| How do I tell the old Jadeite from the new jadeite... If my jadeite is marked Fire-King, but not Anchor Hocking --is this still dated 40's? Most Fire-King pieces were marked, but some were not marked. Marks were changed over time. During these transitions more than one mark would be used. The following list of trademarks is taken from Kilgo and Wilkins A Collector's Guide to Anchor Hocking's Fire-King Glassware, Vol.2 (K & W Collectibles Publishers, 1997):
Some pieces are
marked only with an anchor and / or the words
"HEAT PROOF" or "OVEN
PROOF" . The style of anchor logo may
help establish the
manufacture period.
Anchor-Hocking
Logos
My Fire-King pieces aren't marked. Are they fake? No*. Any long-running highly produced pattern pattern will go through a number of different moulds. Moulds acquire cumulative layers of glass with each use until they are finally rendered useless and new moulds have to be made. At that time, any new management decisions about how the new pieces ought to be marked will be implemented. Not all moulds with a particular mark will wear out at the same time, so for brief periods, two or more kinds will be used at once. One solution to this confusion was to stop mould marks altogether and switch to foil labels -- which were eventually removed by consumers. So we now find "unmarked Fire-King" that is no less valuable or collectible than pieces with any of several imprinted marks. *The only exception is a very poor-quality creamer and sugar set made to resemble the ribbed Jane Ray pattern. The fakes are very thick, with a rough, grainy texture and do not include a sugar lid. Is
Anchorglass the same as
Anchor Hocking Fire-King?
"Anchorglass
is
a trademark
used by Anchor-Hocking. It means, literally,
"made by
Anchor-Hocking." Nothing more.What does "Heat Proof" mean? "Fire-King", also an Anchor-Hocking trademark, refers to items made with low-expansion borosilicate glass. Fire-King call this glass heat proof. All heat proof Anchor-Hocking glassware is Fire-King -- marked or not*. Heat proof glass is intended for use in the oven. NOT on top of the stove. *Some Fire-King is marked only as "Heat Proof". Some is not marked at all. (Most "unmarked" Fire-King had only foil labels, which were easily removed). Some items are marked only with foil labels that say "Heat Proof Anchorglass." They are Fire-King. Is it safe to put Fire-King in the dishwasher – or even a microwave? Microwave: Yes; Dishwasher: No. We have been using Fire-King in our microwave for years without a problem. However, since Fire-King glass was developed well before microwave ovens were available for domestic use, none of the earlier pieces are marked "Microwave Safe." Some Anchor-Hocking patterns not marketed as Fire-King are indeed made of the same "heat proof" borosilicate low expansion glass. One example is blue Bubble. We "nuke" our leftovers in blue Bubble flat soup bowls. Other non-Fire-King Anchor-Hocking patterns, such as Charm, ARE NOT heat proof. Be sure to avoid using gold-trimmed pieces in a microwave as well. I DO NOT recommend that you wash Fire-King dishes in a dishwasher. They'll come clean all right, but over time, the original lustre will be replaced with a "dishwasher haze" -- an actual removal of a thin layer of glass that removes its value as well. In your shopping for old Fire-King, you'll run across pieces that look like they've been sandblasted. Those were washed in a dishwasher. NEVER wash Peach Lustre or hand painted Gay Fad pieces in a dishwasher. I recently aquired some
Jadite cups and
saucers. They are in excellent condition
except for a white film here
and there on the cups. What is this and is
there a way to clean them so
it will come off ?
