Information on Antique Cookie Jars

Origin

• The cookie jar is descended from the biscuit jar, used by the British since the late 1700s. The first American cookie jars, common in early grocery stores, were large glass jars with screw-on lids. Beginning in the 1930s, cookie jars began to be made of stoneware, usually cylindrical in shape and painted with floral or leaf designs.

Ceramic Cookie Jars

• The Brush Pottery Co. of Zanesville, Ohio, is generally credited with the first ceramic cookie jar, which was green and had the word ̶0;Cookies̶1; on the front.

Golden Age

• Other manufacturers soon followed in the 1930s, when many figural cookie jars took the shapes of flowers, vegetables, animals or whimsical characters. The golden age of the American cookie jar was between the years 1940 and 1970, according to Sedona Antiques.

Potteries

• Ohio potteries that used local clay to manufacture cookie jars included McCoy Stoneware Co., maker of the highly collectible ̶0;Mammy̶1; jar; Hull Pottery, best known for the 1943 ̶0;Little Red Riding Hood̶1; jar; and Shawnee Pottery, which produced popular jars such as ̶0;Smiley Pig̶1; and ̶0;Puss 'n Boots.̶1; These potteries often used specific markings or insignias on the bottom of their pieces.

Collecting

• Some of the more valuable or rare items fetch hundreds and even thousands of dollars from collectors. Andy Warhol̵7;s collection of 125 cookie jars (which he had mostly amassed at flea markets) was auctioned in 1987 for an astounding $250,000.