Haeger's own 125th-anniversary history says Royal Hickman's black panther was first produced in 1941 and offered in three sizes. Two of those sizes turn up in catalog after catalog. The third appears exactly once, on one line of a January 1950 price sheet, with no photograph — which is why almost nobody who sells these knows it exists.
The short version
- There are three figurine sizes, and the third one is real. R-495 at 24 to 26 inches, R-683 at 18 inches, and R-733 at 13 inches. The 13-inch is listed on a single 1950 price sheet line at $1.50, and it is the reason Haeger's "three sizes" claim holds up.
- The early ones have a long trailing tail — collectors call it the dragging tail — and those are the ones to stop for. It is still there in the 1949 catalog and gone by 1952, replaced by a short tail curled into a tight loop against the haunch. The piece loses two inches in the swap — which is why 26 inches becomes 24.
- There is no such thing as "the" Haeger panther. Ten distinct panthers ran through the catalogs between 1941 and 1999: three Hickman figurines, two television lamps, two planters, and three late sculpture pieces.
- Measure it before you research it. The catalogs print lengths. A tape measure separates an R-683 from an R-495 in about four seconds, and nothing else about the two pieces does.
- Black is not the only correct color. Amber Crystal, Cotton White, Amber Spotted, Persian Grey and Orange Decorated are all catalog glazes on the same molds. A white panther is not a fake.
- The catalog price fell for twenty years, then quadrupled. The 18-inch panther was $5.00 in 1949, $3.00 through the early fifties, $1.50 in 1955, and $12.00 by 1965.
On this page
What "the Haeger panther" actually means
Somebody is always selling one. Long, glossy, black, prowling across a mantel with its head down and its tail curled up behind it — the shape is so familiar that sellers rarely bother to say which one it is, and buyers rarely ask. The listing says Royal Haeger black panther, mid-century modern, and that is the whole description.
It is not one object. Haeger Potteries of Dundee, Illinois put at least ten different panthers into its catalogs over fifty-eight years, in four different product lines, at sizes from six inches to twenty-four, in glossy black and matte stone and Cotton White and something the company called Amber Crystal. They were designed by three different people. They were sold as figurines, as planters, as television lamps and as sculpture. They are not interchangeable, and telling them apart is the whole job.
This guide is built from the catalogs themselves — 184 Haeger catalogs, brochures and price sheets, 4,394 pages in all. Every page that names a panther was read; thirty-four do. Every dimension, glaze name, model number and price below comes off the printed page, and the page is cited. Where the catalogs contradict each other, which they do, we say so rather than picking the tidier number.
The catalogs are not ours, and this guide would not exist without the people who saved them. The Haeger printed record survives because the members of Haeger Pottery Enthusiasts and Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors on Facebook have spent years finding these books, photographing them page by page, and putting them where other collectors can see them. Two groups of enthusiasts did the archival work the company never did. Every plate reproduced here and every price quoted below traces back to that effort. If you care about this pottery, both groups are worth joining.
That sentence is the company's own, and it is the starting point for everything that follows. First produced in 1941. Offered in three sizes. Hold on to the number three; it becomes a problem.
Why there was a panther at all
The company's own account of the origin comes from Joseph F. Estes, who ran Haeger, in a 1985 interview rediscovered by Joe Paradis for House of Haeger, 1914–1944 and first excerpted in Garmon and Frizzell's Collecting Royal Haeger. The panther was not a general-line idea. It was designed around 1941 for an in-store merchandising program at Carson, Pirie, Scott — Estes remembered the name as "Homemakers," though a surviving advertisement points to Wishmaker's House. Then the war killed the program.
Estes: "Along came World War II, and the whole program was dropped, except we had these designs and after I came back — I was away during the war — the panther was one of the first things I put back into the line, and it took off like a shot." He also gave the number that explains the lookalikes: "At one time there were 34 potteries making panthers — copies of us, you know. We tried to sue but there were so many involved, it was impossible."
This account was assembled and published by John Magon in the Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors group, and it is the fullest account of the piece in print.
The three figurines, 1941 to 1968
These are the Hickman pieces, and they are what almost everyone means by a Haeger panther. Royal Hickman was Haeger's chief designer from the late thirties, and the panther is the piece his name is attached to more than any other.
