Known for its clever kitsch, as well as more sober examples of dinnerware, vases, and garden planters, McCoy pottery has been popular with collectors for a century. Whether you are drawn to tankards resembling pigs, monk-shaped cookie jars with the ominous inscription "Thou Shalt Not Steal" on their sides, or elegant Art Deco flower vases decorated with geometric designs in pastel hues, chances are your eye has alighted on a piece of McCoy.
One of the hallmarks of McCoy pottery is its functionality. A cartoonish sailor figurine, for example, striding along in bell-bottom trousers with a pack slung over his shoulder, has a slot for coins — he’s also a bank. Similarly, a woman peeking out from under a red brimmed hat appears to carry a basket in her arms, but the object she cradles is designed to hold topsoil and tulips—in other words, a planter.
When the Nelson McCoy Sanitary Stoneware Company opened in 1910 in Roseville, Ohio near a good supply of local clay, functionality routinely trumped style as McCoy focused on serviceable food-storage jugs. Decorative touches to the stoneware were simple, using mostly salt- and slip-glaze techniques, but in 1925, when McCoy built the area's first tunnel kiln, expansion into a new world of whimsy became possible...
McCoy began producing the artware for which it became famous in 1926. Fired in the bright glazes popular in the mid-20s was everything from planters in the shapes of rhinoceroses and pineapples to umbrella stands.
In the market for a cuspidor? McCoy’s were green, with bunches of grapes in high relief on their sides. Designers at the company created green cider sets with mugs shaped like barrels rather than basic beer cups, and instead of giving plants a plain home, McCoy bulb bowls featured parading elephants loping around their circumferences.
In the kitchen, McCoy introduced advances in decoration as well as functionality. For example, its mixing bowls of the 1920s were glazed in green rather than the standard yellow, and embossed with flowers and line motifs — more detail than home cooks had previously enjoyed. McCoy's mixing bowls also nested, so several could be stored in the space of one, a handy trick Homer Laughlin later employed in its famous Fiesta line.
In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the company changed its name to McCoy Pottery Company — the term "sanitary" had fallen out of vogue. Because cash-strapped families had relinquished their daily trek to the baker, the need arose to create a container that would keep bread and cookies from dying a stale, crunchy death.
Returning to its roots, McCoy’s first stoneware containers for baked goods were adorned with understated floral designs, but Duncan Curtiss, a savvy McCoy sales agent from New York, thought his company would do better if it had a little fun with these kitchen staples. Accordingly, McCoy started manufacturing novelty cookie jars, beginning in 1939 with “Mammy with Cauliflower,” whose billowy apron called up warm thoughts of buttery, home-baked goodness.
World War II slowed production (the company made ceramic land-mine casings), but by the end of the 1940s, McCoy’s cookie-jar and jardinière lines were in full swing again.
Most cookie jars from these postwar years are readily available because they were mass-produced, but collectors should be on the lookout for lost glaze and color. Grubby hands reaching for gingerbread snaps and chocolate pinwheels made this pottery form more susceptible to daily wear than other ceramics collectibles.
Despite their use, it's still possible to find well-preserved cookie jars in the shapes of kangaroos, Indians, clowns, Chinese lanterns, turkeys, grandfather clocks, and bananas, to name but a few of McCoy’s styles.
By the 1950s and ’60s, McCoy was producing some of its most sought-after cookie jars, as well as TV lamps, which exploded in popularity during this time. In the '70s and '80s, corporations routinely commissioned McCoy to produce advertising jars trumpeting their brands, Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson, and Quaker Oats among them.
Less likely to be damaged through use were McCoy vases and figurines. Today, collectors can score prime examples of Grecian-esque urns with slim looping handles, or yellow gnome statuettes. Other vases were swan-shaped or triangular, some resembled cornucopias, and still more were embossed with flowers in every shade of the pastel rainbow.
McCoy’s production reached its peak in the '50s, when the company employed almost 500 workers, but the times they were a-changing. By the 1970s, the company was cranking out barbecue sets with Old West themes and punch bowls with matching cups that dangled from the sides.
Earth-toned Lazy Susans held chips and dip at cocktail parties while Woodsy Owl was among the characters to grace the sides of McCoy cookie jars. These were old-looking styles in a youth-obsessed nation, and by 1990, after several ownership and management changes, the factory finally closed its doors.
Interviews & Articles
Stuart Lonsdale Explains the History and Design of Gouda Pottery

