There seems to be some confusion among sellers as to whether a Fiesta® Post '86 color is "retired" or "discontinued" and because those phrases are used by sellers interchangably.  As a result, a buyer who is not familiar with how Homer Laughlin uses those phrases, could be lured into purchasing some Fiesta® colors at an inflated price thinking they are going to become collectibles.   That may or may not be accurate.

From time to time, HLC will launch a color is intended to be produced for a limited period of time, generally two years.  Colors that fall in that category are lilac (1993-1995), sapphire (1997 - 180 days), juniper (1999-2001) and chartreuse(1997-1999).   These colors may or not be exclusively offered by a certain retail outlet or they may be widely available to all retailers.  For example, sapphire was exclusively marketed by Bloomingdale's.  When the colors are dropped at the end of their limited run, they are referred to as "retired".  That color will not be run again. 

 On the other hand, as I am sure you can understand, HLC can only keep a certain number of color runs in their line  - there were initially only 5 - black, white, apricot, cobalt blue and rose.  As the line matured, at the continued prodding of Bloomingdale's (they agreed to place large orders for the new colors), HLC finally relented in 1987 to produce yellow, turquoise in 1988, periwnkle in 1989 and sea mist in 1991.  Persimmon was added in 1995, pearl gray in 1999, cinnabar in 2000, sunflower in 2001, plum and shamrock in 2002, tangerine in 2003, scarlet in 2004, peacock in 2005 and heather in 2006.  It is my understanding that a color palette of 13 is the maximum they will produce at one time. 

As a result, each time a new color is announced, another color will be "discontinued".  The color chosen to be discontinued is, understandably, based upon any particular color's percentage of sales.  In the recent past, colors that have been discontinued are apricot, pearl gray, yellow, sea mist, rose and, most recently, periwinkle.  HLC has wanted discontinue black for quite awhile, but since a large number of their hotel customers buy it,  it is still produced on a monthly basis, even though its' percentage of total sales is always at the bottom. At HLC's option, these colors may be produced in the future when the consumer's color tastes move back to the pastels.  Many people inaccurately believe that pearl gray was a limited run color and thus was retired, but that is not accurate.  Pearl gray was discontinued because sales were very low, even though it was only produced for a short two-year period.

In short, if a color is "retired", it will be a limited run production and not be produced again.  If a color is "discontinued", the popularity of the color has waned with no specified production run length and may or may not be produced again in the future, at HLC's discretion.  If the trends of the past hold true, when HLC announces its' next new color, the potential color to be on the chopping block would be persimmon, but only time will tell.