R-495, the large panther
The big one. The 1947–48 Diamond Jubilee catalog gives it as 4 × 5½ × 26 inches, Ebony only, at $15.00 suggested retail. From 1952 onward every catalog gives it as 24 inches at $10.00, where it stays for a decade. That is not a rounding error and not the same mold. Between 1949 and 1952 Haeger shortened the tail, and two inches of tail is precisely what the catalog stops printing.
The color range opened up after the war. Amber Crystal appears in 1949, Cotton White in 1952, and by 1960 the catalog lists it as Ebony, Orange Decorated. A panther in any of those is not a repaint and not another factory's piece; it is the same R-495 mold in a period Haeger glaze.
| Catalog | As printed | Retail |
|---|---|---|
| 1946 Royal and Regular Haeger, p.5 | R-495 Black Panther, 4x5½x26, in glaze No. 18 only | — |
| 1947–48 Diamond Jubilee, p.35 | R-495 Black Panther, 4 × 5½ × 26, Ebony only | $15.00 |
| 1952 Royal Haeger Ceramic Artwares, p.9 | R-495 Large Panther Figurine, Ebony, cotton white, 24" long | $10.00 |
| 1953 Royal Haeger spring, p.14 | R-495 Large Panther, Ebony, 24" long | $10.00 |
| 1957 Haeger Artware and Lamps, p.3 | Large Panther, 5" × 24" | — |
| 1960 Haeger Artware and Lamps, p.11 | R495, 24" Large Panther, Ebony, Orange Decorated | $10.00 |
| 1962 Haeger Artware, p.24 | 495, 24" Panther, Ebony | $10.00 |
The dragging tail, and why you will probably never see one
That is the most useful thing on this page. We did not find it by reading the catalogs — we knew the long-tail panther from the floor first, and went back to the books to see whether they showed it. They do, and they date it.
The long-tailed R-495 was a short run, and the catalogs bracket it tightly. It is there in 1946, the earliest book that lists the model. It is still long in the 1949 spring book. By the 1952 Ceramic Artwares catalog it is a tight loop, and it stays a loop through 1953, 1955 and 1960. The change happened somewhere in those two and a half years.
The reason is the obvious one once you have held a two-foot hollow ceramic cat: a long, thin, unsupported tail cantilevered off the back does not survive the kiln, the packing table or the shipping crate. Haeger curled it back against the haunch, where it is braced, and the piece got shorter by the length of the tail it lost.
The 1952 catalog page is where the R-495 becomes 24 inches instead of 26, drops from $15.00 to $10.00, and gains cotton white. All three of those changes are printed on the page reproduced above, and the fourth — the tail — is in the photograph beside them.
The collectors who know about it call it the dragging tail, and that phrase is what you search. It is not a phrase any of the catalogs use, and it is not a phrase most sellers know, which is why it works.
We can find two documented survivors, and they agree with each other. The first is a collector's photograph of a late-1940s example, glazed in Amber Crystal, measured at almost 27 inches, with the owner's note that the dragging tail "was prone to being snapped off" and that the design was changed shortly afterward. That is somebody else's piece and somebody else's account, and we cite it as that rather than as proof. But it lines up with the catalogs on all three points that can be checked: Amber Crystal is the glaze the 1949 book adds to the R-495, the 1949 book is the last one showing the long tail, and 27 inches is longer than the 26 the catalog prints and three inches longer than what the mold became.
The second carries more weight. The Art of Illinois exhibition at the Illinois Governor's Mansion lists a Royal Hickman Stalking Black Panther, glazed ceramic, 4 × 27 inches, from the private collection of Alexandra Haeger Estes — the founder's great-granddaughter, and the last of the family to run the company. Its photograph shows the dragging tail. That is a piece that stayed with the Haeger family, and its length comes from an exhibition record rather than from anyone selling it. Two documented long-tailed cats, both at 27 inches, against a catalog that prints 26 and a later mold at 24. The exhibition page does not date the piece itself; the tail does.
If you think you have found one
Assume the tail has been off at least once, because the whole reason the form is scarce is that it breaks. Run a fingertip and a strong light along its full length and look for a change in gloss, a hairline seam, or color that sits on top of the glaze rather than under it. A restored long tail is still the rare piece; it is just not the undamaged one. And measure before you get excited. A dragging-tail R-495 should come in at 26 to 27 inches, not 24 — both documented survivors measure 27, the extra inches are the tail, and a 24-inch piece with a loop is the common one.