I think it all started with a small pottery vase my mother obtained from the art pottery shop where she worked in the early 1920s … [more]
Cowan Art Pottery of the Art Deco Era

I’m the curator here at the museum in Rocky River, a suburb west of Cleveland. I look at Cowan pottery from a historian’s angle be… [more]
Bowes Curator Howard Coutts on Meissen, Staffordshire, and Sèvres

I’m the curator of the ceramics bit of the Bowes Museum. It’s a big museum with 30 galleries of which three or four are devoted to… [more]
Best of the Web (“Hall of Fame”)
Gouda Design

Stuart Lonsdale and Kim Lindley's excellent tribute to and reference on Gouda Dutch Art Pottery and Delftware. The … [read review or visit site]
Cowan Pottery Museum Associates

Dedicated to raising awareness of the ceramic art work of R. Guy Cowan and his Cowan Pottery Studio in northeastern… [read review or visit site]
The Pottery Studio

This 7,000-plus page site lives up to its self-billing as a 'knowledge base' with examples of work from all major a… [read review or visit site]
Clubs & Associations: Art Pottery
Discussion Forums: Art Pottery
Other Great Reference Sites: Art Pottery
Top eBay Auctions
Recent News: McCoy Art Pottery
Source: Google News
Brookings Oregon News, Sports, & Weather | The Curry Coastal Pilot
Curry Coastal Pilot, May 17thCarrie Anderson, floral designer at Flora Pacifica, will demonstrate how to build fairy gardens using broken pottery and succulents. The public is welcome. For more For information, call Damon McCoy at 541-512-5036. Dual Diagnosis Anonymous meets...Read more
UAB student on the climb
UAB Kaleidoscope, May 16thMcCoy's love for climbing started when he was about 13 years old. His parents encouraged him along with his brother and sister to be active and adventurous. His mom took a job teaching pottery at some camps giving him and his siblings a great...Read more
List of entertainment events in Southwest Louisiana
American Press, May 15thISLE OF CAPRI, 100 Westlake Ave., Westlake — Caribbean Cove: The Posse, 8 p.m.-midnight Friday; Dion Pride, 8 p.m.-midnight Saturday; Keith McCoy and C.E.O., 8 p.m.-midnight May 22; Blackbird, 8 p.m.-midnight May 23, no covers. Otis and Henry's...Read more
Plumb Memorial holds events for kids, adults and families
Shelton Herald, May 14thOn display — glass and ceramic pole insulator collection from Max Dymerski, a nine year old student at Elizabeth Shelton School; fly fishing antiques and collectibles from a Shelton native and fishing enthusiast; American pottery: Roseville, McCoy...Read more
Ernest Lee Kerstetter
Lock Haven Express, May 12thHe collected stamps, coins, Lock Haven memorabilia, and was an avid McCoy Pottery collector. He also dabbled in antiques and collectibles. During the summer months, Ernie enjoyed planting a garden in his back yard, proudly handing out homegrown...Read more
Our Lady of Fatima's spring festival is May 17-19
SunHerald.com, May 10thThe event includes a silent auction with many items available, including furniture, art, pottery, gift baskets, jewelry and more. The Rev. Ryan McCoy is leading the silent auction and can be contacted at the church by anyone wishing to donate items...Read more
Go & do for May 10
SunHerald.com, May 9thWAMA is dedicated to the celebration of the works of Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965), American master, and to his brothers Peter Anderson (1901-1984), master potter and founder of Shearwater Pottery, and James McConnell Anderson (1907-1998), noted...Read more
Auction to help homeless, prevent hunger
Lock Haven Express, May 2ndItems include McCoy pottery, depression glass, Princess House crystal, sports memorabilia, vintage dolls, 14K gold jewelry, quilts and vintage clothing are just some of the hundreds of items that will be auctioned off. "Snapping up bargains at unheard...Read more
If These Shirts Could Talk: The Tantalizing Tales Behind Used Clothes
Jockeying for Position: How Boxers and Briefs Got Into Men's Pants
Gloriously Grotesque 19th-Century Pipes
In the Hot Seat: Is Your Antique Windsor a Fake?
Love at First Kite: How Pizza and Pente Led to One Oklahoman's High-Flying Obsession
Blood, Sweat, and Steel: My Afternoon with the Ace of Swords
'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong
Say Ahhh: An Oral Surgeon's Quest to Reimagine the Garage-Band Guitar
Forget TV Pickers, Meet the Real Mavericks of the Antiques World
Coveting The Craziest Cat-People Collectibles

by 
by 
by 