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One of the most important events in the history of decoy collecting is about to unfold.
Host Katie Burke sits down with Jon Deeter of Guyette & Deeter Auction Company to discuss the Jim & Diane Cook Collection — a 400‑piece assemblage widely regarded as the most valuable and significant decoy collection ever assembled. The collection will be offered at auction beginning this April during the North American Decoy Collectors Association (NADCA) show.
In this episode, Jon shares the story behind Jim Cook — a visionary entrepreneur, avid waterfowler, and early conservationist — and how his passion, resources, and eye for quality shaped a once‑in‑a‑generation collection that spans nearly every major carving region in North America.
In this episode:
- Who Jim Cook was and how the collection came together
- Why this is one of the most important decoy events ever
- How Guyette & Deeter vetted nearly 400 top‑tier decoys
- The role of private collectors in preserving decoy history
- Jim Cook’s early prairie pothole conservation efforts
- Why now is a historic moment for new collectors
- The importance of collection provenance and maker stamps
- Why collections break up — and why it matters for the hobby
- How collectors, museums, and historians benefit from this sale
The conversation then dives deep into highlights from the collection, including works by Joe Lincoln, Elmer Crowell, the Ward Brothers, Robert Elliston, Charlie & Edna Perdue, and Enoch Rindahl — explaining why these pieces matter and what sets them apart.
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Whether you’re a seasoned collector, historian, or simply fascinated by waterfowling heritage, this episode offers rare insight into an extraordinary chapter of American folk art.
Creators and Guests
What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
When was the last time it sold?
Jon Deeter:It was in the early eighties. It was owned by the Phillips family until a guy named Philip DeNormandy purchased it with a few other decoys from the family, and then we sold it, in the early eighties for $98,000. A lot of money back then.
Katie Burke:It's a lot of money back then. It's just hard to think. Yeah. That's still, like, so much money.
VO:The following episode of the DU podcast features a video component. For the full experience, visit the Ducks Unlimited channel on YouTube. Subscribe and enjoy.
VO:Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jerad Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.
VO:Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU Podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
Katie Burke:Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I'm your host, Katie Burke. And today on the show, I have Jon Deeter of Guyette and Deeter Auction. We are here to talk about the Jim and Diane Cook collection.
Katie Burke:This will be going on sale at the North American Decoy Collectors Association on April. John also put together a book about the collection, is the Jim and Diane Cook collection of waterfowl decoys. Welcome to the show, John.
Jon Deeter:Hey. Thank you, Katie. Good to be here.
Katie Burke:Yeah. It's been a while since you've been on the show.
Jon Deeter:I have.
Katie Burke:I've multiple Guyette and Deeter people since you've been on the show, but you yourself have not been on the show in a little while.
Jon Deeter:We've been waiting for the right event, and it's finally
Katie Burke:Yes. First of all, just tell me just kind of tell the audience a little bit about this collection, just like an intro to the collection, and then I'll go into a little more detail.
Jon Deeter:So Jim and Diane Cook. Jim Cook was Canadian citizen, moved to The US quite some time ago, and went is quite the entrepreneur, moved through a bunch of different sort of jobs, figuring out what he wanted to do, and he landed by creating a company called Investment Rarities. That was a company that sold, silver and gold, and and and as the name would assume, he was also interested in other rarities. And so while he was selling silver and gold, for his company, Jim was also collecting rarities, and he collected baseball cards, baseball bats, art pottery, music posters, number of different genres, and he would buy the best in those categories. And so he put together numerous collections, but I think it was really his decoy collection that he was the most passionate about over time.
Jon Deeter:And so here you have a guy that's an avid waterfowler, a tremendous conservationist. I mean, and we're gonna talk more about this, but Jim bought and transformed over 20,000 acres in the Prairie Pothole land Prairie Pothole area in South Dakota and Minnesota in the early eighties and and gave it back to the state. I mean, he was an early conservationist that had a major impact on duck breeding during that time. But when he wasn't hunting ducks, he was hunting decoys, and he started doing this in the eighties. His company was making a lot of money.
