTION: I was going through some drawers in an old desk and came across a couple of fountain pens. I wondered if they’re collectible. Also, what can you tell me about their origins. I’m young enough not to have ever used one.

ANSWER: Technolgy has changed our lives a lot in the past 75 years—that marked the date in 1939 when Lizlo Biro, a Hungarian proofreader, first patented the ballpoint pen. It was also the year the 1939 New York World’s Fair offered a vision of the future to thousands of people. Up to that time, the main writing implement that people used was the fountain pen. And it was 108 years before that when John Jacob Parker patented the self-filling fountain pen, paving the way for an easier way of writing.

But it was three inventions that occurred in the mid-19th century that helped the average person accept the fountain pen—the invention of hard rubber, which replaced steel for pen cases, iridium-tipped gold nibs for increased flexibility, and an improved ink formula which contained less sediment.

However, it wasn’t until Lewis Waterman created his Ideal Fountain Pen that the public embraced the fountain pen. After his Ideal Pen became a success, Waterman patented the coiner mechanism where a slot in the heel of the pen enabled a coin to deflate the internal pressure plate.

Probably the most well known of all the fountain pen companies was the Parker Pen Company. George Parker started the Parker Pen Company in Janesville, Wisconsin., and patented his “Lucky Curve” ink feed system in1894. His design allowed the ink to flow back into the reservoir when the pen was upright, reducing the possibility of leaks, creating a new industry standard. He patented an improved version in 1911. You could purchase one of his pens back then for $2.50 to $6. He even made one the size of a  penknife, suitable for a lady's purse.

The Parker Pen Company was an innovator and came out with several firsts, including a safety screw-on cap and the button-filler. An alternative to using an eye-dropper to fill the ink, the button-filler used an external button which connected to the internal pressure plate and deflated the reservoir when pressed.

In 1921, Parker introduced the Duofold pen line. These pens were available in Oversize, Litty, or Junior models, and came in red or black rubber—previously, all rubber pens came only in black. The company added other colors, such as lapis lazuli and jade green, later on in the decade. Originally priced from $5 and up, today these pens, especially the red ones, sell for around $1,000.

Parker continued to be innovative in the 1930s with the introduction of the vacuumatic filler, which worked with a plunger and allowed the entire barrel to act as a reservoir. Some pens also featured a transparent window so the user could see how much ink remained in the barrel. Prices ranged fro originally ranged from $5 to $10.

The next most well known of the fountain pen companies was the Sheaffer Pan Company, which began in 1912 in a small back room of a Fort Madison, Iowa, jewelry store with just seven employees. Its founder, Walter A. Sheaffer; was 45 years old when he risked his life savings to start the company, but his invention of a lever-filled fountain pen quickly proved to be the leader in the industry.

Shaeffer's mechanism used an external lever which depressed a flexible ink sac, but fitted flush with the barrel of the pen when not in use. For the next 40 years, the lever-filler was the most popular design in fountain pens.

In 1920, Sheaffer introduced its Lifetime pen which came with a serial number and a life-time guarantee. A white dot on the pen clip distinguished the pan. Selling for $8.25, they cost almost double what Sheaffer's other pen did. Nevertheless, people bought them. 

Sheaffer continued to influence the pen industry with its introduction of the Radite, the first plastic pen, in 1924---one of your pens. Originally available only in Jade Green in an Art Deco design, it eventually inspired a variety of additional colors.

Over the next 28 years, Sheaffer brought out several other significant products, including a fast-drying, non-clogging formula ink called Skrip, the Balance pen, a bullet-shaped pen designed to balance in the hand, the Crest, the first pen to use a plastic body with a fitted metal cap, the Touchdown, a pneumatic- filling pen, and the Snorkel, a longer edition of the Touchdown.

The introduction of the Pen for Men, an oversized version of the Snorkel, in 1959 put the company way ahead of its competition—indeed, way ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the public didn’t buy it and production ceased within a few years. However, oversize pens came into vogue during the 1990s, so the company produced the Legacy, a pen based on the original Pen for Men.

Even though most people don’t used fountain pens for everyday writing, they offer a bit of nostalgia and a remembrance of days long past.

