Pierre the Chef Cookie Jar | Red Wing Collectors Society | Red Wing Pottery, Union Stoneware, North Star, Art Pottery, Dinnerware

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Question:
I found a red Wing USA cookie jar in the shape of a baker he is a light yellow color and it is in perfect shape. doesn’t look as if it was ever used. do you have any ideas on what it would be worth? Thank you Rae

Answer: The Pierre the Chef cookie jar was introduced by Red Wing in 1941, along with his friends Katrina the Dutch girl and Friar Tuck. 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.

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 chef 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.

If your jar is truly in "like new" condition with no crazing, stains or damage of any kind, it might bring an extra $50 or so over and above the previously mentioned values.

Larry