Question:
I came across a box with red wing dishes in it. I believe it is the Random Harvest design. There are 11 dinner plates, 1 round serving platter with a gold handle in the middle, 11 small salad plates, 7 coffee cup saucers ( 2 have smll chips), 1 coffee cup and 1 creamer. How old do you think they are and do you have an estimate on their worth? Thank you.

Answer: Random Harvest was introduced January 1956 or possibly a bit earlier. The pattern was still in production when the pottery closed in 1967. Random Harvest was a good consistent seller for Red Wing over the years. But it isn’t among the prime patterns sought by collectors and today the supply is greater than the demand.

All of the items in your box are common, easy to find pieces. It’s an odd mix of pieces that can’t be considered a set, it’s just a group of miscellaneous pieces. It could be a starting point point for somebody interesting in building a complete set. but more likely any interest in them would be as individual pieces to fill gaps in an existing collection. Valued individually, retail values (apiece) for the dinner plates are $10-15, salad plates $5-10, saucers $5, cup $5, creamer $10-15 and the handled platter $15. Damage reduces the value by at least half.

Larry