R-683, the 18-inch panther
The one you actually find. It is catalogued as Small Panther in 1949, plain Panther from 1953, and Black Panther in 1955, which means three different correct names for one model number depending on which year's book you are holding. Eighteen inches long, four and a half high; the 1949 listing gives the fuller 3¼ × 4¾ × 17½.
The price history is odd. It opens at $5.00 in 1949, settles at $3.00 for the whole early fifties, drops to $1.50 in 1955, climbs back to $4.00 by 1960, and then lands at $12.00 in the 1965 price list. That is a quadrupling in eleven years on a piece that had spent the previous decade as a loss leader. It is printed, and it is not a typo.
R-733, the 13-inch panther
Here is the third size. It appears in exactly one document in 184 catalogs: the Royal price sheet issued in January 1950, section IV, page 1, sandwiched between a leaf vase and a collie figurine. Thirteen inches. Ebony. One dollar fifty. No photograph, no description, no mention in any catalog before or after.
That single line is what makes Haeger's own "offered in three sizes" claim true, and it explains something that shows up immediately once you start reading listings: small panthers keep turning up at twelve and thirteen inches, described as Royal Haeger, and nobody can tell you what model they are. They are R-733s, or near enough that the size is the identification.
Why the third size went missing
Model numbers get their authority from catalog photographs, and the R-733 never got one. It was listed on a price sheet, in a year whose main catalog does not survive, and then it was gone. The 1941 to 1948 books are almost entirely absent from the surviving record, and that is where the R-733's own photograph presumably sat. R-760, which turns up in listings as a panther on a rock, is settled and is not a panther at all: it is on the facing sheet of that same January 1950 price list, Royal Sheet F, as Leopard Planter, Desert Red, $10.00, illustrated in Section IV page 6.
The cats Haeger did not call panthers
One loose end turned out to be a vocabulary problem rather than a gap in the record. The R-638 that collectors trade as a "panther bookend planter" is on page 4 of the 1949 spring catalog, listed as Leopard Bookend Planter — overall 15 x 8 x 5½, Amber or Ebony, $10.00 the pair. The L in R-638-L is the left half of that pair.
Searching the catalogs for the word panther misses an entire branch, because Haeger filed these under other cats. On the same two pages of that one book: R-639 Leopard Circus Planter, 12½ x 11¼ x 4½, at $20.00 each — the most expensive cat in the book by a distance; R-648 Sitting Leopard, 3 x 6 x 2¾, Ebony, a cat seated on a short column; R-649 Lying Leopard, 7½ x 2¾ x 3, Ebony; and R-650, the Oblong Bowl the two leopards were sold to flank. Earlier books add R-631 Small Leopard Cigarette Box and R-632 Small Leopard Ashtray, and the 1947–48 Diamond Jubilee carries R-313 Tigress and R-314 Tiger at $7.00 and $9.00.
Searching the catalogs again on the full vocabulary — leopard, tiger, tigress, lion, lioness, cougar, jaguar, cheetah, lynx, cat — adds four more that get sold as panthers. 6525 Leopard Shadow Box TV, 11 inches, Turquoise/Decorated or Mat Black, is a triangular shadow box with the cat in relief inside it, and it sits on the same catalog page as the 6051 panther lamp. 5116 Leopard is a lamp base, 20 inches, sold in right and left pairs, in Amber Crystal — the same glaze the 1949 book gives the R-495 — at $25.00. R-695 Lion Figurine and R-808 Mountain Lion are both on the 1950 sheets, and S-462 Tiger Figurine runs in the Studio line. None is a prowling cat on four low legs; all of them are black or near-black Haeger cats, which is enough for a listing to call them panthers.
None of these is the Hickman panther, and we are not folding them into the count of ten. But if you are trying to put a number to a small black Haeger cat that is plainly not a prowling panther, this is the shelf it came off.
The lamps and the planters, 1953 to 1975
Four more panthers, none of them figurines, and all four sold through lines that collectors of the Hickman pieces tend to ignore.
3511, the panther planter
Not Royal Haeger. This one ran in the Genuine Haeger line in fall 1953: a low trough planter, fourteen and a half inches long, with the cat modeled along one side. It was sold only in two-tone pairings — Ebony with Chartreuse, Ebony with Lemon Yellow, Ebony with Mint Green — at $6.50, which made it the most expensive panther in the book that year, more than half again what the 24-inch figurine cost.
