Five names keep coming up when vintage kitchen collectors compare finds: Griswold, Wagner, Pyrex, Fire-King and Fiesta. Griswold and Wagner made cast iron in Pennsylvania and Ohio, Pyrex and Fire-King are glass lines from Corning and Anchor Hocking, and Fiesta is a colorful dinnerware line from West Virginia. Wikipedia says Griswold pieces are collector’s items today, and it notes that in 2002 The New York Times called Fiesta “the most collected brand of china in the United States.”
Each name has a founding date, a factory town and a few marks that collectors use to tell eras apart. The five sections below cover them in turn, using company histories, museum posts and encyclopedia entries, and leave out resale prices.
Griswold: Erie’s Cast Iron From 1865 to 1957
Griswold started as the Seldon-Griswold Manufacturing Company, founded in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1865 by Matthew Griswold and his cousins, the Selden brothers. It first made hinges and stove parts. Skillets, pots and waffle irons followed in the 1870s, and the company was chartered as Griswold Manufacturing in 1887.
Collectors read the logo. Wikipedia says the “Griswold cross” was first used in the 1910s, that a slanted name in the center marks early pieces through the early 1920s, and that block lettering from the 1920s and 1930s is the best-known version. It adds that distinctive brand markings are the main reason the items are collectible, and that reproductions generally have a grainy finish and blurred lettering.
Erie’s Hagen History Center said in a 2022 blog post that its collection included about 720 pieces of cast iron, most of them Griswold. Of those, 582 came from one collector, Alan Stone. The Griswold brand and housewares division were sold to Wagner in 1957, and the Erie plant closed that December. 31 forgotten household items from the past on Frenz Hub is one place to read about other things from the past.
Wagner: A Sidney, Ohio Rival
The Wagner Cast Iron company’s own history says brothers Milton and Bernard Wagner established the Wagner Manufacturing Company in Sidney, Ohio, in 1891. It opened in June with 20 employees. In 1894, it introduced cast aluminum cookware, a first for the industry, and in 1904 it won a gold medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair for its cast iron and aluminum cookware.
The company introduced its looped-W Wagner Ware logo in 1915, a time when branding was not common and some competitors did not mark their products at all. Wikipedia’s entry on the company says Wagner at one time held a 60 percent share of the cookware market. The Sidney plant kept operating under later owners until it closed in 1999, and a newly formed Wagner Cast Iron began making reissues of historic Wagner products in 2022, starting with the Long Griddle No. 1148. For more kitchen history, see 10 kitchen appliances that changed how American families cooked.
Pyrex: From Lab Glass to Kitchen Staple
Wikipedia’s entry on Pyrex says Corning developed the borosilicate glass in 1908 and introduced Pyrex to the public in 1915. The story of how it reached kitchens involves a Corning scientist, Jesse Littleton, who gave his wife Bessie a cut-down battery jar made of the glass to try as a casserole dish after her ceramic one shattered in the oven. Corning’s first consumer product was a pie plate.
Colorful pieces came later. The collector site The Pyrex Collector says colorware arrived in fall 1945, led by the nesting bowl set known as the “primary colors” set. Collectors Weekly noted in 2015 that the Corning Museum of Glass was marking the brand’s centennial with an exhibition called “America’s Favorite Dish: Celebrating a Century of Pyrex.” Wikipedia adds that Anchor Hocking closed Pyrex’s Charleroi, Pennsylvania factory in April 2025. Rediscover the Past: 15 Surprising Things That Decorated Every 70s Home, But Are Now Extinct on Frenz Hub covers other vintage home finds.
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Fire-King: Anchor Hocking’s Everyday Glass
Wikipedia’s Fire-King entry says Anchor Hocking of Lancaster, Ohio, introduced the heat-resistant ovenware and dinnerware line in 1942, when wartime shortages made metal bakeware hard to get. The first Jade-ite dinnerware pattern, Alice, followed in 1945 and was distributed as a premium packed inside oatmeal boxes. Fire-King was also sold through grocery, hardware and five-and-dime stores, and was given away with purchases of flour, oatmeal or gasoline.
Production of the original line ended in 1976, with a commemorative reissue in 1992, and Anchor Hocking relaunched Jade-ite in 2000. Wikipedia says collector interest surged in the 1990s after Martha Stewart showed her Jade-ite collection on television and in her magazine. For storage ideas, see Best Practices for Seasonal Storage on Frenz Hub.
Fiesta: Color From Newell, West Virginia
Wikipedia’s entry on Fiesta dinnerware says it was introduced in January 1936 at the Pottery and Glass Exhibit in Pittsburgh. Frederick Hurten Rhead, Homer Laughlin’s art director, designed the original shapes and glazes. It launched as a line of about 37 pieces in five colors, sold as open stock so customers could mix and match.
The West Virginia Encyclopedia says that in the 1940s, 2,500 workers produced 30 million pieces a year, and that the U.S. Postal Service put two Rhead-designed Fiesta pitchers on a stamp in 2011. American Heritage described a museum case at the factory in Newell holding the 500 millionth piece. The original run ended in 1973, and Wikipedia says the line returned in 1986 and remains in production.
What Collectors Check Before Buying
The five names share a habit: each one leaves marks. Griswold has its cross logo, Wagner cast its name on the bottom of each piece, Pyrex has trademark styles that changed over time, and Fiesta has glaze colors tied to specific years. Wikipedia’s entry on the Fiesta Tableware Company notes that modern Fiesta, made from a harder clay body, can run slightly smaller than vintage pieces made from the same molds.
Reading those marks is a big part of dating a find. For kitchen-counter ideas, see 8 things that don’t belong on a kitchen counter. Whether the find is a skillet, a casserole or a plate, the date comes from the stamp.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: NMorales (WMF) – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons
