Question:
Hello, My dad gave this to me but we don’t know what to call it. There is a large bowl and a smaller one with a metal piece so that you can put them together. The pattern I believe is called Chuck wagon. The numbers on the bottoms are 119 and 120. Please let me know if you can tell me anything about it. Thanks, Sue

Answer: Sue, the two bowls could be from either Chuck Wagon or Round Up. Except for the dinner plate the two patterns are the same. The Chuck Wagon plate features a cowboy and cattle round up scene, while the Round Up plate depicts a cowboy cook with a chuck wagon and cooking fire. Chuck Wagon was introduced before Round Up. A Chuck Wagon brochure shows serving pieces on wrought iron stands rather than the later copper stands seen with Round Up. The Chuck Wagon brochure states it is "Sold exclusively by The Mal Company". My hunch is The Mal Company was short lived, and Red Wing rechristened the pattern as Round Up.

The hardware that joins the two bowls is from a Red Wing chip & dip set. But the sets I’ve seen and that are shown in catalogs have two plain undecorated bowls. I’ve not seen any catalog that shows Round Up bowls used this way. The bottom bowl of the original chip & dip set is 9.5" in diameter; this size bowl was not made for any purpose except the chip & dip set. Most likely your large Round Up bowl is a 12" salad bowl, not a 9.5" bowl. I suspect somebody "married" the chip & dip hardware with two Round Up bowls somewhere along the line. It’s possible all three pieces were purchased at the Red Wing Pottery Salesroom in Red Wing, where surplus odds and ends were sold to the public. The value of your set is $125 to $175 in excellent condition. Most of the value is in the large salad bowl, which is quite difficult to find. The numbers 119 and 120 on the bottoms of your bowls are stock numbes and are not significant.

Larry