Pottery Market Is Steady at Crocker Farm

Crocker Farm, Inc., York, Pennsylvania

by Karl H. Pass

Crocker Farm, Inc. holds on average three sales a year in the Old Main Building on the York Fairgrounds in York, Pennsylvania. The fall sale on Saturday, November 1, 2008, was "pretty much as we expected," said Anthony "Tony" Zipp of the firm. With diverse offerings of stoneware and redware, including midwestern, New York state, and several good lots of southern pottery, the 394-lot sale grossed $315,318.50 (including buyers' premiums) or $264,190 (without buyers' premiums). Highlights included several pieces of early Manhattan, New York, and South Amboy, New Jersey, stoneware.

In the four years since its first sale on July 17, 2004, Crocker Farm has established auction records for Bell redware and for Clarkson Crolius, New England, Maryland, and signed Pennsylvania stoneware, among other achievements. This particular sale did not produce any records, but as a whole it achieved steady prices for largely middle-market material. The vast majority of reserved lots failed to sell, showing bidders' dislike of reserves. Often, more important to an item's ability to sell is its freshness to the market. Several of the reserved lots had changed hands recently, and keen bidders noticed.

"We're seeing a lot of lower-end material crawling back up in prices," mentioned Tony Zipp following the sale, perhaps indicating an increasingly steady marketplace for stoneware and redware. The Zipps had approximately 120 phone bids from an ever-expanding audience of collectors and dealers. Internet bidding was active as well.

The sale started well with a stoneware snake jug by Wallace and Cornwall Kirkpatrick of Anna, Illinois (est. $6000/8000). Made in 1885, it sold for $21,275 to a private collector bidding by phone. Six phone bidders were competing, and the piece was fresh to the market.

A Crolius jug in remarkably excellent condition with manganese decoration sold for $977.50. It was excavated by a commercial diver 23 years ago from the Pasquotank River in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Manganese-decorated Crolius stoneware is not common. A smaller Crolius jug with a cobalt circle around the maker's mark with some spout chips and a recessed spot on front brought $460.

An early jug attributed to Thomas Commeraw, stamped "Ashmores Genuin/ Cordials Prepaird/ By. W. Field. Only," sold for $3450. According to the Zipps, William Field was listed as a cordial distiller on Catharine Street in Corlears Hook when this circa 1810 jug was made. The price was held down because of two restored sections near the base and several cracks.

The next Crocker Farm sale will be held in March. For more information, call (410) 337-5090; Web site (www.crockerfarm.com).

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