Question:
I have what I assume is a salad bowl and 4 plates. The bowl is 12 1/2 in. diameter and the plates are 8 1/2 ins. The bowl and plates have fluted edges. The bowl is decorated with a pear, apple, cherries and grapes and each plate has a painting of one of these. All pieces have the Red Wing stamp and are handpainted. This is an old set from my Mother who purchased it somewhere in MN. It is in mint condition as it has probably been used only 2 or 3 times in the past 40 or 50 yrs. It this a colectors item and what is the worth ? Carol

Answer: According to Red Wing catalogs of the day, the name of your set is Fruit or Salad Set. It was made in the early 1940s. You have the complete set – the master bowl and one of each of the four plate designs. The plates are not difficult to find because homemakers often bought more than one of each plate. But the large master bowl is quite difficult to find, especially in mint condition. The fluted edges were easily chipped, and staining is often a problem with Red Wing dinnerware made during the 1940s. In mint condition the plates are worth $20-25 each and the large bowl is worth $75-100.

Larry