*Post Updated June 22, 2019: Thanks to information received from advanced Fiesta collector John Waugh, the section on striped Fiesta, previously in Fiestaware 101: Part 2 has been moved to this post.

January, 2016 marked the 80th anniversary of Homer Laughlin’s most popular and enduring line, Fiesta. This is the first of a series of posts about this famous dinnerware. It is intended as an overview of it history and as a guide for novice collectors. I have been collecting Fiesta for 19 years starting with the new Fiesta because I liked its nostalgic appeal. By the time I stopped buying “Post ’86 Fiesta”, I had place settings for 20 people and many serving pieces. So it wasn’t much of a leap from the new to the old. It started innocently enough with a vintage 9 inch, light green plate purchased on Memorial Day weekend, 2000 at the Circle Drive-in Flea Market in Scranton, Pa. Little did I know how much of an obsession it would become. By the end of the day I had added three more pieces to my collection. It has become a goal of mine to acquire one piece of vintage Fiesta in each color. I still have a long, long way to go.

 

Pre-History

 

In the late 1920’s, Bauer Pottery introduced a solid color tableware. Around 1933 they introduced a line called Ringware which proved very popular. Other California pottery companies soon started producing similar lines.

 

 

Bauer Ringware sold very well on the west coast and was making some inroads in the east, but was eclipsed by the introduction of Fiesta in 1936. Designed by Frederick Hurten Rhead (1880-1942) in 1935, this was his crowning achievement in an illustrious career that spanned over forty years.

Born in England, Rhead immigrated to the United States in 1902 and became a manager for a small pottery company in Tiltonville, Ohio. By 1904 he was, briefly, at Weller Pottery before going over to Roseville as art director. After running his own pottery company in California from 1913 – 1917, Rhead returned to Ohio and in 1927 was hired by Homer Laughlin as art director. In 1930, perhaps as a response to the solid color dinnerware being produced in California, Rhead designed the Wells Line. Wells Art Glaze can be seen as the direct antecedent to Fiesta. Wells pieces were matt finished in the subdued colors, unlike the bright colors used by Bauer. It was also traditional in style and would fit in nicely with the Arts and Crafts aesthetic.

 

 

 

Here are some pieces of Wells Art Glaze from Chris’ collection –

 

 

Homer Laughlin phased out the Wells Art Glaze line in 1935. That same year Frederick Rhead was busy creating a new solid color dinnerware line, eventually named Fiesta.

 

The Birth of Fiesta

 

Towards the end of 1934 Homer Laughlin was ready to begin production of a solid color dinnerware line. During the first few months of the 1935 Rhead was busy creating shapes and choosing glazes. By April the glazes under consideration were: yellow, bright red, lava red, turquoise, buff, white, green, blue, ochre and rose ebony.

 

 

Homer Laughlin general manager, Joseph Wells chose six colors for limited production on basic table items such as cups and saucers, plates and sugar and creamer. The colors were deep blue, rose ebony, yellow, mandarin red, turquoise and white.

 

In a late 1930’s Rhead wrote an article for the Crockery and Glass Journal which he described the main design theme for Fiesta – –

 

“We wanted a suggestion of a streamline shape, but one which would be subordinate to texture and color. Then the shape must be jolly and pleasant, that is, convex and curving rather than concave and  angular. There was to be no relief ornamentation.  The color must be the chief decorative note, but in order that the shape be not too severely plain we broke the edges with varying concentric bands.”

 

With the shapes and colors in development, a name was needed for the solid color dinnerware. In the first two weeks of April, 1935 the following names were in the running:

Rhumba ware; Park Lane; Rhapsody; Plaza; Faience; Tazza; Tazza Faience; Chalet Faience; Dashe Faience & Flamingo.

 

Flamingo was the name most used by Rhead. Sometime around mid-May the name Fiesta was suggested and shortly thereafter chosen. And Fiesta was the perfect name, suggesting Mexico / Southern California and the type of pottery this new line was emulating.

 

Throughout the spring and summer of 1935 tests were being made on the clay, glazes and shapes. By late October the final decisions were made and the glazes chosen were, yellow, red (more orange than red), blue (referred to by collectors as cobalt), green (called light green today) and old ivory chosen to be a neutral. Out were white, rose ebony and for the moment turquoise. Now production went into high speed to be ready for its January launch.

