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August 25, 2000: Osona's

Crowell decoratives do well at
Eldred’s Sporting Items Auction

By Jackson Parker
Photos courtesy Robert C. Eldred Co., Inc.

Bob Eldred marches to the beat of a different drummer. It didn’t seem to matter to him that Guyette & Schmidt scheduled their big summer decoy auction on July 27-28 up in Maine; he scheduled his Sporting Items auction on July 27!

It didn’t hurt Bob or his consignors a bit. Consider these figures. Of 82 wildfowl decoys and decoratives offered, 15 (18%) did not sell, leaving 67 that sold for $43,522 for an average of $650 per lot. It was a high 53% over total low estimate after deducting the $3278 total low estimate of the unsold lots. All prices include 15% buyer’s premium.

I guess it makes no difference when auctions conflict, so long as left bids and phone bidders let a buyer be at one auction and bid at another. Although I was at the G&S auction on July 27, I had left a bid on a decoy at Eldred’s; even though my bid was well over estimate, I ended up the underbidder.

With Eldred’s operating in East Dennis on Cape Cod, practically in Crowell’s backyard, it was no surprise to see so many Crowells and how well they did. I counted 15 Crowells among the auction’s top 20 wildfowl lots, topped by three life-sized decoratives: a Baltimore Oriole at $5980 and a bluejay at $4888, both with rectangular stamp on oval base and some gesso loss to right foot, and a hummingbird on a driftwood base at $2760, all three over estimate. The next-highest-priced Crowell was a canvasback decoy with rectangular stamp and some neck damage, over estimate at $1955.

The auction’s top miniature by Crowell was a robin, over estimate at $1208. The other ten Crowells that made the top 20 were all miniatures: a quail over estimate at $978, a bluejay and redhead within estimate at $920 apiece, a canvasback hen over estimate at $863, a bluejay within estimate at $863 and five over estimate at $748 each (wood thrush, bluebird, laughing gull, blackbird and bluejay).

A rig of four shorebirds attributed to William Mayhew of Martha’s Vineyard, only one with a replaced bill, sold over estimate at $1725. A lot of two split-tailed black-bellied plovers, also attributed to Mayhew, made estimate at $460.

A lot of two golden plovers, attributed to Frank Adams of the Vineyard, sold over estimate at $1121.

I thought I’d surely win out with my left bid of $920 for a James Look repainted redhead of great form, but it was taken at $949, over estimate, by someone else who appreciates the work of this classic Vineyard carver.

A black duck, attributed to the Dodge factory of Detroit, sold over estimate at $863. A Virginia brant with neck repair was also under estimate at $690. And two miniatures by Jess Blackstone of Peterborough, New Hampshire made estimate, his purple finch at $546 and his chestnut-sided warbler at $518.

Nothing else sold for over $500. This report does not cover the firearms and fish paraphernalia that made up the first two-thirds of the auction.

 

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