Question:
Hi! I have, what I believe is a cookie jar that belonged to my grandmother. I happened to wash it today and saw the Red Wing mark and decided to go on line and find out more about it. It appears to be a dutch girl. It is two pieces, the top is her head, arms that are holding her vest, and the bottom has her apron. The color is yellow/gold and brown. She has braids, a dutch hat, the base has her apron on the front and ties in the back. She is glazed and in perfect condition with the exception of a small crack in the back near her apron strings. On the base is Red Wing engraved in the pottery with the Red Wing stamp in a blue/green color. Under the words there appears to be some other printing, maybe first an N and I cannot read the rest of it. It is of sentimental value but I was curious about when it was made. Janet

Answer: The "Katrina" cookie jar was introduced by Red Wing in 1941, along with her friends Friar Tuck 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.

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. The "wings" on Katrina’s hat are especially vulnerable to breakage. A yellow Katrina cookie jar in excellent condition would be worth $50-75 today. Chips, cracks, hairlines and stains will reduce the value by 25-75% depending on the extent and visibility of the damage.

Several different ink stamps were used during Katrina’s production period, so without a photo I can’t be sure about the illegible text. "HAND PAINTED" is a likely possibility as it was included in the ink stamps of that era. Jars made in the early years of production included three patent codes; the codes began with the letter "D" followed by six numbers.

Larry