White discloration can be two kinds of things: a deposit on the glass or actual removal of material from it. Layers are added by such things as hard water minerals that can be removed with a solvent such as Lime Away or a mild abrasive, such as Soft Scrub or even with fine Brillo pads. Layers of glass are removed by dishwashers and/or by prolonged exposure to acidic water. The latter is common with vases that hold water for a long time without being cleaned. Either condition is referred to as "sick glass." I know of no way to correct it. Is the jadeite saucer with Jane Ray Pattern on back Fire-King or an imposter? The rayed bottomed saucers are an interesting Jane Ray variation. They're a little thicker. Some also have the anchor logo in the very center. Others are actually marked "Fire-King". MOST are not marked at all.  Does the glass or the peach lustre finish contains lead? I'd like to find out before I let my small children eat from them.. All Anchor-Hocking products are lead free. That includes Fire-King. What is the difference between a Breakfast Bowl and a Chili Bowl?
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| There
are so many different mugs. Which is which?
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| Are
"jadite"
and
"Restaurant
Ware"
the same thing?
What other companies made Jadite? Jade green milk glass, or "jadite" has been made since the beginning of the twentieth century, but the word itself was coined by the Jeannette Glass Company in the 1930's. McKee Glass, a contemporary of Jeannette, called their opaque green "Skokie Green." The Fenton, and New Martinsville companies made a similar color they called Jade Green. Akro Agate's version was Apple Green. A full decade later, Anchor-Hocking's heat proof jade green was named "Jade-ite". To simplify things, today's collectors and dealers use the collective generic term Jadite. Why is some jade-ite light while some is dark? The darkness of a jade-ite item is a result of the amount of impurities it contains. Most of this is "scrap cullet", or junk glass scraps that were simply disposed of into a vat of jade-ite glass "slag". The cullet included not only scraps from work areas, but beverage bottles from the plant floor as well. Glass factories were hot. I have a pie plate with the Fire-King logo written backwards. Is this unusual or rare? Unusual?
A
little.
Rare? Definitely not. Some logos were
intended to be read looking
down, through the glass. When such a mold
was used with an opaque
slag, such as white, ivory or jade-ite, the
backwards logo made less
sense. I have a 2 qt Fire King casserole dish with a silver signature on the lid marked Georges Briard. Who is that person? According to A Collector's Guide to Anchor-Hocking's Fire-King Glassware, volume 2*, Georges Briard is a fictitious name chosen by artist and glassware designer Jascha Broido and his friend Max Wille. Jascha Broido was born in the Ukraine, emigrated to the United States and attended the University of Chicago Art Institute. After being discharged from the Army in 1947, he went to work for Max Wille selling decorative items and eventually started Georges Briard Design. "Pieces of Georges Briard are easy to identify; most of his work was done in 22k gold and will always have his signature. You will find Anchor-Hocking casseroles, serving dishes, and glasses with art work signed by Georges Briard." *Copyright 1997 by Garry and Dale Kilgo and Jerry and Gail Wilkins. Published by K & W Collectibles The following correction was added by a visitor to this site: "...I must tell you I need info on odd pieces with a large F inside a shield. Is it Fireking ?
I
also have
mugs that
have
a small A inside a larger H.
Anchor-Hocking
marked
almost
all of its Fire-King wares but virtually none of
its other
I
found a 1 1/2 QT white bowl. On the
bottom is an "F" inside a shield. I
know that this is the mark of
the Federal Glass Company, but does that
mean it isn't worth anything?
Did the Federal Glass Company make Fire
King or is this a totally
different brand of glass? And how do
I know how old it is and
what it is worth?
Federal and Anchor-Hocking are separate companies. Both began making heat resistant ovenware in the 1940's. One is just as good as the other. There were others as well, such as Fry, the inventor of low-expansion heat resistant borosilicate glass (Fry Oven Glass); MacBeth-Evans (Corning Ware and Pyrex) and McKee (Glasbake). Anchor-Hocking calls its "heat-proof" glass Fire-King. Fire-King is a brand name. All are equally good. Not all are equally valuable. In the antiques & collectibles world, "Value" is determined not by quality, beauty or scarcity but by DEMAND. Thanks largely to Martha Stewart, the demand for Fire-King is huge, while equally useful glass from other companies just sits on store shelves. The Fire-King collecting culture is also carried along by an abundance of Fire-King research material and documents, while many of the catalogs from other companies are lost forever. Your Federal bowl is a good thing to have. Use it. But, if you're looking for an investment, start collecting Fire-King.
