VINTAGE FIESTA WARE JUICE PITCHER
The juice pitcher at 6" high doesn't sound as if it would be significantly different than its 7" counterpart- the water pitcher, but it's suprising how different in size these two pieces are.
The juice pitcher is mostly found in original fiesta yellow, although there are some around in harlequin yellow - which is a brighter, more vibrant yellow. The red juice pitcher was produced for a promo set for a short time and is therefore quite rare - ones in excellent condition will bring around $500-600. Some other rare colors include a limited edition gray ($3000), a celadon green($240) and turquoise (there are so few in turquoise that have been reported you can count the numbers on one hand - if you find one expect to pay up to $10,000). One woman contacted me once with one for sale, but sadly it had been used as a gravy boat for years and had a big chunk out of it's inside.
There are quite a few contemporary grey and turquoise juice pitchers floating around that are tempting for $100 bucks - but they are new and usually have a raised letter "H" on the bottom. The rereleased grey and turquoise colors were so similar to the originals, and the water and juice pitcher molds didn't change - so you see how the old and new in the grey and turquoise juice pitcher can get very sketchy.
The bottom should be marked as shown in the red to the left... There was a short time after HLCo. began reissuing post 1986 fiestaa before they started adding the raised letter "H" to distinguish the old from the new. So a lack of an "H" isn't 100% proof it's vintage.
One other feature to look at when trying to determine a pitchers age is the inside body where the handle meets the pot. In the vintage pitchers this area is completely flat (as is the example on the left), but the new post 86 pitchers have a small dimple like indentation at the handle/body juncture. This physical feature is really the one truely 100% accurate way to determine the old from the new.
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Fiesta
Pottery Gallery