Jadeite glass

How to read it

Jadeite is the collectors’ name for opaque green glass. The National Depression Glass Association’s journal calls it basically a green milk glass, and says collectors use the name for a range of shades, light or dark, opaque or semi-transparent. Each maker spelled it its own way. McKee of Jeannette, Pennsylvania, brought out Jade Green tableware in 1930 and Skokie Green kitchenware in 1931. The Jeannette Glass Company, in the same town, made kitchenware in an opaque green it called Jadite; the Illinois State Museum has a Jeannette Jadite refrigerator set, and Jeannette made the same pieces in an opaque blue, Delphite, from 1936. Anchor Hocking introduced its Jade-ite line under the Fire-King name in 1945.

Also searched as: fire king jadeite, green milk glass, jade-ite, jadeite, jadeite glass, jadite.

Three spellings from three makers

All three are in use, and all three come from makers’ names. Michigan State University’s Campus Archaeology Program says Jeannette coined Jadite, after the stone, and that Fire-King’s was Jade-ite. The National Depression Glass Association’s journal agrees on Jade-ite for Anchor Hocking, but writes Jeannette’s name both as Jadeite and as Jadite in the same article. Cambridge Glass made an opaque green it called Jade from 1924, nearer blue.

The three makers

The sources differ on Jeannette’s start: the association’s journal says 1932, Michigan State says the mid-1930s. McKee marked nearly all its glass with McK in a circle. Jeannette’s Jadite came in a light and a dark shade, mostly kitchen pieces, and except for a few early items was not marked. Anchor Hocking’s Jade-ite is the easiest to identify, the association says, because nearly every piece is marked Anchor Hocking, Fire King or both. Michigan State dates Fire-King Jade-ite from 1945 to 1975, and says Anchor Hocking also made a thicker, heavier line for restaurants. Anchor Hocking’s opaque blue was Azur-ite.

Does jadeite glow under a black light?

Some does. Michigan State’s archaeologists found a fragment of ribbed jadeite bowl that glowed green, and say McKee and Jeannette both used uranium in the 1930s and early 1940s. They reason that Fire-King Jade-ite, made only from 1945, could not have contained uranium. The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab lists jadite among the uranium glasses. See uranium glass.

Cheap then

Jadeite was not a luxury. Michigan State says it was sold in five and dime stores and given away: reamers with boxes of fruit, small pieces in bags of flour or boxes of oatmeal. It was cheap to make, first from green scrap glass added to milk glass and mostly pressed by machine. Martha Stewart’s collection, shown on her cooking show, pushed up its popularity in the 1990s, and new jadeite has been made since, by Martha by Mail and Cracker Barrel among others.