Abingdon Cookie Jars
Abingdon Sanitary Mfg. Co. began in 1908 in Abingdon, Illinois. It initially manufactured commodes and other toiletry items. The depression years shut down the construction trades and forced the company to turn to art pottery items to continue it's existence in the mid 1930s.After the war in 1945, the company changed its name to Abingdon Potteries, which the firm used until it was sold.Abingdon's appearance on the collectible cookie jar stage was a brief one when compared to the giants of the day. The largest part of Abingdon's cookie jar manufacturing was from 1942 till 1950 when the artware department was shutdown. Shortly after that, in 1951, the plant was sold to Briggs Manufacturing Co. which reverted it back to a sanitary ware operation. However many of it's cookie jar molds were sold to other manufacturers, which accounts for the many near duplicate of Abingdon jars.
The signature design of Abingdon jars is hand painting in blues, yellows and browns on a white glazed bisque. However solid colors are often found too. Due to the short life of the company's cookie jar production, today the Abingdon name is considered highly collectible and generally very hard to find. Prices have risen accordingly.
Identifing Vintage Abingdon Cookie Jars
You can usually identify Abingdon cookie jars by the "Abindon U.S.A." stamp mark that was used on about 95% of all of their jars. A few jars were released with paper labels, and fewer still where marked with an "A" inside of a diamond. It is also important to note that some of Abingdon's molds were sold to Regal China who subsequently produced near exact duplicate jars with the Regal mark.
Vintage Abingdon Cookie Jar Prices
As is true of all collectibles the "law of supply and demand" controls prices, and Abingdon cookie jars are no exception. Some of the more common jars, such as #588 "Money Bag" and # 677 "Daisy" can readily be found for under $50, while the harder to find jars like #665 "Tepee" or #692 "Witch" have been known to command prices in the $1000 to $1200 price range.
One of the easiest ways to get an idea of the value of a particular jar, or to find out how much yours may be worth, is to see if any others like it have sold recently on eBay. And if so at what price? Do this by going to eBay Here
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It is important to note that the following cookie jars are auction listings, over which this site has no control with respect to their vintage authenticity. Collectors should take the precautions outlined in "Fakes and Counterfeits" prior to bidding on any vintage cookie jar over $100.
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