Jon Deeter:He was smart enough to hire somebody to help him. That guy's name is Joe Tenelly from Spring Valley, Illinois, and Joe was really wired into the decoy world. Jim had the finances and the passion, and together, they assembled a collection of what we actually put together in the book that you mentioned, which is a hardcover book. It's nearly 380 pages. Talks about the collection.
Jon Deeter:It lists all the decoys in the collection with historical background on the carvers. It's really a fantastic coffee table book that captures this collection of 400 decoys that have been vetted for their condition. These are really the highest the collection really represents the most important carvers, the best example from those carvers, and it spans across numerous carving regions from New England to Virginia and Maryland, Illinois River, Central Flyway, and some California. I would say it's the most expensive most expensive assemblage of rare important decoys ever put together.
Katie Burke:Oh, wow. Did he start with Mississippi River decoys, or did he just want the best like, he was just going after what the best, like, selection of decoys?
Jon Deeter:Jim was incredibly successful. Right? So in the eighties, his company, Investment Rarities, would had sales of $500,000,000. So he was able to he had a lot of excess cash. He and Joe would jump on a plane, fly to New England, buy some cruel decoys.
Jon Deeter:They bought privately. They bought at auction. Wherever they could find great examples coming to market or where they could go into a home and offer something try to buy something privately, they were doing it. They were on for the best examples of American decoys.
Katie Burke:Okay. So yeah. So he was looking for, like, the best encyclopedic kind of decoys that he could get collection he could get.
Jon Deeter:And he was a he was very fastidious about the condition of the decoys. If they were too worn, they weren't gonna make the shelf. They weren't gonna make the decoy room. And what you're looking at in the photo there, the the final house that Jim bought in Minneapolis, and he designed a decoy room there that's, I don't know. It's maybe a couple thousand square feet lined with shelving.
Jon Deeter:Each decoy, sits on a shelf. It has an individual light shining on it. It's a it's a museum of a room. It's it's really the coolest decoy room I've ever had the privilege to be in.
Katie Burke:What's he gonna do with his room?
Jon Deeter:I don't know. It's kind of things don't last forever, Katie. And it's quite honestly, it's sad. I mean, I've been visiting Jim in in Minneapolis since 1992. Okay.
Jon Deeter:And so I've made numerous trips out there. I used to travel there for work. I'd call mister Cook and, you know, what gosh. You know, my and and every time he would ask, well, what's your favorite decoy? And it's funny because the first time it was the Ferdinand Bach merganser that he has, and that's because I was living in Michigan, and I thought Michigan decoys were in in the end of great decoys.
Jon Deeter:But as time has changed, you know, my tastes have changed, and that's just been a great place to go and get to know Jim and Diane, visit their beautiful home and their collection, and they were he's always been so open and kind and willing to share, you know, the collection in his house. He attends the auctions. He talks to everybody at the auction, the auction previews. He sits in the auctions. He raises his card till he wins the items.
Jon Deeter:He's really one of the the the truly visible decoy collectors and, just a great kind guy.
Katie Burke:Yeah. That's true. You know, I didn't really think about that when we were gonna do this, but, I guess he's the first really, you know, decoy collector that has that level of a collection that I've really met because he was he came to everything. Very few of those collectors actually come and sit in the room.
Jon Deeter:That's right. Most of that goes to the phones.
Katie Burke:Yes. So that is interesting. So that brings me to another like, talking about his collection, and it's sad that it's breaking up, but that is the evolution, you know, of decoy collecting, at least in this collecting community. I'd like to talk a little bit about, just for the audience who isn't really, you know, an art historian or in this type of thing, like, the significance of collections and what they mean for the community as well as the decoy. You know, they we've gone through a couple in the last few years that have come to sell.
Katie Burke:You know, there was like, in the last couple years, you had quite a few that have just sold.