 

 

 

 

When Fiesta hit the stores in early 1936 its simple modern design and bright colors made an immediate hit. Backed by a powerful marketing campaign and a large factory for mass production, Fiesta was available in higher quantities everywhere, compared to the products of the California potteries. At its introduction there were 42 items in the line from cups & saucers, plates, coffee pots and mixing bowls.

 

Here are examples of relish trays as sold to the retailers. These are seldom found this way today and were probably mixed and matched in the store to suit the customer’s wishes.

Striped Fiesta

 

Fiesta is famous for its solid, bright colors, but Homer Laughlin brought out a line with stripes. Using pieces only glazed in ivory, they were decorated with either red or blue stripes. These pieces are very rare and have a correspondingly high price when or if found in antique stores or at auctions. For example, ivory tripod candleholders have a book value of $650.00, but the pair with red stripes, pictured below, recently sold at auction for just over $13,000.00.

 

Personally, I have never run across any, but I would love to add a few of these striped pieces to my collection.

I was recently contacted by a former antique dealer and a very experienced Fiesta collector, John Waugh, of Maine. He was nice enough to share his experience and knowledge of the striped line of Fiesta. While I had thought that line was introduced around 1937, it seems I was off by more than a year. Excerpted below are portions of Waugh’s email to me with his theories and thoughts regarding this very rare Fiesta variant.

 

Way back in the 1970s, early 1974 to be specific, I ran a small “antiques and collectables” shop with, and for, a friend. The stock was varied, but Fiesta was a staple item we bought and sold. (And how I wish I could buy for the prices I sold at back then!) So because we had a shop, we were always approached by “pickers” who would scout out some item that they hoped they could in turn sell to us for a quick turnover & profit for themselves.

One day a regular picker came in to the shop and told me that she knew of the existence of a large set of Fiesta, but it was all ivory colored with 3 red stripes on it, and she had a sample to show me. I was excited, as I was even then an avid collector. I agreed to pay the price she quoted, and she went off and purchased it, brought it back, and handed it over to me for the price she had asked. Now this was a perfect condition, hardly used if at all, service for 12. I forget how many pieces there were, but there were lots! There were cups and saucers, and interestingly I found that they were not alike. Some had a red stripe inside at the rim, and others did not. Some had red on the handle and others did not. This was not sloppy work, and to my mind it was evidence that the decoration had been done by hand and not all by the same hand. There were the large fruits (5.5 inch), and cream soups, and every size plate. Also 13 inch and two 15-inch chop plates, and a 6-part relish tray. A mustard pot, both sizes of nappies (8.5 & 9.5 inch) and a covered casserole. There was also one deep plate and one 6-inch dessert bowl. And a salt and pepper. I’m sure there may have been possibly some other pieces which I can’t recall now.

 

Now the point of my writing to you is that the picker had brought me all, except the two large 15 inch chop plates, but then she told me of their existence at the place she had got the set. That person, another small-time dealer selling out of his home, had wanted too much for them for her to buy and resell to me she said, so she just left them. But since she told me and told me who had sold the ware to her, I went to see that person, and I bought them from him, and I ASKED HIM WHERE HE HAD GOT THE SET. He told me the name of the elderly woman from whom he had bought the set, and he had her telephone number and gave that to me as well. I CALLED THIS PERSON AND SPOKE WITH HER DIRECTLY. She lived in a neighboring town, and she said this to me: I GOT THE SET SOME TIME BEFORE MY WEDDING. I then asked her when she had been married: JUNE OF 1936 she told me. There was every reason to believe her and absolutely no reason to think she didn’t remember her wedding year, or acquiring such a large set, which she had evidently loved looking at, but rarely, or only very carefully used. (there was some tiny amount of scratching on some of the red striping on some pieces but overall not much wear at all). I did not ask her where she bought it although in later years, I wished I had. I am in Maine; she was in Maine. So I can only speculate on where or how she purchased such a large set.

Now this all is in keeping with my own analysis of Fiesta’s history, based on collecting and studying, reading every book and article I could back then in the 70’s and on up to today. I had a small contribution to the HLCCCA “bible” and am acknowledged in the page along with about 30 others. My own analysis, based on what was NOT in the set and the facts as related by the original owner of that set, is that the striped Fiesta came into being the following way.

As you know ceramic dinnerware is always comprised of three parts. There is the SHAPE of the ceramic, which many times is given a name, or at least a number. Then on that shape is applied a decoration which also has a name, or a number. Many times, this decoration is a decal, or other applied decoration. Finally, certain shapes are chosen, and certain decoration is chosen and the two combined and the result is then given its own name. Thus, for example, the set of dinnerware sold as “Williamstown”, may be a combination of a shape called “Axis” or “34EL” and a decoration/decal which might be called “Tiny rose” but then what is marketed is called “Williamstown” (HLC’s own Riviera is a good example of what I’m attempting to describe.)

