Question:
My wife’s grandparents were from the Red Wing area in Minnesota. I have a fruit salad set that consists of a bowl 13" with painted fruit, pear, apple, cherries, and grapes. It has four plates with it of each fruit 8 1/2" with ruffled edges. I found a picture of the set in a red wing book but does not list value but says a complete set is very rare. It said it was from the 1940′s. What would be the value of the set I have? Christopher

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. The photo shows a complete set – the master bowl and one of each of the four plate designs. This set is scarce but not "very rare". The plates are fairly common because homemakers often bought more than one of each plate. But the large master bowl is more difficult to find, especially in mint condition. The fluted edges were easily chipped, and staining was 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. Damage and staining reduce the value significantly.

Larry