Jon Deeter:Alan Haidt. We've had Ted and Judy Harbin. We've had, you know, Russ Goldberg. Yeah. We've we've been our company has been selling the the collections of the the collectors in the last few years, and we're going through a generational turnover, which is why that's happening, which is if you're coming into collecting now, there's no better time in history to start collecting than what is happening now because a lot of the decoys, specifically in the Cook collection or the Harmon collection or the Haid collection, they've never been offered at market before.
Jon Deeter:Or if they were, you know, it was forty years ago. These are these are some of the best examples known, and they're gonna come to market now, Katie, and they may go back into a collection, and we may not see them for another ten, twenty, thirty, forty years. I mean, this event the magnitude of this event is crazy. It's like and we we write about it in the catalog. It's like the Super Bowl, the World Series, the World Cup all rolled up into one.
Jon Deeter:I mean, I you know, what might this might be on parallel with the 2,000 Jim McCleary sale, but I think actually this collection, you know, on a per piece basis will surpass that value and price per lot, and it's it's really it's really an important event. Why is it an important event? Well, a, the material. Right? Fantastic decoys by the best makers.
Jon Deeter:And, you know, this the the work that went into putting this collection together between, you know, having to have the resources to go out and travel to get it, the knowledge to be buying something that is exactly what you think it is, and that having the financial means to buy it back then. Jim had all that together when he did this, and so these decoys, you know, some people can say, well, don't know a lot about that, but if it was good enough to be vetted for the Cook collection, it's certainly good enough to be vetted for mine. And, it just so it's it's it it it's important in lots and lots of different ways.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Does he have a stamp on his collection? Does he have a marker?
Jon Deeter:Yeah. We have a we have a there he has some stickers which are on most of the decoys, not all, but because it wasn't on all the decoys, we have a stamp that's been made up that says Cook Collection.
Katie Burke:Perfect. Yeah. So, like, yeah, the importance of those stamps are a lot. Yeah.
Jon Deeter:I should mention, Katie. So the collection in total is, you know, almost 400 items. We're not selling all 400 items in, April. One will go off in April. We're probably looking at four sessions, maybe five sessions in total for the cookbook.
Jon Deeter:And just because there's so much dollar value here, it doesn't make sense to put everything out there at once.
Katie Burke:Right. Just so yeah.
Jon Deeter:Bred it over July, November, and then April again, and then maybe July.
Katie Burke:Yeah. The other thing I just wanna mention before we get more into this is, when you're talking about this conservation work, you probably don't know this, but Ducks Unlimited's first project in The United States was in 1984. Before that, everything was in Canada.
Jon Deeter:Yes.
Katie Burke:So there was yeah. So there was nothing until 1984, which was when Pete Coors was president. And so to think he was doing prairie pothole stuff in the '80 yeah. You're right. He's, like, right there with Ducks Unlimited doing stuff.
Jon Deeter:I think he was a super renegade.
Katie Burke:I think yeah. That's that's how He early that
Jon Deeter:was buying the land. He was he hired a couple guys to go out and dynamite potholes. Yeah. I don't know if they had permits or not. I'm guessing maybe they did, maybe they didn't.
Katie Burke:It was the eighties.
Jon Deeter:He did what needed to be done, and Jim was a waterfowler, and he wanted to replace the ducks he was hunting plus more. Yeah. He was really paving the way for rest land restoration in The United States.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I just I just wanted to point that out because I don't think people would really put that together. But, yeah, Ducks Unlimited did not do anything until 1984 in The United States.
Jon Deeter:That's right. All their dollars went to Canada.
Katie Burke:Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first project.
Katie Burke:Now, obviously, we do stuff everywhere, but at that it wasn't until 1984. I wanna go to the pictures three and four. So these are of his broom that we were talking about, like, the broom he did, and that's how many decoys. Yeah. That's pretty impressive.
Katie Burke:When did he do that? Like, do know how long he's had that room?
Jon Deeter:Maybe about two thousand and ten, I'm guessing.
