The Royal Haeger winking cat, No. 616: one glass eye, one wink, and a line at the door

By Matthew Partsch · Owl and Twig Vintage · October 25, 2026

Fifteen and a half inches of mandarin-orange glaze, one green glass eye, one closed in a wink. On a Sunday morning in Livonia, Michigan, it sat on a white pedestal behind a storefront window, and I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open.

A cat in the window

The storefront sits in a low brick strip on the west side of Detroit's suburbs, under a script sign that reads Vintage Vibes, with a gray cat silhouette perched on top of the lettering. Antiques, collectibles, vinyl. The neon in the window still read closed.

The news had come the night before, in a Haeger collectors' group on Facebook. A dealer posted a photograph of a tall orange cat with a green glass eye, said it was sitting in her booth, and said that anyone who wanted it should come and get it. By Sunday morning I was in line. Through the glass, the cat stood on a white pedestal box beside an amber glass decanter and a plastic jack-o'-lantern pail, its tag hanging from a string around its neck, with rows of stoneware crocks and art pottery stacked on the steel shelving behind it. From the sidewalk, the side facing out was the closed eye. The wink faced the street.

What the No. 616 is

American in origin, mid-century in date, Art Deco in style, made of molded and glazed earthenware: the Royal Haeger winking cat is shape No. 616. It stands about 15½ inches tall, roughly 4¾ inches wide and 6½ inches front to back, by the measurements Just Art Pottery published when it auctioned a white example from a California estate. The body is a single elongated column. The neck stretches upward, the ears are tall and pointed, and the tail sweeps around the front paws to the base.

The face carries the joke. One eye is an inset green glass cabochon; the other is modeled shut. Collectors and dealers tend to call it the Egyptian cat, for the seated, upright silhouette that recalls the bronze cats of ancient Egypt.

Haeger made it at its works in Dundee, Illinois, the company David H. Haeger built out of the Dundee Brickyard in 1871. Haeger Potteries announced in April 2016 that it would close that May, after 145 years.

Who designed the winking cat

Dealers credit the 616 to Royal Arden Hickman (1893–1969), the designer Haeger hired in 1934 to create the art line it sold as Royal Haeger. Hickman was the company's chief designer from 1938 to 1944 and returned in the 1950s as a freelancer, contributing designs from outside the firm. His best-known Haeger animal is the stalking black panther, first produced in 1941.

The attribution rests on style and dealer consensus. A Ruby Lane dealer trading as PatsPots called the cat “classic Hickman in design, a very pleasing form.” No surviving Haeger catalog page naming Hickman as the 616's designer turned up for this guide, and the impressed base mark on the examples described in auction and sale listings reads Royal Haeger, USA and the shape number, without the “by Royal Hickman” wording Haeger used on pieces from his staff years. That fits a freelance design from the 1950s. It does not prove one.

How to tell a real one

• Turn it over. Genuine 616s are marked in the clay with Royal Haeger, USA and the number 616. Some still carry the original foil paper label, as the Ruby Lane example did.
• Check the eye. One green glass eye, set into the socket; the opposite eye is sculpted closed. Two glass eyes, or two painted eyes, point to a different model or a copy.
• Measure it. The standard 616 runs about 15½ inches. A cat closer to 20½ or 21 inches is the taller sister, sold in deep red among other glazes.
• Run a finger up the back. A listing for an orange 616 offered on eBay this year disclosed long stress fractures running up most of the body. Look and feel for hairlines along the spine and neck, where a tall, thin casting carries the most strain.
• Read the glaze. The orange is glossy and mottles toward red in the hollows; the white is a rough, textured matte. Both are factory finishes.

The look-alikes

What you're looking at	How to tell it apart
The taller Haeger winking cat	Same idea, about 20½ to 21 inches, one glass eye and one wink. 1stDibs dealers have offered it in deep red, dated to the 1960s, and in another example dated to the 1980s.
Haeger seated panthers	Upright and Deco like the 616, but about 21 inches tall, with no wink. A white seated panther and a black one, model 6048, have both appeared on 1stDibs.
Haeger reclining cats	Lying down, not seated; one ebony example measures about 11 inches tall and dates to the 1990s.
Unmarked “Haeger style” cats	Plenty of tall ceramic cats sell under the Haeger name with no mark on the base. No impressed Royal Haeger and no 616 means no attribution.

What the 616 sells for

Condition and glaze set the price. Orange draws the most money.

Item	Figure	What it actually is
616, off-white, repaired hairline	$49.99 sold	eBay sale; the seller disclosed the repair
Winking cat, mustard glaze	$135 sold	eBay Buy It Now sale, as recorded by PicClick
616, orange, long stress fractures on the back	$188.91 asking	Active eBay listing, October 2026; not a sale
616, textured white	$249.99 asking	eBay listing; not a sale
Winking cat, white, with matching vase-form piece	$279.99 asking	eBay pair listing; not a sale
616, orange, very good condition	$380 retail, sold out	Grandview Mercantile, a dealer storefront; the listing shows sold
Winking cat, orange, with a vase	$500 asking	eBay listing; not a sale

The spread tells the story. A white 616 with a repair barely clears fifty dollars. A clean orange one has sold at retail for $380, and even a cracked orange example is listed for nearly four times the repaired white. For more on how Haeger numbered its shapes, see the guide to Haeger pottery marks and model numbers; for the cat's better-known cousin, the Haeger black panther.

Where the records disagree

The date. Most dealers and the Just Art Pottery auction catalog call the 616 a 1950s piece, and one eBay seller listed its year of manufacture as 1950. The Ruby Lane dealer who sold a cotton-white example dated it to the 1960s and 1970s. The two are compatible if the shape stayed in the line for years, as many Haeger shapes did, but no Haeger catalog page in reach for this guide pins a first or last year.

The designer. Hickman is the name on nearly every listing, and the design fits his hand. His freelance years line up with the 1950s dating. The base mark, though, carries only the company's name.

What every source agrees on is the face. One eye open, glass and green. One eye shut. Seventy-odd years on, the cat is still in on the joke.

The doors opened. It came home.