So to continue with my analysis: when HLC/Frederick Rhead had conceived of the idea of bright colored solid ware, Rhead had a specific concept in mind to produce that. However, the first thing that he had to do was create the “shape” and he did that. The “decoration” was to be the 5 solid color glazes and together they made up what was introduced to the wholesale public in January 1936 as Fiesta. But he and the company had no way to be certain that what did happen would happen. It all could have gone bust, instead of bursting so successfully onto the retail scene as it did. So, as was common with all dinnerware shapes, HLC began to use the shape and apply alternate decorations, thus creating new patterns of dinnerware sets on the shape to offer to the public. The shape of Fiesta lent itself to the concept of applied rings over the embossed rings, and the ivory glaze was a neutral and so a red and a blue were chosen to decorate that ware with stripes.

However, what did happen with the intro of Fiesta was that it exploded and demand instantly required a full ramping up of production of the colored ware, thus killing off any necessity at that time to market the “shape” under different decorations. In fact, the ramp up of production was likely so intense that nothing else was produced for some few months I’d imagine. Rhead and HLC had a huge hit on their hands and which even prompted the addition of new pieces to the line, and then even a new glaze color.

But my basic point is that the striped ware was produced EARLY in 1936, or even very late 1935, as part of the normal process when a new shape was introduced into the company. And the huge crush of success of actual colored Fiesta just eliminated any need or time to continue that typical process of dinnerware production.

 

 

A few final points. To the best of my recollection, NONE of the pieces in that large set had ink stamps, only the molded pieces had the embossed mark of Fiesta. There was only the larger sized fruit (5.5 inch) none of the smaller. There was NOT an oval platter, NOR a sauceboat.  In later years, I’ve seen a stick creamer, nested mixing bowl, AD coffee, tripod, etc. To my knowledge NO ONE has found a later Fiesta shape with the red stripe. In other words, ALL red stripe is found only on the very earliest pieces produced in late 1935 and early 1936 and, NEVER on any later additions, or modifications to earlier shapes. The only quibble with this statement could be the covered mustard pot, the deep plate, and the 10-inch flower vase. According to you, and to the Huxford and HLCCA reference book these pieces were a mid-1936 production, but that data is based on when these somewhat later pieces appear on price guides or were referenced by FHR in articles he wrote or presentations he gave. And also possibly notes in his production log, which I have seen, and it is a hand-written, somewhat haphazard notebook of data, entered within it in a not wholly consistent manner about varying designs, stages of design, and re-designs, sometime also accompanied by “release to production” data. So, I submit that even with these three pieces, only documented as of mid-1936, they had already been in production at least for some months, and thus examples existed to decorate with the stripes. I do not feel that their existence contradicts my theory that the red stripe ware was only produced from November 1935 at the earliest, until early 1936 at the latest. Certainly, since my source had purchased it “sometime before my wedding in June of 1936” it had to have been created and shipped for resale earlier than that. And as there is so little of it found, if follows that it must have had a very short creation life. Due to the hand striping of the pieces, one can also readily see that it had to have been discontinued when the colored ware we know as Fiesta went into mass production in order to satisfy the crushing demand in those early months and years.

 

 

 

As this first group of items was hitting the stores, Rhead was busy on the finishing touches of the next set of pieces. Rhead and Homer Laughlin were always interested in feedback from store owners to determine what needed to be changed or added to the Fiesta line. These items were added around June, 1936.

 

 

When collecting Fiesta, either vintage or Post ’86, it is primarily important to know the colors and shapes. Knowing this will prevent you from being taken by pieces marked as vintage (with corresponding prices) to items that were made in the past 20 years or are still being sold today. And this can work to your advantage in finding vintage Fiesta that is being sold as new.

 

This brings us to the end of 1936. Part two will look at the years 1937 – 1940.

Here are some useful resources for Fiesta collectors both seasoned and novice:

http://www.happyheidi.com/antiques/ (A great site, and where many of the photos in this post came from).

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/china-and-dinnerware/fiesta

https://www.kovels.com/price-guide/pottery-porcelain-price-guide/fiesta.html

Click here for Fiesta 101: Part Two

Chris & Anthony (The Freakin’, Tiquen’ Guys)