The F in Fiestaware has changed considerably since the 1930s. The original Fiesta is always lower case and has no loops. The rest of the words in Fiesta are connected.

 

Genuine Fiestaware

The word Genuine began appearing around 1940 or shortly before then.  Homer Laughlin introduced this signature to combat the large number of imitations that followed the success of fiesta.

Wet Bottom

I have read about this identification method before in other guides and have been taught that it will be true in most cases. At lest it will be another clue as to whether you have an old piece or a post 86 piece. A lot of the older pieces did not have the glaze removed from around the base, the entire base is still glazed whereas the newer pieces all have the base glaze removed. Also the older pieces will have the 3 sagger points whereas the newer pieces do not. As with all things this is only another pointer to look at when researching a piece.

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The New Fiesta

In 1986, when Fiesta was revived, the F in Fiesta was given a distinctive loop, making it appear uppercase. Also, Fiesta started using the Trademark (TM) and Registration (R) symbols after 1986.

Lead Free Fiestaware

The words Lead Free appeared after January 1992.  

NOTE:

The original molds from the 30s were used in the production of the new Fiesta after 1986. This causes some problems with identifying the pieces as the earlier 1986 forward pieces had the same markings as the older pieces. Later on these indented pieces a ink stamp was also added. So to identify what you have you need to understand the colors used at the beginning and what colors were available in 1986.

Date Codes

Also in1992, Fiestaware began bearing date codes. The year is noted by two letters and the month is noted by a single letter. For example, KK is the year code for 1996 and G is the month code for July. A piece made in July 1996 would be stamped with KKG. Homer Laughlin has used date codes on commerical products since 1960, but these codes did not appear on Fiesta until 1992. Below is a chart for date codes:

Homer Laughlin Date Codes for Year:	Homer Laughlin Date Codes for Month:
GG - 1992 HH - 1993 II  - 1994 JJ - 1995 KK - 1996 LL - 1997 MM - 1998 NN - 1999 OO - 2000 PP - 2001 QQ - 2002 RR - 2003 SS - 2004 TT - 2005 UU - 2006 VV - 2007 WW - 2008 XX - 2009	A - January B - February C - March D - April E - May F - June G - July H - August I - September J - October K - November L - December

This page does not cover all Fiesta signatures but it does give the new collector an insight into the different signatures and the date they were used. Having some background into signatures helps make you smarter when searching or buying fiesta. Even then with so many different pieces not marked it is hard to know what is old or new. Learning the different signatures and colors and when they were used can help you avoid the pit falls of losing money.