Frair Tuck Cookie Jar | Red Wing Collectors Society | Red Wing Pottery, Union Stoneware, North Star, Art Pottery, Dinnerware

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Question:
I have a cookie jar with Red Wing USA on the bottom. It also has the words Patent and three rows of numbers stamped under that. The bottom number appears to be 31383. The cookie jar is a blue friar holding a Bible, one finger pointing and the words Thou Shalt Not Steal on a banner across the front of his robe. It is 7 inches wide, 10 inches high and in excellent condition with some crazing but no chips. The color is not faded and it has a shiney glaze. Can you tell me how old it is and an approximate value?

Answer: The Friar Tuck cookie jar was introduced by Red Wing in 1941, along with his friends Katrina the Dutch girl and Pierre the Chef. Price lists from 1942, 1943 and 1944 show them as being available in blue, yellow, and tan colors. An undated brochure, probably from the mid to late 1940s adds green as an available color. These three cookie jars were great sellers for Red Wing. Many thousands of them were made and production continued into the mid 1950s.

The ink stamped numbers on the bottom are the cookie jar’s registered patent numbers. Jars made early in production were marked with these numbers to discourage other potteries from "borrowing" the design, a common concern in the pottery industry. Since your jar displays these patent numbers, it was most likely made in the early 1940s rather than later in production.

While these cookie jars are not at all rare, jars in excellent condition are not easy to find in any color. After years of use (often by the small hands of children more interested in the contents than the jar), these jars are usually chipped or cracked and have grease stains. A Friar Tuck cookie jar in excellent condition would be worth around $75 to 100 in the yellow or tan colors, with another $25 or so for blue. Green would be worth more because the color is less common. Chips, cracks and staining will reduce the value significantly.

Larry