Cool collections: Fire-King mugs

They go for up to $8 a piece at vintage stores on Commercial Drive and Main Street in Vancouver – but my friend Mike does the rounds at thrift stores where he finds Fire-King mugs for 50 cents. In the photo above, on the top left, is the McDonalds mug he estimates is from 1975.

“The patterns are too radical for their time,” said my pal when I visited him today for Saturday morning coffee. “Look carefully. Somebody’s mind went into them.”

The first piece of Michael’s Fire-King collection

Mike found the first piece of his collection in 1996 in an abandoned building on Kingsway, west of Knight, by Famous Foods and the White Spot. He said the mug was filthy and needed a good long scrub before its pattern was revealed.

According to the Fire-King Mug Website: “A Fire-King mug is a milk glass, jadeite, azurite (turquoise), or vitrock coffee mug or sometimes cup, which was made by the Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation (Anchor Hocking) between about 1940 through about 1979.”

Mike uses these mugs every day, and I’ve had the pleasure of sipping many coffees from them as a guest at his intriguing, attic apartment by Commercial Drive.

Tags: Fire-King