Katie Burke:Yeah. So he's gotten to enjoy it for a while.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. Well, it's a great place. I don't even think there's a TV in there. There's just a couch and a couple chairs and some tables, and you just go in there and sit. And, again, he's been so giving and and open about, you know, people walk in, grab the decoys off the shelves.
Jon Deeter:You know, you may here you are holding these really expensive decoys, and it it such a great place to learn about waterfowling in different regions and about different makers.
Katie Burke:Yeah. That's such a tradition, like, a good thing about decoy collectors for the most part. They will leave
Jon Deeter:you We tend to be very open and welcoming. We wanna share our collections with other collectors. Find somebody that wants to start collecting or thinking about collecting, all of us open our homes and our situation, our office to to collecting and nurturing nurturing the new the newbies.
Katie Burke:So alright. Let's get into the actual decoys. So where do you wanna start?
Jon Deeter:Let's start with Katie, I think that, we tried to figure out how to launch the sale, and what we ended up doing was deciding to kick off with one of the greats in the Cook collection. This is a Joe Lincoln wood duck. Lincoln made three wood ducks that we know of. We sold one in the Harmon collection last year for over 200,000. This of the three Lincoln wood ducks known, this is the finest example.
Jon Deeter:It was made for his friend Chet Spear who was his hunting buddy and
Katie Burke:Oh, that's cool.
Jon Deeter:Yes. And Spear branded this. What's fascinating about this decoy is at the time it was made, let's call it 1915 to 1920 or something like that, shooting wood ducks in Massachusetts was banned. Right. So there there weren't enough wood ducks.
Jon Deeter:I mean, what's fascinating about this decoy is it was probably made around, you know, 1915 to 1920. Wood duck hunting in Massachusetts was closed. They'd actually closed it in nineteen o six, and then it was closed in the rest of the country between 1918 and 1951. So it's it's really pretty amazing that, and and I guess it also helps us understand why Lincoln and other makers didn't make more wood ducks.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I never really thought about that, but, yeah, that makes sense.
Jon Deeter:Branded c f Spear for Chet Spear, was a friend of Lincoln's, who was a member at the club that Lincoln managed, which was the North Shore Club, and so Lincoln made decoys. He managed a duck club for these wealthy guys. If you look at the census data on him, he was a shoemaker, he was a carpenter, but he was also very good at at making duck decoys. And this is lot number one. The condition of this is is nearly perfect, unbelievable paint, great patina.
Jon Deeter:It's just a very exciting decoy. We sold this decoy in 1986 for $200,000. It then traded hands Yeah. Then trade Jim Cook bought it privately after the auction, and so this is
Katie Burke:good. A lot for $19.86.
Jon Deeter:Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's been, you know, thirty five years since it's been available. Right.
Katie Burke:It's been forty it's been forty years because I'm about to have my fortieth birthday, and I was born in 1986.
Jon Deeter:The auction estimate on that item is 4 to $600,000.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Okay. I would have thought more, honestly.
Jon Deeter:Well, it hasn't sold yet, Katie.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Jon Deeter:So
Katie Burke:So got it. So he got it through private hands. Is that what you mentioned? Yeah.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. We we sold that to another well, to a guy named Charlie Hunter, and Charlie Hunter then sold it privately to Jim Cook. But, you know, Lincoln was Lincoln was born in 1859. He died in 1938. There's actually and I should send you if you want to insert a video into this podcast, Katie, have you seen the video of Joe Lincoln making decoys?
Jon Deeter:No. Made in 1928. This company came over from France. I can send this a video of I mean, it's it's a it's a less than a minute video of Lincoln, and he's carving out a merganser hand, and then he drills the eyes with a little one of the Yeah. Drum whatever whatever kind of drill.
