As I mentioned the other day in my love it/shove it post, I LOVE Fiestaware! Perhaps you have never heard of it, or maybe you have seen it around, but it hasn't ever really caught your eye. I would love to show you the sheer beauty of Fiestaware in this post!
Years ago, I was introduced to Fiestaware. I don't even remember when it began or when I started my collection. As you know, I love Spanish, so the name was the first draw. Fiesta, in Spanish, means party! That is exactly how I see these dishes - as a colorful party! When we moved to Panama, I knew I had to bring them with me. As I was unpacking, I kept thinking, "this is the last piece," but then I would find another! My collection is pretty much always growing!
I did a little research and found out there are around 49 colors of Fiesta Dinnerware. Some were only made for a few years, some were made long ago and no longer in production, some were radioactive, some are still being made. It appears that only 15 colors are still being produced. This is said to be the most collected dinnerware in the world. Fiesta was started in the 1930's.
I started collecting my pieces around the time I graduated from college I think. I loved the bright, bold colors of the dishes and how nice they looked on display. I still love all of the colors and we even put them up on shelves in our kitchen here in Panama. All of the pictures in this post are my dishes from my Fiesta collection. As you can see, I really am a huge fan!
Over the years, I have even been able to collect a few of the rare pieces. I love the lilac ones, but they were only produced for 2 years in the 1990's. I was able to buy a couple of pieces of it off of eBay. I also had one of the radioactive colors, but I left it in Texas with my mother-in-law. She started collecting after she saw how pretty my dishes were!
To tell when a piece of Fiesta was produced, they began putting a stamp on the back of each piece with a letter combination. You can look up the different letters and see when the color was produced. They also still stamp into the ceramic part of the dish on larger pieces.
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I just found out they have a blog as well! That may be some of my afternoon reading! You can also read a chart to see what color Fiesta you are! Looks like I am lapis. I better make sure I have some in that color!!
I went to a restaurant once and saw that they had made a wall out of their broken Fiesta pieces. While it is sad to break them, it made the coolest wall! I even saw that I could buy broken pieces on eBay. Before we moved from Texas, I had a box of broken pieces I hoped to do something with, but they didn't make the move. I did, however, sell them on craigslist! Ha!
I love having people over and using my lovely dishes! Perhaps someday, you will make it to Panama and dine on my Fiestaware! Until then, you can probably find some at your local department store, Tex-Mex restaurant or shop for some on eBay!
Ole! The Fiesta dancing girl symbol
Do you have a favorite set of dishes?