Some of my square Jadite kitchen shakers are tall and some are short. I thought Fire-king shakers were all the same. Aren't they? Fire-King shakers are indeed all shaped the same, but none of them are square. What you have are either Jeannette or McKee range shakers. At first glance they may appear to be identical, but the McKee shakers are slightly taller and have wider necks. Incidently,
McKee
and Jeannette
shakers are from the 1930's. They come in a
variety of colors and
lettering
styles. All are highly collectible.
Are there Fire-King or jade-ite reproductions out there? Yes. But they can be spotted once you're aware of them. Please take a look at our pages of Jadite Reproductions to learn about some of the repros you are likely to encounter. More recently, a new problem has emerged for Fire-King collectors with the introduction of jade-ite2000 (aka: Fire-King2000), which was first mentioned on our Fire-King News page. Initial reports indicated that the new restaurant ware would be marked with only a paper label that could easily be removed. Later, an update was issued by Jonathan Plotzker (JonathanP@RestorationHardware.com) Director of Catalogue & Web Operations for Restoration Hardware, the sole distributor for the new line, who said that..."The stamp on the bottom reads "Fire King 2000," so there's no chance of someone trying to pass this off as originals." Production of Fire-King2000 dinnerware ( fake restaurant ware) has been cancelled indefinitely. It is not available for sale anywhere. A
few pieces of Brazilian-made
jade-ite Fire-King2000 ovenware
are available in specialty stores. I
recently acquired a few pieces that I believe to
be rare. They appear
to be Hocking Charm in clear. I
had
to refer this question to Philip Hopper -- author of Royal Ruby,
More Royal
Ruby, Forest Green Glass and many
other books about Hocking Glass. "The crystal Charm is
new!!!! Anchor
Hocking introduced the pattern in crystal three or
four years
ago. Since ...(the new Fire-King2000) pieces ARE made by Anchor Hocking, Fire King why do you indicate that they are basically not worth much. Aren't they still Jade-ite made by Fire King? Even though they are new...they certainly are worth something... Yes,
they
are jade-ite, and
yes they are made, in Brazil, by a company that
owns the Fire-King
name. But
most of what drives collectors toward vintage
Fire-King made by the
Anchor-Hocking
company from the 1940's through the seventies is
nostalgia. Is a
1957 Chevy the same as a new Chevy? They both say
Chevrolet on the
back. But which one
appeals
to collectors? It is the demand
for the older things that remind us of our youth
that determines their
worth or value. Most of the pieces that I have collected so far have numbers on the back next to the Fire King mark. What do the numbers mean ? Those
are
batch or lot
numbers. If a manufacturing defect showed
up in any piece, it
could
be traced back to the place and time it was
produced and other pieces
so
marked could be recalled. Unfortunately, they
are not indicative of an
item's place or date of manufacture. I just bought a Fire-King casserole dish on a chrome stand and a utility baking dish. The box is original and says Royal Chrome Sheffield Design Gourmet Ware. The bottom of the dishes are stamped Fire-King. Can you tell me how old these might be? What you have is called an After Market piece. Many Fire-King pieces were sold to other companies who then added their own metal stands, racks, holders, etc. to create "new" products, such as candle warmers / chafing dishes, cooling racks, fondue sets, ice buckets and plant stands. To get an idea of the approximate age of your piece, please see the table at the top of this page. After Market modifications generally add little to the value of a Fire-King piece. How do I place an order here on Fire-King.Net? (Yes; we do get asked this) Since
our
baby, fire-king.net
is still connected to its mother site
(spglass.com), all ordering
information
for both sites is available on the How
to
Order page. But here it is in
brief:
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didn't find the answer to your question
here, then please EMAIL
US.
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