Jon Deeter:Puts them in, and he's and then he's got a whole shelf of decoys pods. So if you want that, which I think would be a really cool insert in here
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Jon Deeter:I'll get that to you.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And you can look at him. I always love that picture of him. It was just slide 12, Chris, is that picture of Lincoln. He's one of
Jon Deeter:better ones. Yep. That's there's Joe holding a group of decoys. That picture is probably, you know, whatever, 1930. This decoy also was selected this exact decoy was selected, and then it was illustrated, and it was the first Massachusetts state wildlife stamp.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. Massachusetts did their own duck stamps. Right? And this was decoy that was on the very first stamp in 1974.
Katie Burke:Yeah. They're the only ones well, a lot of states do it, but they're the only ones that did those decoy. Like, they did a decoy every year, which wasn't that for didn't the Harmans have something to do with that?
Jon Deeter:Ted was pretty instrumental in getting that program going, and Ted was also, you know, a local guy that had good examples for people to go get. You know, this decoy was at that time '74. Well, it would have been in the collection of George Ross Starr, so they yeah. They may have gone to George Ross Starr to get it, but Ted was very instrumental in in getting the decoys.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Okay. Alright.
Jon Deeter:Alright. So, Katie, the next decoy we're gonna talk about is the Elmer Kroll back preening Widgeon Drake. Was made My son. For Made for Doctor. John C.
Jon Deeter:Phillips. You know, here Kroll was born in 1862. He died in 1952, but by maybe 1876, we think he made his first decoy. And here he was living in East Harwich, Massachusetts. He must have been a fun, cool guy to hang around, and if you think about what was going on in that area, had Harvard, Yale, MIT.
Jon Deeter:There were arguably the best schools in the country up there, and there were these really rich guys going to these schools, graduating from these schools as doctors, lawyers, business, industrialists, and somehow Kroll befriended them. And why why did Kroll befriend them? Well, Kroll had some skills. He was initially was a cranberry farmer, but then he began managing duck stands, and I guess he was really good at training live birds, right, so live geese and live ducks. So when the birds would be seen, you know, a flock would be coming by, they'd release their geese, they'd release the ducks, ducks would go out, fly around, make a couple loops, attract the wild birds, the tamies would come in and land, and then as the wild ducks were coming in, they'd they'd harvest those birds.
Jon Deeter:And Kroll was evidently really good. He had a a system that released the ducks out of a cage, they'd fly, and then come back to them. So he was really good at training, so all these rich guys like John C. Phillips, the Cunninghams, the Longs, they wanted Kroll's skills in managing their clubs or their private property, but then he also was able to make decoys for them. And, you know, back in 1900, Kroll made a rig of decoys where all the head positions were in different movements.
Jon Deeter:You think about that. Like, I don't know of anybody else that was doing that kind of animation on gunning decoys at the time, and so this is a Kroll from it's pre we call it pre 1912. It doesn't have his large brand in the underside because in 1912, Kroll got his brand that says you know, Elmer Kroll, East Tarwich, Massachusetts decoy maker. So not a he was making these things, and he was branding them, and you think about that's a great form of marketing. So here was this guy already marking his marketing his decoys as early as 1912, but this decoy was made specifically for John C Phillips.
Jon Deeter:It's got raised carved wingtips, back preening widgeon drake. Was this a gunning decoy? It certainly could be. Would you have to be careful with it? Absolutely.
Jon Deeter:But, you know, Phillips probably looked at this thing and said, my gosh, you know, I don't want that to get hurt. So it made it to the top of the gun case or the top, you know, the mantle, and it has remained in fantastic condition all that time. You know? That's a 125 year old decoy. Its its auction estimate is, again, is 4 to $600,000.
Katie Burke:When was the last time it sold?
Jon Deeter:It was in the early eighties. It was owned by the Phillips family until a guy named Philip DeNormandy purchased it with a few other decoys from the family, and then we sold it in the early eighties for $98,000. Lot of money back then.
Katie Burke:It's a lot of money back then. It's just hard to think. Yeah. That's still like so much money. That's that's funny though.
