Early American Antiques - Dirt Dishes (Redware)

Southern Pottery

Some of the finest potters settled in the South. A colony of Moravians moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in 1753. Another well known center was the so-called Jug town Pottery in Steeds, Moore County, North Carolina. Jugtown was a settlement of folks from Staffordshire. The commonest of vessels was created here and the jugs were made to supply the Southern distilleries. Tobacco Spit glaze is a Southern contribution to early pottery. Somehow using this unusual ingredient, a green, dripping glaze was developed for the early jugs.
Today, Southern potters are still making tobacco spit jugs and face jugs - some of which are extremely valuable.

Some things to consider when buying redware are:

Much of the early redware chipped easily, and although condition is an important consideration, collectors don't consider a chip or a small crack bothersome when they buy a piece of redware. It is the nature of this stubborn, red clay.

When you purchase redware, look for the coils inside of pots that indicate pottery coiled on a wheel, and the squiggly line on the bottom, made by a wire to take a pot off of a wheel. Later pots are molded and not wheel thrown.

Look for the unusual shapes - the more decorated items. Ovoid is older than straight-sided, and applied handled pieces are more costly than those without. Scraffito and early slip will bring the biggest money. Redware is a wonderful collectible. A piece can be bought for $35 or $3500 and a collection of it fills a room with the rich warm color of earth and life.