The Styrous® Viewfinder: Tea Cups 02: Anchor Hocking Fire-King tea cup

Fire-King is an Anchor Hocking brand of glassware similar to Pyrex. It was formerly made of low expansion borosilicate glass and ideal for oven use. Currently it is made of tempered soda-lime-silicate glass in the US and borosilicate in Japan.

Fire-King was originally produced in the 1940s for everyday use, rather than display. It was sold in bags of flour as a promotional item or was given away at gas stations. Fire-King could also be purchased at local grocery and hardware stores. Several varieties of Fire-King dishes were made; nesting bowls, dessert bowls, glass beverage containers, casserole dishes, mugs and more. The vintage nesting bowls, produced by the Anchor Hocking Company, are one of the most sought after collectible dishes of this type.

It was not designed for dishwasher use, which can dull its original lustre and remove any applied paint decorations.

Fire-King solid glass colors come in jade-ite, burgundy, rose-ite (creamy pink), turquoise blue, azur-ite (light pale blue), white, ivory-white and ivory. There are also fired-on Lustre color finishes that come in several patterns and a few colors on dinnerware such as grey, white, pink and the commonly found Peach Lustre.

photos by Styrous®