Red Wing Gypsy Trail Ribbed Dinnerware, 17 Pieces, Four Colors

A seventeen-piece grouping of Red Wing Pottery ribbed tableware in the classic 1930s–40s solid-color palette — cobalt blue, orange, yellow, and turquoise. The lot spans plates in three sizes, a saucer, six cups, a tumbler, and a matched creamer and open sugar in turquoise. The creamer carries an impressed "Redwing" maker's mark. Forms throughout show the fluted paneled bodies, ring handles, and radiating ribbed rims that define Red Wing's Gypsy Trail line. The turquoise pieces show soft crazing throughout the glaze — a period characteristic of the lower-fire earthenware body Red Wing used, not a defect. The cobalt plate carries a distinct zigzag border treatment rather than the standard radiating flute, it may belong to a separate Red Wing line.

Red Wing Pottery (Red Wing, Minnesota) introduced Gypsy Trail in 1935 as its answer to the Depression-era appetite for bright, affordable, mix-and-match tableware — the same market Fiesta and Bauer were competing for simultaneously. Where Homer Laughlin's Fiesta relied on concentric rings, Red Wing distinguished its colorware with ribbed and fluted surface treatments and a warmer, slightly matte glaze character on many pieces. The line ran through several sub-patterns — Fondoso, Chevron, Reed, and Plaid among them — sharing the same bold color palette across different body profiles. The ribbed plates here are consistent with the Reed pattern; the tumbler's vertical paneling aligns with standard Gypsy Trail holloware. Assembled across four colors, the group reads as a working collector's accumulation rather than a pulled single-service set — which is exactly how most Gypsy Trail ends up.

CONDITION

Good with signs of use throughout: utensil marks on plate surfaces, soft crazing on the turquoise pieces, and general glaze wear consistent with decades of table use. The turquoise creamer has a hairline crack and glaze wear to the underside; the orange cup has a stabilized hairline crack. All remaining pieces are sound with no chips or losses noted.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Plates (4): 9 1/2" Dia.
• Plates (2): 8" Dia.
• Plates (2): 6" Dia.
• Saucer (1): 5 1/2" Dia.
• Cup (1): 5"
• Cups (5): 2 1/2" H × 3 1/2" Dia.
• Creamer (H × W × L with handle and spout): 2 1/2" × 3" × 4"
• Sugar (H × W × L with handles): 2" × 3 1/2" × 3"
• Tumbler
• Total: 17 Pieces
• Colors: Cobalt blue, orange, yellow, turquoise
• Maker's Mark: "Redwing" impressed, on creamer