Auction Details

NOTE: This auction will end Tuesday, July 12th with the first lot ending at 6:00 PM.

Get ready for PHASE 5 of this amazing collection of cookie jars and other vintage and collectible items! Take advantage of this unique opportunity to purchase rare and valuable items that the Roerig's held near and dear. Read below some history on the family, their collection, and why they are liquidating.


Fred and Joyce Roerig are the best-known collectors and experts of cookie jars in the U.S., having published four acclaimed books ("The Collector's Encyclopedia of Cookie Jars") and a nationally circulated newsletter on the subject matter. "I have always loved cookie jars, picking them up as they struck my fancy, never thinking of them as a collection," Joyce wrote in the introduction of their first volume in 1991. "Cookie jar collecting is an adventure. Being dairy farmers, plus working at outside jobs, most of our excursions in the beginning were between milking and on the weekend."They amassed a collection of thousands of jars during their 50-plus years of attending auctions, dropping in on flea markets, and roaming junk shops. Joyce's impeccable taste for the unusual and her love for farm primitives diversified their collection to include antique furniture, implements, and other collectibles. Joyce, now 80, traces her humble beginnings to the West Coast, where her father worked as a welder in the shipyards and then later farmed in southwest Missouri. Fred grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, and is a veteran of the Vietnam War (U.S. Navy). The couple has six children. Fred and Joyce's love story ended unexpectedly on Valentine's Day 2021. Their children cared for Joyce in the months that followed until she suffered two strokes last fall and entered a care facility for her final years. It is with a heavy heart the family auctions their beloved collections to pay for Joyce's medical care.