Home | Gallery | History | Price Guide | Online Store

Vintage Fiesta Disc Water Pitcher (Jug)

The original fiesta water pitcher wasn't actually part of the tableware line first released in January of 1936. It's suprising to think of this now famous jug coming out two years later in 1938. Fiesta designer Frederick Rhead experimented with four different capacity sizes (90, 71, 53 and 30 ounces), finally settling on the 71 ounce version to release as the now iconic water pitcher. No other shape has captured the imagination and we've even seen it on our US Postage stamps.

How to tell the vintage fiesta water pitcher from the new?

Homer Laughlin (now fiesta tableware) is still making water pitchers today with the very same molds designed by Frederick Rhead in the 1930s so you must know the colors, the marks, and the difference between the two pitchers construction. The original water pitchers will not have a raised letter "H" on them. Instead look for a small set of numbers that were used to identify the quality controllers work number (in the case below worker number 3 left their stamp of approval on the bottom right side of the jug). Not al vintage jugs will have a quality control number, but NONE will have a raised H.

The only absolute way to be sure if you are not expertly familiar with the vintage glazes is to look inside the pitcher where the handle joins the body of the pot. The vintage examples will show a flat area where the handle connects that would have been smoothed and finished off by hand. The post 1986 examples will have a noticable dimple there where the new one piece mold construction left a good sized hole that you can roughly fit your pinky finger in. Inspecting the pitchers for this construction is a 100% full proof way of determing the old from the new versions!

Dimensions

7 1/2" tall x 8 3/4" wide from tip of spout to back of handle at its widest point.

Marks

Marked in the mold on the outside bottom with the Homer Laughlin logo followed by "fiesta MADE IN U.S.A."

Years of production

Circa 1938-1969: Made in all eleven original vintage colors. Red discontinued from the end of 1942 until reintroduced in 1959.