From: Wally Armstrong armst101@aol.com
Location: Monroe, WA
Date: 02 Apr 1999
Time: 18:04:47
OK Bill lets try this again. I am not use to this new keyboard and things have a tenancy to dissapear, as this answer has twice now. The reason your Tea Pot and the lid are different colors is that they were from different batches of color. I would imagine the lids were made in one part of the plant and the pots somewhere else. This would entail mixing two batches of color and it seems that no two batches of of color were the same at Red Wing. It could also be that the lid is from another pot that wasn't so good and the color almost match so the dealer some where down the line made the switch.
That number 259 doesn't mean athing in the teapot department. I know there are a lot of teapots out there with a number on the bottom that don't go to a dinnerware pattern, but 259 is the number of a swan that Red Wing introduced between 1926 and 1929. There is no indication that these numbers were used twice so I can only believe they just stock numbers like the dinnerware. I will be interested in some other ideas. Your teapot is valued at from $35 to $70.