Question:
My mother was raised in Red Wing, MN and I have one piece from her that has been in the family since the 1950′s. It is a cookie jar, shaped as a old Italian chef. He is pink in color with navy blue shoes, chef hat and tie around his neck. We’re having a garage sale and would like to know if it’s worth hanging on to or having it appraised. It looks like a glazed ceramic piece. I looked for numbers but can’t find any. The only marking says: Red Wing USA Thanks, Michelle

Answer:
Your pink Chef Pierre cookie jar is valuable. You may want to reconsider selling it at a garage sale.

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. The early brochures refer to the jar as "Pierre the Chef".

These three cookie jars were great sellers for Red Wing. Many thousands of them were made and production continued into the mid 1950s. By then Katrina and Friar Tuck had been dropped from production, but the Chef continued on along with several newly introduced cookie jar shapes. A brochure from 1956 lists fleck pink and fleck blue as the only two available colors. 1956 was probably the last year of production for the Chef as he does not appear in a 1957 dealers price list.

Yellow seems to have been the best seller among the available colors, followed by blue, tan and green. The fleck pink and fleck blue are very scarce because they were made for only a brief period near the end of production. Several years ago a pink Chef cookie jar sold on eBay for around $1000. In today’s economy antique prices have dropped considerably, but if your pink Chef is in excellent condition it should still be worth at least $500. Damage such as chips, cracks, hairlines or stains will reduce the value.

Larry