Jon Deeter:So, Katie, also have as as Kroll, you know, gunning laws changed in 1918 with the with the waterfowl act, waterfowl treaty act, and so the market harvesting was over. Sportsmen became more and more an important role in the making of decoys, and Kroll was doing that, but he had more time to make things than just decoys for the sportsman, and he was in a tourist area in Cape Cod. A lot of people visited there in the summer, so he started making I mean, think about this. With a pocket knife and a paintbrush, there was this guy making decorative items like this and selling them for $5 at the time in the '19 in the teens, and these are so these are Kroll's full size decoratives. This is a walking yellow legs, and Jim Cook collected Kroll decorative carvings, and you can see in the picture there the top item is a curlew.
Jon Deeter:There's a curlew in the middle. There's a curlew on the left. Actually, there's all curlews on the top shelf, which is amazing, but these kroll decoratives, even for people that just collect decoys, have become quite collectible. He did lots of different bird species. There's another fine grouping of them.
Jon Deeter:There's a woodcock on the right hand side, killdeer, upland plover, black bellied plover, yellow legs, dowagers. So it's another way to collect carvings and decoys, and these things, I can't tell you how stately they look when they're on a mantle or bookshelf.
Katie Burke:Yeah. We haven't done enough, and I'd like to do more, like, with the podcast to talk more about shorebirds and that history because I think people don't necessarily think about it with waterfowl because it's been so long, but it was very much a part of waterfowling in our history. So
Jon Deeter:it's Right. You can hunt yellow legs up into the thirties. Yeah. And a lot of people did. And I think even when those laws came out and changed, you know, people were maybe not abiding by the law in every area.
Jon Deeter:So shorebird hunting was a was a big deal certainly through the millinery period, you know, where a where an ounce of turn feathers was worth more than an ounce of gold because of the decoration of ladies' hats. No more.
Katie Burke:No more.
Jon Deeter:Okay. We've covered a couple of well, two of the most important makers from Massachusetts and in New England and in decoy carving in general.
Katie Burke:Everywhere.
Jon Deeter:Now let's drop down south. We're gonna talk about the Ward brothers. And this is a name well known, sort of a gold standard in decoy collecting. The Ward brothers, Lem and Steve, were two simple barbers that lived in Crisfield, Maryland, and they cut hair. They never owned a vehicle.
Jon Deeter:They they were they were born and they died in the same house that they, you know, they died in the same house that they were born in, and really nice guys. Steve had gone off to war, and when he came back, he'd had an injured hand, so they decided to work together. Steve would carve decoys, and Lim would paint them. That's how they worked throughout most of their career, and they made decoys from about 1915 till about 1975 in general. So it's a long span.
Jon Deeter:Right? It's almost sixty years. Well, in that sixty years, they made a lot of different models. So when you say I wanna collect ward decoys, it's like, well, what what part of that spectrum do you wanna collect in? And I think this lot number four in this sale is really cool.
Jon Deeter:You know, I only know of one or two pairs like this. So this is a true pair of Ward's cedar decoys, and they were made in the 1936 model. Now they could have been made in the early forties, but they used this '36 pattern as sort of their famous pattern. And what they did here and you can and when you look at this picture, I'm not sure everybody knows this, but there's a it's a drake and a hen black duck. Right?
Jon Deeter:So the hen has the olive drab bill, slightly different spectrum color speculum color, and then the drake has the brighter yellow bill. So the wards, you know, the wards are really in tune with that, and this is a true matched pair of black ducks made in the thirty sixth style.
Katie Burke:Yeah. You never see hen black ducks, really, as decoys.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. You don't. And and and most people just have one black duck in their collection, and that represents both the hen and the drake. But really, if you if you pay attention, if the carver was paying attention and the painter was paying attention, he he may have made drakes and hens, and that's a great example of both. Now the Ward brothers, I said, you know, they made decoys for over sixty years, and we a couple different ward black ducks in this sale actually, and I brought three different styles.