Fiesta Fun

QUESTION: My aunt had a large collection of Fiesta dinnerware which she left to me. I added a few pieces that I found at flea markets over the last few years, but now I want to sell it. Is this pottery worth much and where would be the best place to sell it?

ANSWER: Depending on what pieces you have, your collection of Fiesta dinnerware could be worth a small fortune. But before you get dollar signs in your eyes, there are a few things you should know about it.

The style and bright colors of Fiesta dinnerware look very 1950s. But actually it appeared during the Great Depression in the mid-1930s. Englishman, Frederick Hurten Rhead, designed the simple Art Deco shapes while chief engineer Victor Albert Bleininger fabricated the colorful signature glazes. Both worked for the Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell, West Virginia.

Originally, the company offered 37 different affordable pieces, ranging from candle holders and ashtrays to large serving dishes, each in five bright colors: red-orange, yellow, green, cobalt blue, and ivory. It added turquoise in 1939 for a total of six basic colors..

Homer Laughlin pioneered a whole new concept in dinnerware with Fiesta. When it first introduced the dinnerware at the annual Pottery and Glass Exhibit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in January 1936, its line was the first widely mass-marketed, solid-color dinnerware in the country. It was also the first dinnerware that consumers could purchase by the piece instead of in complete sets, as was the custom at the time. This allowed customers to mix and match, perhaps choosing a different color for each place setting, or have all their dinner plates one color, their cups and saucers another, and so on. This concept became instantly popular with the public, and soon Fiesta dinnerware became a runaway hit.

At its introduction, Fiesta dinnerware consisted of the usual place settings of dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, and cups and saucers, plus occasional pieces such as candle holders in two designs, a bud vase, and an ash tray. A set of seven nested mixing bowls ranged in size from five to twelve inches in diameter. The company also sold basic place settings for four, six and eight persons. But the idea from the start was to create a line of open-stock items from which the consumer could pick and choose based on their personal preference.

The Homer Laughlin Company quickly added several additional items to their line and eliminated several unusual items—a divided 12-inch plate, a turquoise covered onion soup bowl, and the covers for its set of mixing bowls. The Fiesta line eventually consisted of 64 different items, including flower vases in three sizes, water tumblers, carafes, teapots in two sizes, five-part relish trays, and large plates in 13- and 15-inch diameters.

But with the onset of World War II, the company was forced to reduce the number of items in the Fiesta line as public demand declined and companies cut back non-war related production. By the end of the war, Homer Laughlin had reduced the items in its Fiesta line by one third.

The design of the original dinnerware pieces remained unchanged from 1936 to 1969. However, the company did change its colored glazes to keep up with home decorating color trends. It introduced four new colors—rose, gray, dark green, and chartreuse, replacing the original blue, green, and ivory. Yellow and turquoise continued in production.

By the end of the 1950s, sales again dropped, so the company reduced its offering of items and changed the glaze colors once again. This time, it introduced a medium green, to distinguish it from other green glazes which the company had produced. This shade of green is in high demand by collectors, and certain pieces in this color command extremely high prices.

Homer Laughlin removed the original red-orange color, the most expensive glaze to produce, before 1944 because it contained uranium oxide which the government needed to construct the atom bombs. Therefore, red pieces also usually command a premium price in today’s collectible market.

By 1969, the company restyled the finials on covers, handles on cups, bowl contours and shapes to give them a more contemporary style.

Fiesta dinnerware became popular once again as baby boomers began establishing their own homes. Not long after Homer Laughlin discontinued the brightly colored dinnerware line in January 1973,  collectors began buying up what remained at garage sales and second-hand shops. Prices for it hit the roof and by the mid-1980s, prices of Fiesta items reached $100 for scarcer pieces.

Generally, serving pieces such as casserole dishes, carafes, teapots, and water pitchers almost always have higher values than normal place setting pieces. As mentioned earlier, certain colors are also priced higher, no matter what the piece.

It’s also important to look on the back of each piece for the familiar “Fiesta” backstamp,
followed by 'HLC USA', 'MADE IN USA' or 'H.L. CO. USA.' You may also discover some pieces with the word 'GENUINE' stamped near the Fiesta signature.

As far as selling your collection, you might do better selling off the pieces individually. If the pieces are from the 1930s and 1940s, you might want to consider sending them to a good auction house where you'll most likely get a better return on them.