Influence of the molten state controlled by thermal history of the melt and overheating on melt supercooling was studied experimentally for PbCl2, KPb2Cl5, CsCl and ZnCl2. The supercooling of all the molten compounds, except that of CsCl, increased with overheating and reached a maximum degree of supercooling of about 60 K for ZnCl2, 60 K for PbCl2 and 35 K for KPb2Cl5 Molten CsCl only reached small supercooling, from 2 to 4 K, independent of previous overheating. The influence studies of the thermal history of the melt on ZnCl2 and KPb2Cl5 supercooling showed that the overheating of the previous experiment influenced levels of supercooling of the following ones. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.