6051, the panther television lamp
Six inches high, and built as a three-part composition: the ebony cat in front, a colored oval base under it, and a chartreuse shield standing behind to catch and throw the glow. The 1955 Haeger Ceramic Fashions catalog gives the base as Turquoise or Dark Green with a chartreuse shield; a later Artware and Lamps book gives the same model as Turquoise Green/Ebony or Sherwood Green/Ebony with a white plastic shield. So a 6051 missing its ceramic fin is not necessarily incomplete — some left the factory with a plastic one, and plastic is what does not survive. It is the smallest panther Haeger listed and the one most often sold today with no idea what it is, because without a bulb behind it the shield reads as an odd ceramic fin.
928-H, the two-panther television lamp
The ambitious one. A facing pair across a textured back panel, ten inches high, in Ebony or Turquoise Blue, at $15.00 in the fall 1959 Haeger Artware and Lamps catalog. That is the same price the 26-inch figurine carried in 1947 and half again what any other panther cost in 1959. It is the priciest panther Haeger listed in the fifties, and the rarest of the lamps.
The 19-inch panther lamp is not a Haeger
The 6051 and the 928-H are the only panther television lamps in the Haeger catalogs. Plenty of others get called Haeger anyway — Estes counted 34 potteries making copies — and one of them can now be pinned down. It is a single stalking black panther about 19 inches long with the bulb set into its back. Sears listed it under its Harmony House lamp heading in the 1956 fall and winter catalog and carried it again in 1957, stock number 2007 both years, 19 inches long with the socket in back. The catalog does not name the pottery that made it.
Length alone puts it close to the 18-inch R-683, so look at the body instead. The collector behind the Panther TV Lamp Resource, who matched this lamp to the Sears page, gives three tells: a short hind leg with a pronounced indent, a thick right hind paw with six toes, and a bulb sitting in a dugout rather than a cutout — the only plain stalking panther lamp built that way. An R-683 is a figurine and has no bulb opening at all. The same site documents the other copies; the 22-inch Jacquelin 522 is the one it finds most often mistaken for a large Haeger.
H-123, the Randall panther planter
Eric Olsen's version, and a different business entirely: the Randall line sold to the florist trade rather than to gift shops, which is why it carries an H prefix and color codes instead of glaze names. Ten and a half inches wide, seven and a quarter high, the cat prowling beside a bark-textured planter, offered in TG/E, CA/E and GW/E — turquoise green, and two others, each over ebony. It runs in the 1974 and 1975 Randall catalogs and then stops.
The revival, 1986 to 1999
Haeger brought the panther back twice, and both times changed it enough that the results are frequently sold as something else.
6048, the seated panther
Twenty-one and a half inches, and a complete change of posture: upright, squared off, formal, Art Deco rather than naturalistic. Nothing about it reads as a Hickman piece except the color. It appears in the 1986 Haeger Decorative Accessories catalog in Ebony, and by 1989 the sculpture collection offered it in twelve glazes — Ebony is glaze 05, with eleven more numbered alongside it. If you are looking at a large seated panther in an unlikely color, this is almost certainly what it is.
315 and 351, the Sculpture Stone pair
The 1993 Royal Haeger catalog introduces both on one page: a Stalking Panther at twenty-three inches and a Sitting Panther at twenty-two, both in Sculpture Stone — a matte, grainy, unglazed body about as far from the original mirror-black surface as Haeger ever went. The 315 is the longest panther the company ever listed and the one with the longest late run, reappearing in 1995, 1997 and 1999.
One caution on that date. 1993 is the earliest year we can put to Sculpture Stone, because that is the first catalog in the surviving record to name it, and 1999 is the last. Collectors who handled this ware as it was sold place the body earlier and later than that — late eighties at one end, into the 2000s at the other. Treat 1993 as the first year the name is printed, not as the year the body was invented.
This is where the dating mistakes happen
A matte, stone-finish stalking panther is not a worn or unglazed early piece. It is a late production model, and it is the single most common thing misdated in this category. The glossy mirror-black surface belongs to the Hickman era; the Sculpture Stone body belongs to the end of the company's life, named in the catalogs from 1993 and reported by collectors both a few years earlier and well after. Sellers describe the matte ones as "early" and the glossy ones as "later" roughly as often as the reverse, because the intuition runs backward — rough looks old.