Jon Deeter:This is the earliest style, which would have been around 1922 or so, and you can see this really humpback, low neck seat, extended paddle tail, a turned head with the bill sort of swept up. This is a really fantastic decoy. When you look at the scratch paint, the speculum treatment, it's one of the finest war decoys in existence.
Katie Burke:John, can you turn the head? Yeah. I wanna see people, like, straight on how, like, the head shape, if you turn the bill straight at us. Yeah. Great.
Katie Burke:But yeah. Like, that head shape is so like, that's really cool.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. And this is, you know, this is something the warts were doing probably when they were making decoys to hunt for themselves and friends. They really hadn't gone into a commercial mode like they had when they were making the the 36 models. So by the time the 36 model came around, they were selling to sporting goods like VLNA in Chicago, Abercrombie and Fitch in New York. They had become more popular.
Jon Deeter:They were shipping decoys to the West Coast. But in this pure form here, it just shows the the artisan within them. And I think they probably realized that this decoy took so much time to make and paint that they couldn't do that on a more commercial basis. And the third third example I have, it's made around 1929, much larger body, larger heads, stouter conformation, and another black duck. This happens to be a a hen, but these were made for the Bishop's Head Gun Club in Chincoteague or not in Chincoteague.
Jon Deeter:I'm sorry. In down near Hooper's Island, Virginia. The club ordered geese, black ducks, wigeon, and some mallards for their you know, for a season or two down there from the ward, and this is an example of a Bishop's gun club style ward black duck that virtually with virtually no use.
Katie Burke:You could see the evolution, the head shape as they moved too.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. And then, you know, again, later on, I don't I didn't bring examples of these, but the the wards after the the '36 model, then after World War two, they had access to balsa wood, and they thought every everybody, all decoy carvers thought, oh, here it is. It's lighter weight. It's gonna be better, but it didn't hold paint well. But if you can find wood decoys that weren't used much that are balsa, the the painting that's on those can be just fantastic because they were very accomplished at painting in that period.
Jon Deeter:Then after that, you can sort of tell that their demand for working decoys was waning, and they moved into decorative items and shooting what we call shooting style, so gunning style decoys, but really not meant for the to be hunted. They were more meant for the mantle, and that was after they'd been famously promoted in Time Magazine, and people were traveling down there to have them sign decoys. So they had quite an extended career. Alright.
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Jon Deeter:So Katie, this is, we've talked about New England, we've talked about the Ward brothers down in Crisfield, Maryland and I think that we're gonna pop over to the middle of the country now because of the importance of the Illinois River area. You know, and the king duck there was the Mallard and there's a guy named Robert Elliston born in 1847 and dies in 1915. He was in Saint Louis before he moved to Illinois and in Saint Louis, was making carriages and buggies and he earned quite a reputation there. But in 1880, married his his wife, Katherine Anyway, in 1880, married his a lady named Katherine Kerminski and they moved to Snatchewine or Bureau, Illinois and he was one of the first people to start subsidizing his income by making decoys commercially. So he's in a very hunting and hunting rich area and he's sort of coined or has credited as the father of the Illinois River Decoy, which is two piece hollow and just a fantastic lightweight decoy.
Jon Deeter:This is a mallard that he would have made probably around 1895 to maybe as late as 1900, but this decoy didn't see much use. So there's this banker who lived in Columbus, Wisconsin named Chadbourne, and he he was president of the First State Bank in Columbus, and he was traveling and hunting in Illinois, so he probably bought this decoy directly from Elliston, let's just say 1895, and must have liked it so much, it didn't get much use. But the other thing that's funny, the one of the reasons we don't see a lot of sleeper decoys anywhere, but also in Illinois, is that the gunners didn't like it because wrapping the line tie around the decoys, it would never stay on them, so it was a little frustrating. But Chadbourne must have bought this decoy, thought enough of it that he put it on the mantle. We got
Katie Burke:like wrapping it up.
