The Weird & Wacky Pottery Artist To Check The Thrift Store For (It's Incredibly Valuable)

Searching the glassware section at the thrift store can often reveal a collection of chipped figurines, outdated glasses from familiar restaurant chains, and random jars. Sometimes, though, you can find valuable high-end items at the thrift store. You might turn the corner and find yourself face to, er, face, with a sculpted face jug among the Starbucks mugs. These delightful weird and wacky pieces of pottery are by artist Ron Dahline, who makes surreal jugs with larger-than-life sculpting. These handmade creations are still produced by the artist in his Michigan studio, and if you're lucky, you might find one of them sitting on the shelves in your local thrift shop or flea market.

Dahline creates "surreal Southern folkart" face jugs in his own bold style, with exaggerated features. The creatures or people often have wide smiles with intricately-detailed teeth. Face jugs come from an art tradition popularized by enslaved people in South Carolina in the 1800s. On his old artist website, Dahline dubbed his creations "creature landscape sculptures" and said he uses the genre to "express his emotions."

His long studio hours in painstakingly sculpting each jug have paid off, with collectors paying $400-$4,500 to own these one-of-a-kind pieces. Because Dahline is a working artist, unlike other pottery to be on the lookout for at thrift stores, an exact value is hard to pinpoint. Dahline's work has been historically sold throughout various art galleries and art festivals, including in Florida, once home to his studio. Today, his creations are frequently sold on eBay, either by collectors or as of 2025, Dahline himself.

While other artists have made or still make face jugs, there are definitely some ways to determine if you're holding onto a piece by Dahline. First, there's the signature or marking, his last name with often a dramatic "D" featured on the Dahline. Pieces may be dated, with some online sellers identifying them as (year) edition, though there may be some pieces without a year. He began creating his mugs in the 1990s, and it's not clear how many pieces he's made.

You may also be able to identify a Dahline mug by looking at its features. The eyes are a good indicator, as they are not just flat plain circles, but often have incredible detail, with a series of dots as the iris. The eyes, along with the other facial features, are incredibly expressive, sometimes boasting a wide grimace. Brows may be furrowed and laugh lines may ring the eyes. The face mugs by Dahline aren't always the same size as those coffee mugs in your cabinet, sometimes they're larger, with multiple figures sculpted on one another. 

The entire piece of pottery can have a slightly weathered look, where you can see how every line was carved, sculpted, and molded. It might be a person with wild features, an animal, skull, or nightmarish creature that seems out of an alternate Seussian dimension. Colors used include blues, greens, browns, and grey-white, along with some pops of brighter reds. Though the theme of the piece can dictate the color choices, these shades often show up in his work.