How to identify the one in front of you
Start with the tape measure, not the base. Model numbers are impressed on many of these but not all, they wear, and a seller photographing a 24-inch ceramic cat rarely thinks to turn it over. Length is the one thing you can establish from a photograph with a ruler in it, and the catalogs print it.
| If it measures | It is | Catalog years |
|---|---|---|
| 24" to 26" long, prowling, glossy | R-495 Large Panther | 1946–1964 |
| 18" long, prowling, glossy | R-683 Panther / Small Panther / Black Panther | 1949–1968 |
| 13" long, glossy | R-733, the third size | 1950 price sheet only |
| 14½" long trough planter, two-tone | 3511 Panther Planter | 1953 |
| 6" high, with a standing shield behind | 6051 Panther TV Lamp | 1955 |
| 10" high, two cats, back panel | 928-H Two Panther TV Lamp | 1959 |
| 10½" wide planter, bark texture | H-123 Panther Planter, Randall line | 1974–1975 |
| 21½" high, seated, squared off | 6048 Panther, seated | 1986–1989 |
| 23" long, matte stone body | 315 Stalking Panther | 1993–1999 |
| 22" high, seated, matte stone body | 351 Sitting Panther | 1993 |
And ignore which way it is facing. The catalog plates are not consistently oriented: in the 1947–48 and 1949 books the panther faces right, and in 1952, 1953 and 1960 it faces left. Neither the direction the cat faces nor which forepaw looks like it is leading tells you anything about the model.
One caveat to that caveat, and it is unresolved. Joseph Estes, describing the postwar relaunch, said the smaller panther was made left and right so that a pair could be set facing each other on a mantel. If that is right, a genuinely mirrored 18-inch cat exists and direction would mean something on that one model. Against it: no page in the surviving catalog record pictures a mirrored pair, every panther in any single catalog photograph faces the same way, and collectors who handle these in quantity report no left- and right-facing versions. Treat a mirrored 18-inch panther as possible and undocumented rather than as a known variant, and do not read anything into facing direction on the 24-inch or 26-inch cats.
Three cautions on the numbers. The first is that 24 and 26 are the same panther, so anything from about 23½ to 26 inches is an R-495. The second is that the twelve-inch panthers that turn up constantly are not in any catalog at that length; they are most likely R-733s measured along the base rather than nose to tail, and we would rather say that than invent a model number for them.
The third is that experienced collectors will tell you there are four sizes, not three, and they are not wrong — they are counting differently. Four is 26, 24, 18 and 13, treating the long-tailed R-495 and the looped-tailed R-495 as two separate cats, which on a shelf is what they are. Three is what the model numbers say, because Haeger changed the mold without changing the number. Both counts describe the same set of objects. If somebody tells you four, they mean they have handled both R-495s.
The V is the earlier casting, the rolled-over heel the later one, from the seventies on. That reading is John Magon's, from handling the pieces rather than from anything a catalog prints. What the photograph adds is that the two forms are easy to tell apart once you know to look at the join.
The reasoning here is the same discipline as reading a Boehm model number or building a mold-number catalog from the maker's own printed pages: the object is identified by the record the factory left, not by what the object looks like to a modern eye.
The Haeger panther hides behind at least five search terms — the brand, the model number, the generic nickname, the designer, and plain "black panther statue." A piece listed as a ceramic cat will never surface in a search for Haeger, which is why one term is never enough. Our free sourcing dashboard runs a term across more than twenty vintage marketplaces at once.
Search dragging tail Search Royal Haeger panther Search Haeger R-495What to check on the piece itself
- Look at the tail before anything else. A long tail that trails back along the ground, rather than curling into a tight loop against the haunch, is the pre-1952 form, and it is worth stopping whatever else you are doing.
- Measure it, nose to tail, and match the length against the catalog lengths above before you believe any model number. Anything coming in at 26 or 27 inches deserves a very close look at the tail; the common R-495 is 24.
- Decide glossy or matte first. Mirror-black gloss is Hickman era; a grainy matte stone body is 1993 or later, whatever the listing says.
- Turn it over and photograph the base square and in daylight. An impressed Royal Haeger with a model number settles the question; its absence settles nothing, because these were also sold with paper labels. Our guide to Haeger marks and model numbers works through what each letter prefix means and what to do with an unmarked piece.
