Question: 

: What kind of lid would my water cooler take, a button or bar lid and what value would you put on these 4 pieces. The water cooler and churn each have a tight hair line, these are the only ones I’ve seen or heard of.

Thanks

Andre

Answer:

Hi, Andre – first of all, thanks for sharing your photo.  Your churn and cooler are awesome!  Either lid would look great on your cooler, but the button lid is the type of lid it would have came with originally.

Regardless of where they live, Cairns advertising appeals to most collectors of Red Wing advertising stoneware because of the “Crockery Dept.” wording.  In today’s market, the 1 gal crock is probably in the $500-$600 range if mint.  The jug is probably $400-$500 if mint.

The churn and cooler, however, are the pieces most of us haven’t seen before.  We knew Red Wing made these though.  The Red Wing Potteries Ledger, which lists special orders placed between 1906 and 1914, has an order from Cairns that includes four 4 gallon churns and 15 6 gallon coolers.  To give you some perspective, they also ordered 150 1 gallon crocks and 50 2 gallon jugs.  Although I believe they placed more than one order with Red Wing over the years, clearly very few churns and coolers were made and even fewer still exist today.

Placing value on damaged items is really difficult, especially when they’re rare items.  I think the cooler could bring $2,000-$2,300 if was mint.  But with the damage being on the front of the cooler right through the ad, the value would be significantly impacted.  My guess is that it would sell for under $1,000 if offered at the right auction.  I believe if the churn were mint, it could bring $1,750-$2,000.  Again, the damage significantly imapcts the value, but at least the crack is more on the side of the churn than the front.

Again, thanks for sharing these beauties!  You’re fortunate to have them in your collection. Rick