The Fourth Annual Nashville Cookie Jar Show/Sale is now history, but I am not sure my credit cards and checkbook will recover for months to come. Three of us that originally met on Prodigy years ago, from California, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City, OK, drove 700 miles to the sale. Despite numerous stops at Cracker Barrels and McDonalds searching for beanie babies, we finally made it in time for a late dinner before catching a few hours of sleep.

The first thing we saw walking in the door was Joyce & Fred Roerig's new Wendy cookie Jar. It is absolutely adorable, large and well made. Across the aisle was Ellen and Mark Supnick with the Kay Steindorf Cookie Jars. These jars are works of art, all different and extremely unusual. One of the new chapters in Ellen's book is devoted to these jars.

Approximately 55 dealers were present with jars ranging from the Hallmark's crabby old lady Maxine to my favorite one, the American Bisque Mohawk Indian.

Down at the end of one aisle was Don Winton working on a new sculpture. Don and his wife Norma are one of the nicest and most pleasant couples you'll ever meet. Featured at the show were several new Winton pieces. Winton also sculpted the official Leprechaun Cookie Jar produced by Shirley Corl and sold by Charlie's Collectibles.

Some of the Cyber Ceramic dealers present were Mike Schwartz of Past & Presents, Debra and Jerry Robertson of DeJaVu, Lorie of Cookie Jars Galore (K & L Enterprises) with the Chuck E Cheese jar, Carol Semen and Dan Eggert, and the Cookie Jar Market of America booth with dozens of new jars, along with the biggest Santa Jar I have ever seen.

Other highlights of the sale include meeting J. D. James with his new licensed jars, the Pepsi Cola cops and the Mr. Potato Head jar. J. D. had a Mother's Love cookie jar --a gorilla holding a small baby. The gorilla was very lifelike.

Other highlights included -- the Happy Memories Elvis Jar, finally seeing the Tucker Car jar after writing about it for months, the Watt policeman jar, and the wonderful huge cookies supplied at Cookie Jars Galore (K & L Enterprises).

All day Saturday jars were on view for an auction to be held that night. A single collector had his jars for sale with no reserve. Although there were some very good buys made that night by both dealers and collectors, it was decided at a dealer meeting not to hold an auction in conjunction with the show again. It took away from the sale and I think the time on Saturday night could be better utilized into making this more of a Cookie Jar Show instead of just a Cookie Jar Sale - which is actually what it is. In fact, until the concept is changed and even though I enjoy it immensely, from now on it will be referred to the Nashville Cookie Jar Sale here on these pages.

At the Saturday night auction, a one-of-a-kind cookie jar was on the auction block. Don Winton sculpted a self-portrait bust jar of him and his wife. Bidding was hot and heavy for this great piece of sculpture and the hammer finally came down at $7900, making it the most expensive cookie jar that I know of.

It was great to see all the fantastic jars, the three of us came home with more than our fair share of jars -- 44 jars can fit into a Ford Explorer, along with 50+ beanie babies, several huge tins, assorted suitcases, ice chests, and last but certainly not least, a child-size fainting couch.

All graphics by Barbara Crews.

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