- Do not treat a non-black glaze as a problem. Cotton White, Amber Crystal, Amber Spotted, Persian Grey and Orange Decorated are all in the catalogs — and the catalogs are a floor, not a ceiling. A catalog lists the glazes a model was offered in that season. Collectors who own these by the shelf-full turn up pieces in colors no book lists against that model, particularly in the later decades, when the 24-inch cat ran through pastels, jewel tones, crackles, metallics and marbled finishes. An unlisted glaze on a correct mold is not evidence of a fake.
- On a looped-tail cat, look at where the tail meets the back paw. A V-shaped indentation at the top of that junction indicates an earlier casting; a tail that rolls over the top of the back heel with no indentation is later, after the seventies. This is the only method anyone has offered for dating the 24-inch panther, which Haeger made until it closed, and it comes from John Magon in the Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors group.
- Run a fingertip along the whole length of the back, the tail curl and the open mouth. Those are the three places these chip, and the tail is usually cast free of the body.
- On a television lamp, check that the shield behind the cat is present and uncracked. Most of the value is in the part that looks like an accessory.
- On the seated 6048 and the Sculpture Stone pair, expect the base to be unglazed and slightly rough. That is correct, not damage.
If you are working through a pottery cat that might not be Haeger at all, the other great American panther is a different animal entirely: the Rookwood panther is dated by its shape number and its date cipher, and it is not a piece anyone confuses with a $10.00 gift-shop figurine once they have seen both.
What we verified, and what we did not
Where each number came from
- Read directly off a catalog page: every model number, dimension, glaze name, product-line name and retail price in this guide, with the catalog and page number given beside it. R-495 at 4x5½x26 in glaze No. 18 is on page 5 of the 1946 Royal and Regular Haeger, and at 4 × 5½ × 26 and $15.00, Ebony only, on page 35 of the 1947–48 Diamond Jubilee. The 1946 book also prints the convention: dimensions run width, height, then length, which is what makes the 26 a length and the 5½ a height. R-733 at 13", Ebony, $1.50 is on page 47 of the January 1950 Royal price sheet. The 1941 date and the "three sizes" phrase are on page 19 of the 1996 125th Anniversary catalog, in Haeger's own words.
- Counted, not estimated: 184 catalogs, brochures and price sheets; 4,394 pages; 34 pages naming a panther; ten distinct models.
- Ours, not the catalog's: the account of the long-tailed R-495 — that it was a short run, that the tails broke, and that examples effectively do not reach the market — is our own, from years of buying and looking. No Haeger catalog says any of it. What the catalogs do show is the tail changing between the 1949 and 1952 books, and those photographs are reproduced above, uncropped. One collector's photograph, cited below, independently describes a late-1940s Amber Crystal example at almost 27 inches and says the tail snapped off easily — that is corroboration from a stranger, not proof. A second example, 27 inches long and photographed with the dragging tail, is in the private collection of Alexandra Haeger Estes and has been exhibited at the Illinois Governor's Mansion. Joseph Estes, who ran the company, gave the same reason for the redesign in his 1985 interview.
- Corrected: an earlier version of this guide said the R-638-L and R-760 model numbers appear in no catalog. That was wrong about R-638, and wrong for an avoidable reason — we had searched 4,394 pages for the word panther and never for leopard, tiger or tigress. R-638 is the Leopard Bookend Planter on page 4 of the 1949 spring book, and R-760 is the Leopard Planter on page 48 of the January 1950 price list. Re-running the sweep on the full cat vocabulary found no eleventh panther — the count of ten holds — but it did turn up six more big cats that get sold as panthers, listed above.
- Corrected by the collectors: members of the Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors group read this guide and pushed back on three things. The date range on Sculpture Stone was stated more confidently than the evidence supports, and has been widened. The three-sizes count needed explaining against the four that experienced collectors use, and now is. And the point that a catalog glaze list is a floor rather than a ceiling was theirs, not ours.
- Incomplete by construction: the year ranges above mean "a catalog in this set names this panther in that year," not "it was in production continuously." Gaps in the ranges are gaps in the surviving catalogs, and a number of the surviving books are themselves incomplete.
- Out of scope: we have not handled every model described here. The identification tests above come from the printed catalog record, not from ten panthers on a bench.
What stays with me is the $1.50. In 1955, Haeger was selling an eighteen-inch hand-glazed ceramic panther, designed by the best-known American ceramic designer of the period, for a dollar fifty at suggested retail. Ten years later the same mold was $12.00, eight times the price, for an object that had not changed in any way. The panther stayed still. The living room around it moved — twice.
