A cookie jar collector wants to know why some of the older jars have small black, pepper looking spots, especially on Shawnee cookie jars.
Answer from Ellen Supnick, Shawnee Pottery and cookie jar expert:
I was asked about peppering on some of the old vintage Shawnee Pottery cookie jars. During the crazy days of the early 1990's and later until about 1998, there were some Dealers of American Vintage Cookie Jars what were taking plain non gold trim jars and applying gold then firing the jars in a kiln.
On the Shawnee jars that did not work well, peppering would appear on the jar. So now you are wondering why they did that, right? They knew that the gold jars brought high dollars from collectors and so they got creative with the liquid gold. A plain Lucky the Elephant would sell for about $80 - $100 dollars, whereas a gold-trimmed Lucky the Elephant sold for $750 - $900 dollars. Lucky, as a gold-trimmed jar, was worth 7 times as much.
This practice of re-applying gold to plain jars became a lucrative business for these dealers. They also decorated Little Red Riding Hood pieces, as well as all sorts of Shawnee Planters, Brush Cookie Jars, and Regal Jars.
Many new collectors could not tell their new prized possessions were doctored.
Living in South Florida, Mark and I often saw these doctored jars at Mt Dora, Antique Extravaganzas. They started appearing all over the place and if you did not know what to look for it was easy to get ripped off.
I am sure there are still people doing this. Collectors must be careful of these jars when shopping on eBay and antique shops in the Midwest, as so many came out of this part of the country.
Regards
Safe Collecting
Ellen Supnick
