Question:

Dear Red Wing Collectors Society,

I am researching the history of my family’s vineyard in Oakville, Napa Valley, California. The winery located on the property, called To-Kalon, produced stoneware jugs pre-prohibition with the label To-Kalon Vineyard for their wine depot in Chicago. A member of your society (Trent Schaffler) alerted me to the Stoneware Companies ledger which is housed in your collections. It would be a valuable addition to my research to now more about the jugs, perhaps what is listed about the order in the ledger or any other information that may exist. Thank you very much for your time.

Graeme

Answer: Graeme, I am not very familiar with the To-Kalon Vineyard jug as I do not collect advertising from Chicago.  I do have a ledger which I purchased for my own interest.  Do to the size of the ledger and no index, one must page through the entire ledger to locate a piece in order to find out how many were produced.  There may be more that one entry so you must scan the entire ledger in order to have a sound idea of the production numbers.  This one task for a single piece could take two to three hours or even more to fully research this jug.  With this being said, I nor no one that I know of in the Red Wing Society completes this type of research for Ask the Experts.  However, there is some hope.  I believe Larry’s Jugs or the Red Wing Foundation may still have these ledgers for sale.  This may be your best avenue for you to research your family’s Vineyard production numbers, however, I have never seen history information on a piece in this ledger,. just production numbers and the dates they were ordered.

This advertising is not a common one and therefore can demand quite a high value.  If your Red Wing To-Kalon Vineyard jug is in perfect condition, the value would be in the $1000 range.  Just a great piece of Red Wing Advertising!   Al Kohlman