Sources
Page numbers refer to the page of the scanned catalog. Where a catalog prints its own page number, the two can differ by a few pages.
- The catalogs themselves — every Haeger catalog, brochure and price sheet cited below was preserved and scanned by the members of Haeger Pottery Enthusiasts and Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors on Facebook. The printed record this guide rests on is their work, not ours. Both groups are open and active, and they are the best places to ask about a piece that does not match anything here.
- 1946 Royal and Regular Haeger, p.5 — R-495 Black Panther, 4x5½x26, in glaze No. 18 only; The Haeger Potteries, Inc., Dundee, Illinois. The glaze key on page 7 of the same catalog gives No. 18 as Ebony, "jet black in a high polish, lending itself well to highlight effects," and states that dimensions are given as width, height, length. The earliest R-495 listing in the surviving record, and the only plate that shows the dragging tail complete.
- 1947–48 Haeger Diamond Jubilee catalog, p.35 — R-495 Black Panther, 4 × 5½ × 26, Ebony only, $15.00 each suggested retail; The Haeger Potteries, Inc., Dundee, Illinois. Also the long-tail photograph, reproduced here as the full page. Page 3 of the same catalog carries R-313 Tigress Figurine at $7.00 and R-314 Tiger Figurine, 3¾ x 7¼ x 13, at $9.00.
- 1949 Regular and Royal Haeger, spring, p.13 — R-495 Panther, 4 x 5½ x 26, Ebony and Amber Crystal, $15.00 each; R-683 Small Panther, 3¼ x 4¾ x 17½, Ebony, Amber Spotted and Persian Grey, $5.00 each. Also the last photograph in the record to show the long trailing tail.
- 1949 Regular and Royal Haeger, spring, pp.3, 4 and 15 — the leopard family: R-648 Sitting Leopard, 3 x 6 x 2¾, Ebony; R-649 Lying Leopard, 7½ x 2¾ x 3, Ebony; R-650 Oblong Bowl, 9½ x 3½ x 5; R-638 Leopard Bookend Planter, overall 15 x 8 x 5½, Amber or Ebony, $10.00 pr; R-639 Leopard Circus Planter, 12½ x 11¼ x 4½, $20.00 ea; R-631 Small Leopard Cigarette Box and R-632 Small Leopard Ashtray.
- 1950 Royal Haeger price sheet, Sheet F, issued January 1950, p.48 — R-760 Leopard Planter, Desert Red, $10.00, cross-referenced to Section IV, page 6; also R-758 Egyptian Cat at $7.50. The facing sheet to the one below, and the document that settles R-760.
- 1950 Royal Haeger price sheet, Sheet E, issued January 1950, p.47 — R-733, 13" Panther, Ebony, $1.50, cross-referenced to Section IV, page 1. The only appearance of the third size. The same sheet carries R-648 and R-649 at $1.20 and R-638 at $10.00 the pair, and prints the Royal Haeger color abbreviation key.
- 1952 Royal Haeger Ceramic Artwares, p.9 — R-495 Large Panther Figurine, Ebony and cotton white, 24" long, $10.00 — the first catalog to give the length as 24 inches, and the first photograph showing the looped tail; 18" panther in ebony or green agate.
- 1953 Royal Haeger, spring, p.14 and fall, p.5 — R-683 Panther, Ebony, 18" long, $3.00; R-495 Large Panther, Ebony, 24" long, $10.00.
- 1953 Haeger, fall, p.7 — 3511 Panther Planter, Ebony with Lemon Yellow, Chartreuse or Mint Green, 14½" long, $6.50 each; Genuine Haeger line.
- 1954 Royal Haeger, spring, p.13 and fall, p.2 — both figurines at $10.00 and $3.00.
- 1955 Haeger Ceramic Fashions, p.10 and p.28 — 6051 Panther TV Lamp, Turquoise or Dark Green base, chartreuse shield; R-683 Black Panther, Ebony only.
- Haeger Artware and Lamps, television lamp page — 6051 TV Panther, height 6", Turquoise Green/Ebony or Sherwood Green/Ebony, white plastic shield; 6525 Leopard Shadow Box TV, height 11", Turquoise/Decorated or Mat Black; shown together with the 6200 TV Gazelle, 6475 TV Small Bull, 6522 Donkey Planter TV and 6523 Horse TV.
- Royal Haeger lamp catalog — 5116, (R & L) Leopard, Amber Crystal base with natural Glasschop shade, height 20", retail $25.00.
