 Texas Dinnerware Store featuring Fiesta® Dinnerware Fiesta® Dinnerware Store | Color Chart | Retired Fiesta® Colors | Buy Fiesta |
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Texas Dinnerware Store featuring Fiesta® Dinnerware Fiesta® Dinnerware Store | Color Chart | Retired Fiesta® Colors | Buy Fiesta |
  Look for these backstamps Many people inherent or find colorful dishes, and need to know whether or not it is actual Fiestaware. The first place to look in order to verify an item is underneath. Most fine china has been backstamped with the manufacturer's logo. The original Fiesta design and name were filed by Homer Laughlin China Company on March 20, 1937 (Patent No. 390-298). To the right are the four most common backstamps. Some items are not marked because of design considerations. These include vintage juice tumblers, demitasse cups, teacups and salt and pepper shakers. Of the vintage line, some ashtrays, egg cups, sweets comports and onion soup bowls are marked, while others are not. Once you become more aware of the design and color, recognizing Fiesta becomes easier. The key pattern to recognize is a band of concentric rings graduating in width. In the design, the rings closest to the rim are more widely spaced. Since 1986, Homer Laughlin has also used a rubber backstamp to mark some of its Fiesta items. Used mainly on cups and bowls, it uses the words HLC USA and genuine. Vintage Fiesta backstamps use a lower case "f" in the word Fiesta. The new stamp capitalizes the "F" in the name. All the backstamps are applied by machine. Eventually the company hopes to backstamp all post 86 pieces. The post 86 backstamps also contain other useful information. Note a series of three small letters in the backstamp itself. This is HLC's date coding system which it has used since the 1960's. The letters AA indicate 1986, BB indicates 1987, CC indicates 1988, and so on. The last letter indicates what quarter of the year an item was made. Therefore, A represents the first quarter, followed by B, C and D. Therefore a backstamp with the letters KKA indicates that the item was made in January, February or March of 1996. Note that the backstamp only indicates when the item was formed. It does not take into account the additional time to completion. Therefore date coding should only be used as an approximation. Collectors can be easily confused between some of the vintage colors and their post 86 counterparts. For example, vintage turquoise can be difficult to distinguish from current turpuoise. Also, post 86 sapphire bears a strong resemblence to vintage cobalt blue. However the grays are the most difficult to seperate. In 1998, Homer Laughlin added a small raised H to the undersides of all Fiesta made from the original molds, like for example the bud vase. However this convention was added only during the midpoint of the post 86 pearl gray production.
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Fiesta® is a registered trademark of the Homer Laughlin China Company, Newell WV. Homer Laughlin never bothered to trademark the term fiestaware. We are sorry for any confusion stemming from their historical business decisions. We would apologize on their behalf for any confusion, but will not because we are not the Homer Laughlin China Company. This website and its pages are not
owned by Homer Laughlin China Company. We do not pretend to officially represent the Homer Laughlin China Company. They are the official experts. Not us.
We are simply enthusiastic collectors and fans of the china.
All materials, including Grandma's Cookbook and its contents are
© 2009
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