We’ve written extensively about 1950s bathroom tile — ceramic tile, plastic tile, and even Sani Onyx, glass-like tile made from fused rock. But here’s a vintage variety in our spotlight for the first time: Porcelain-enameled steel wall tiles. Yes, every now and then we see steel tiles — but this is a particularly big stash, plus, we have marketing materials to illustrate.
These Veos tiles for sale on ebay were found in their original boxes. Veos Tile was made in Rehoboth, Massachussets.
I tried searching for more information about Veos tile, and I was also able to find this vintage Veos Tile brochure that I spotted on Amazon. Looks like Veos was owned by Clyde Porcelain Steel Corp. of Clyde, Ohio.
The vintage brochure — likely from the 1940s — shows several installations of Veos porcelain enamel steel tile and touts the tile’s strength, durability and light weight:
Weighs only 3.5 lbs. per square foot installed as against 16 to 18 lbs. for clay-bodied tile.
It also includes a list of colors — though grey is not one of them — and touts:
“No Extra Charge for Color — In all sizes and shapes, Veos colored tile is price the same as black or white.”
Tiles made of steel? Why not? We had 70 plus brands of factory-painted steel kitchen cabinets. AND we had Lustrons!
- Read the story of Lustron House #549
- Read all of our stories about steel kitchen cabinets
The tiles look pretty darn nice!
Mega thanks to ebay seller thebombshelter1 and Amazon seller The Jumping Frog for allowing us to feature their photos in our happily ever after archives.