I have a Helen Hutula TAT-L-TALE cookie jar that I believe is from the 1930’s.
She is wearing a pink polka dot skirt and has a blue and white apron with flowers and white polka dots. She is posed as if shaking her finger in a scolding manner. Apparently this cookie jar made a sound when opening it; that portion is intact but does not work.
There are no chips or scratches but the finish has a somewhat visible crackled look to it, although it is smooth to the touch.
The bottom of the cookie jar indicates: TAT-L-TALE, handpainted; Original; and the name Helen.
It belonged to my husband’s grandmother and I am trying to find out what the value of it is, as well as what year it was made.
Thank you both for taking the time to provide some info!!
Some additional description on the cookie jar is that she has brown hair and a mainly white with some blue kerchief. She has a pink and white bow in the back of her head and a painted ponytail.
Her blouse is white short-sleeves with 3 blue buttons … and a 4th button that is unbuttoned and just shows the buttonhole. She also has nailpolish on!!
The cookie jar is 12″ in height and approximately 28″ in diameter at its widest point (the skirt).
While I have no intention to sell it I would love to gather as much accurate info that I can, which I’ll store inside it. This way as it gets passed down the family line others can share in its history and value.
To think my husband almost threw it away when we came across it at his grandmother’s almost 30 years ago. For some reason I was drawn to it and decided to keep and display it!! I can only wonder what we actually did throw away now looking back!!
[b]carolyn67 wrote:[/b]
[quote]Hi Gary, If I gave the wrong info it was not intentional. I got my info of the web just as you are. According to Ceramic’s and Pottery Arts and resources these cookie jars were being made in the 1930ties also and the 1940ties. 5 different styles with 13 different outfits. The rest of the info was on another site, I don’t remember which one. At one time these cookie jars were selling for the thousands but not anymore.Is it possible she sold out and they continued making them? I don’t know. The boy cookie jar is the one that is very rare.[/quote]
Relying on information you find on the web isn’t always a good idea because a great deal of it is inaccurate. I’m an avid cookie jar collector and also write for collector magazines. I’m also friends with Helen’s great niece, Christine, who has a website devoted to her great aunt.
The jars were, as I said above, first produced in the mid 1940’s. The company was not bought out and when Helen closed her doors production stopped on the Tat-L-Tales.
Because of the Internet they have become somewhat easier to find, although I would still classify them as hard to find and in some cases rare jars, depending upon the decor.
The highest past sale, which was two years ago, was a bit over $1,000 for a jar with highly sought after decor. The value was also affected because the jar was pictured in a popular cookie jar book and being sold by the collector who provided the pictures of it to the authors of the book.
There is at least one good forum online for information about cookie jars that is run by Barb Crews, a longtime collector. She’s the guide on About.com Collectibles and that would be an excellent resource for you when you have questions about cookie jars.
Gary
Hi Gary, If I gave the wrong info it was not intentional. I got my info of the web just as you are. According to Ceramic’s and Pottery Arts and resources these cookie jars were being made in the 1930ties also and the 1940ties. 5 different styles with 13 different outfits. The rest of the info was on another site, I don’t remember which one. At one time these cookie jars were selling for the thousands but not anymore.Is it possible she sold out and they continued making them? I don’t know. The boy cookie jar is the one that is very rare.
[b]karuba wrote:[/b]
[quote]I have a Helen Hutula TAT-L-TALE cookie jar that I believe is from the 1930’s.
She is wearing a pink polka dot skirt and has a blue and white apron with flowers and white polka dots. She is posed as if shaking her finger in a scolding manner. Apparently this cookie jar made a sound when opening it; that portion is intact but does not work.
There are no chips or scratches but the finish has a somewhat visible crackled look to it, although it is smooth to the touch.
The bottom of the cookie jar indicates: TAT-L-TALE, handpainted; Original; and the name Helen.
It belonged to my husband’s grandmother and I am trying to find out what the value of it is, as well as what year it was made.[/quote]
The information provided you by the other poster is wholly inaccurate. Helen began producing the Tat-L-Tale cookie jars in the mid 1940’s from her Helen’s Ware pottery plant in S. California. It was a small pottery company and she was only in business for a few short years after the first jars were produced.
The Tat-L-Tales come in two different shapes (one with a large fold in the front of the shirt – the other without the fold) and in at least three different sizes. There is also a boy version Tat-L-Tale cookie jar. At one point I tried to compile a list of the different decors but as I got deeper into my research I found there were just too many variations to make an accurate list.
The form of your jar, the type of decor, and its condition have bearing on its value. You indicate the finger is intact, which is a very big plus, and that the jar has no damage except for some age crazing (tiny cracks in the glaze). The market is at an all time low and depending upon the type of decor on your jar I would expect it to sell for between $150-$650 on a venue like eBay.
By the way, the fact that the voice box doesn’t work isn’t a major concern. When the jars were new customers were returning them to stores because the voice boxes stopped working. The non-working voice boxes, breakage during shipping, and high cost of decorating are some of the reasons Helen had to close the doors to her factory after just a few years after producing the first Tat-L-Tales.
Gary