- 1957 Haeger Artware and Lamps, p.3 — size table giving Large Panther 5" × 24" and Panther 4¾" × 18".
- 1958 Haeger Artware and Lamps, p.15 — R495 Large Panther and R683 Small Panther, 4¾" × 18".
- 1959 Haeger Artware and Lamps, p.5, and fall, p.8 — R495 24" Large Panther $10.00; 928-H Two Panther TV Lamp, height 10", $15.00, Ebony or Turquoise Blue.
- 1960 Haeger Artware and Lamps, p.11 — R495 $10.00, 24" Large Panther, Ebony, Orange Decorated; R683 $4.00, 18" Small Panther, Ebony.
- 1961 Haeger Artware, p.18; 1962 Haeger Artware, p.24; 1963 Haeger Artware, fall, p.7; 1964 Haeger Artware, fall, p.7 — continued listings of the 24" and 18" panthers.
- 1965 Haeger Artware, p.15 — 683, 18" Panther, $12.00.
- 1974 Randall Floral, pp.5, 7 and 11, and 1975 Randall Floral, p.16 — H-123 Haeger Panther Planter, Eric Olsen, florist trade line.
- 1986 Haeger Decorative Accessories, p.14, and 1989 Haeger Decorative Accessories, p.16 — 6048 Panther, Ebony, and the twelve-glaze sculpture listing. The 1989 page reads "6048 21½" PANTHER 05, 06, 10, 12, 19, 34, 36, 41, 42, 43, 52, 27" — twelve codes against the panther. The color strip down the side of that page carries fifteen swatches, but it serves all three sculptures on the page, not the panther alone.
- 1993 Royal Haeger, p.2; 1995, p.3; 1997, p.22; 1999, p.18 — 315 Stalking Panther and 351 Sitting Panther in Sculpture Stone.
- 1996 Royal Haeger 125th Anniversary, p.19 — Haeger's own history: Royal Hickman's "famous black panther, a sleek elongated cat, first produced in 1941 and offered in three sizes."
- John Magon, The Iconic Royal Haeger Panther, posted in the Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors group — the Carson, Pirie, Scott origin, the Joseph Estes interview and its 34-potteries figure, the postwar relaunch, the V-indentation dating method, Royal Hickman's arrival in 1938 with the Ra-Art molds, Frank Petty's sculpting and mold work behind many Hickman designs, and Estes's statement that the Royal name came from the English Royals rather than from Hickman's first name, and his recollection that the smaller panther was produced left and right so a pair could face each other on a mantel.
- Joe Paradis, House of Haeger, 1914–1944, and Lee Garmon and Doris Frizzell, Collecting Royal Haeger (1989) — the published sources behind the Estes interview quoted above. Paradis also found what appears to be Hickman's original panther sketch in the company archives.
- Sears, Roebuck and Co. Fall and Winter catalogs, 1956 and 1957, pp.820 and 824 — the Harmony House black panther TV lamp, 19" long, socket for bulb in back, stock number 2007 in both years. As reproduced in John A. Shuman III, TV Lamps to Light the World (Collector Books, 2006).
- Panther TV Lamp Resource — a collector's reference to panther television lamps, with side-by-side comparisons of the copies. The source for identifying the 19-inch Sears lamp as the Harmony House panther and for its three tells, and for pointing to the Governor's Mansion piece cited below.
- The membership of the Royal Haeger Pottery Collectors and Haeger Pottery Enthusiasts groups — who read a draft of this guide and corrected it. The four-sizes count, the point that catalog glaze lists are a floor rather than a ceiling, and the wider date range on Sculpture Stone all came from members who own these pieces rather than from a book. Corrections are still welcome and still get made.
- Photographs of a private collection — the tail-junction comparison and the glaze range reproduced above were photographed by Jeff Hendershot from panthers he owns, and are used here with his permission.
- Collector photograph of a late-1940s dragging-tail Royal Haeger panther — the owner's caption gives the glaze as Amber Crystal, the length as almost 27 inches, and states that the dragging tail was prone to being snapped off and that the design was changed shortly after. A collector's account of their own piece, not a published reference.
- Illinois Governor's Mansion, Art of Illinois: Stalking Black Panther — glazed ceramic, 4 × 27 inches; Royal Arden Hickman, designer; private collection of Alexandra Haeger Estes. The exhibition photograph shows the dragging tail.
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