Collecting Fire King Glassware: A Beginner's Guide - Jewelry Bubble

Collecting Fire King Glassware: A Beginner's Guide

The Anchor Hocking Company's Fire-King brand of glassware was produced from the early 1940s until the late 1970s. It was a popular glassware brand at the time, and it is still prized as a collectable today.

The Fire-King line includes bowls, casseroles, mugs, plates, serving platters, creamers, vases, and more. Dishwasher use might dull the luster of Fire-King and ruin any painted decorations, therefore it's not advised.

Popular decal designs include Blue Mosaic, Wheat, Primrose, Fleurette, Forget Me Not, and Anniversary Rose. Patterns featuring solid glass colors include Restaurant Ware, Swirl/Shell (1965–76), Sheaves of Wheat (Laurel 1952–63), Kimberly Diamond, Jane Ray, Alice, Fish Scale, Three Bands (1952–56), Restaurant Ware, 4000 Line, and 1700 Line.

The most popular among collectors is Jadeite restaurant ware. Its color is a creamy jade. By incorporating it into her TV program, Martha Stewart made this design famous. In 2000, Anchor Hocking reissued Fire-King in Jadeite. The parts were made with new molds and cannot be used with earlier Fire-King products. They also have the inscription "Fire-King, 2000" on them.

Gene Florence's Anchor Hocking's Fire-king and More are good reference books on the subject. Jerry and Gail Wilkins with Garry and Dale Kilgo Anchor Hocking's Fire King Glassware: A Collector's Guide

Fire-King solid glass colors include jade-ite, burgundy, rose-ite (creamy pink), turquoise blue, azur-ite (light pastel blue), white, ivory-white, and ivory (not to be confused with "pink swirl," which is a pink fired color over opaque white glass), white, ivory-white, and ivory. It can also be a fired-on coating over crystal in the colors pastel green, pastel blue, pastel peach, pastel yellow, primary orange, primary blue, primary yellow, and primary green. A rainbow is a pattern made up of colors that have been burnt into the surface. Rainbow isn't a Fire-King book, but it belongs to the same category as other collector books. Other Luster color finishes, including as grey, white, pink, and the most popular, Peach Luster, are available in a range of patterns and colors (on dinnerware). There's also a bakeware set and mixing bowl set in "copper tint," a fired-on color (over white opaque glass) that looks like peach luster but with a more faint copper tone.

The most popular Fire-King colors were usually the cup and saucer sets. These colorful sets were occasionally substituted for Britannia Limoges luncheon settings (the most popular colored china used on American tables). This was due to the fact that in the 1950s, Limoges cups and saucers cost around $15.00 a set (around $126.00 in today's currency), whereas Fire-King identical sets cost just $5.99 (roughly $45.00 in today's values). If you loved the lighter colored set, it was just more cost-effective to use Fire-King rather than Limoges. Many individuals were so taken with the deep coloration of Limoges that they bought both for their table settings. Another factor that contributes to its appeal is that Fire-King was one of the three major materials utilized in the manufacture of Pyrex glassware in the 1950s; as a result, numerous bakeware and mixing bowls are now antique collectibles!

To date, Fire-King has become the most sought-after vintage glassware. Even though the series was terminated, many of the items have continued to appreciate in value. There is a good chance that you're dealing with a genuine Fire-King item if the company's logo appears on the piece.

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