From: Gary Tefft / locustent@aol.com
Location: Menomonee Falls, WI
Date: 29 Oct 1998
Time: 22:45:37
Bill, would you buy the excuse that my mind works so fast that it raced right past the first question in your earlier post, the part about the lid? Yes, the Red Wing churn lids usually had impressed size numbers molded in; so, yours is likely a Red Wing lid. If the shape is like that shown on the churns in the white-glazed era pages of Red Wing Potters & Their Wares (either with leaves or wing decorations) you can be pretty confident of it.
By the way, our old friend, the late Lydon Viel, who wrote the Clay Giants books on Red Wing stoneware that got us hooked on Red Wing collecting over 20 yaers ago, used to be fixated on the notion that the convex side of these lids was their top. Whenever he went through an antique shop or show and found churns with their lids "peaked-side-up", he'd always turn the lids over, while muttering something like, "ignorant fools!" under his breath. I'd playfully follow a few paces behind him and surreptitiously turn them back the other way. It was pure playfulness, not that I have any special knowledge about the "right" way. We argued the merits of our own favored orientation, each with equal success at converting the other to our conviction. As if to mock us both, the companys' own adverising literature showed them in either orientation at different times.
I do provide value appraisals in another format, Bill and you have it in your possession, now that you have received your copy of Red Wing Potters & Their Wares and the companion Price Guide. We revise the Price Guide every two years, just before the Red Wing Collectors Society Convention in July, so you don't have to buy a whole nw book.
-Gary-