Cookies Jars..... Lots and Lots of Cookie Jars

There are a couple pieces that I really like and one of them is the cookie jars.  I think it just may the heart warming memories of baking cookies with my grandmothers and my children that make them one of my favorite things.    The cookie jars we have found are in 5 different styles:  there are large and small cookies jars with rope style handles, large cookie jar with no handles, small cookie jar with rope handles, middle size cookie with no handles, middle size cookie jar with lug or ear-style handles.  It is interesting to note that the lid form one cookie jar may not fit in a cookie jar of the same size and color, I wonder is the lids were made to fit the jar or if they just tried the lids in jars until one fit.

Cookie Jar: Small Rope-Handle Style (about 1930-1931)

 Cookie Jar: Large Rope-Handle Style (1931-1938)

The earliest variety appears to be the small rope-handles one, and the only reason for placing it first is because it is the only one that is marked with the “MEDALTA/HAND MADE” stamps. Hand-thrown items were only made for a year or so at the most while moulds were being developed.

I presume that the small rope-handle cookie jars date to early 1931 and perhaps into late 1930. The large ropestyle handle cookie jar likely was developed next, and apparently it was followed by the intermediate sized jars, first the unhandled variety and then the eared-handle variety.

Cookie Jar: Unhandled Style (about 1931-1934)  All the evidence suggests that this style of cookie jar was made only for a couple of years, perhaps being discontinued as early as late 1932 or 1933.
The unhandled variety of cookie jar appears to be simply the lug-handled one without any handles. In fact, most of the unhandled cookie jars that I have examined have the incised lines or scour marks in the clay where the handles would have been attached.  Such scouring was commonly used to ensure a solid attachment of the handles to the main body when affixing the handle with slurry.




Cookie Jar: Eared or Lug-Handle Style (1931-1945)  The pair of handles attached to this cookie jar are more or less rectangular; and, thanks to being a bit hollow underneath, they are fairly easy to hold, unlike the rope-style that your fingers tend to slip off of.

The following is a list of the Medalta named patterns:

   45 apple blossoms on a blue background
· 46 blue bells on a yellow background
· 47 black-eyed Susan on a pink background
· 48 small black flowers on a black background
· 49 tulips on a green background
· 50 tulips on a mauve background
· 57 plums on a yellow background

· 59 Dutch pastoral scene in blues and black with features accented with white
· 60 cornflower on an orange background
· 67 wide band with white and red stenciled flowers on an orange background
· 69 wide band with blue stenciled flowers on a green background
· 71 wide band with blue stenciled flowers on a blue background
· 73 wide band with orange stenciled flowers on a yellow background




I was told by someone that was a long time collector that the rope handles were hand made by one person before they were made in a mould.  He told us that the person making the rope handles would stay late and make enough to be used the next day, that was the way to ensure that they were all the same.  I imagine that once they started making them in a mould they could be made by anyone and still have the uniformity they were looking for. 

We found a lid that is very different from anything we had ever seen and were looking to see if it was "real" or is someone had it made it much later.  The decoration on the cookie jar is #45, and the lid matched in color, texture, weight of clay...but we had never seen the shape before.  We were told by the collector that everything about the lid matched and likely someone was playing with moulds and made a different lid for a cookie jar for themselves.  I wounder how more pieces will show up that are like that?



It is hard to find a cookie jar with a lid and I would guess that even now the lids get broken and banged up leaving the cookie jar with no lid.  I suspect that cookie jars in the 1930s were used to hold cookies and not just sit on a shelf to look at like they are now.

I often wonder how it is possible that some of the early Medalta pieces are in such pristine condition.  the glazed ones are able to weather time much better that the lacquered pieces. 



The photos of cookie jars are from our own personal collection. 


The information in Italics is copied with permission of the writer.