Jon Deeter:We we got this decoy from the Chadbourne family about ten years ago and sold it, and Jim Cook bought it at our sale. But Elliston was fascinating. He was a he was a beekeeper. He he sold grew and sold plums in the summer, and then he made decoys for visiting hunters in the area. And it was really the first husband wife team because Catherine, his wife, Robert would make the decoys and Catherine Elliston painted them, and she was a fantastically talented painter.
Jon Deeter:And Illinois is the only area that I'm aware of that had that kind of teamwork with decoy makers going on. It's really fascinating that here the father of the Illinois River area, Robert Elliston, would make them, Catherine would paint them, and then next comes along this guy named Henry Purdue. His wife paints his decoys, Edna Purdue, and then when Elliston dies, Burt Graves buys Elliston's shop, his his patterns, and his parts that are left, and his wife Millie Graves starts painting his decoys, and such an interesting phenomena, and we really isolated to that area. I've got a couple of other Ellistons to show you out of the Jim Cook collection. Here's a mallard, and you think about this mallard drake being made in, you know, 1900, and it just remains in pristine condition.
Jon Deeter:So thank God to the people that bought good decoys and didn't use them because the avid hunters beat the snot out of these things, and then they got rebuilt, broken up, and burned in fires. But once in a while, somebody would buy them and made it maybe they'd get sick or they didn't enjoy hunting or whatever the case. Those are the decoys that remained pristine.
Katie Burke:Yeah. That's surprising about that hen with the Chadbourne family kept it for that long. I mean, they kept it for over a hundred years. That's crazy.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. We're we're lucky, and that's what makes those things so rare. I mean, that decoy is, you know, is estimated at a $150,000 because it's probably the finest Elliston sleeper in existence. Everything else got used, dropped, you know, scratched, repainted, so these the very few examples that remain in original condition are heavily sought after.
Katie Burke:Because it's also because the not the collector's family kept it for a hundred years. It's I mean, the collector's family kept it for a hundred years, not the maker's family. Because you'll find, like, where a maker's family will keep, like, a random decoy for a long time. Right? Because they have a relation to the person who made it, but this is the guy who bought it's family.
Jon Deeter:Right. Yeah. It's very interesting. And it and I think within the family, they never assigned a big value to this thing. When we got it from a consignor, quite frankly, you know, they could have been told it was worth $5,000 or maybe $2,000, and they would have been happy.
Jon Deeter:When When we we sold it for a quarter million, they they were tickled. Yeah. And here's a you know, shooting
Katie Burke:I teal like. Yeah. I like teal.
Jon Deeter:Teal in the Illinois River was popular. Most it was actually more popular in Wisconsin. A lot of hunters would have the Illinois River makers make teal, and then they were used in Wisconsin. But so this is a Robert Elliston green winged teal drake in sort of bright spring plumage or late, and they were shooting birds on the way down, on the migration on the way down, and on the way up, so this could have been a spring plumage bird that they were using. And Elliston, again, as I mentioned with Kroll, you know, he was branding his decoys Elmer Krollmaker.
Jon Deeter:Elliston was putting on putting his name on the weights, and so if we found a decoy, you know, you could figure out where this Elliston guy was and go have decoys made for yourself by him. And it is also actually people that find an Elliston decoy in their attic, and this has happened, that clue has led to internet searches that has led to them coming to our company or, you know, maybe other dealers, but and had that weight not been on there, then it's just a decoy, and they've got no way to figure out who made it. But as soon as they can key Elliston into the Internet, they can find out a lot about them and find out what they're worth. So Katie, we just got done talking about Robert and Catherine Elliston, this husband wife team. He made decoys.
Jon Deeter:She painted them. The second one that I'd mentioned is Charlie Purdue and Edna Purdue, and Charlie was born in 1874 and died in '63. Edna was born in 1882 and died in 1874, and for starting about 1900, Charlie was making decoys, making calls. He was actually advertising in magazines at the time, newspapers or magazines at the time, that he sold calls, decoys, and then he went on to sell boats and other things, and this is one of my favorite decoys in the sale. I don't know if you can see how tiny it is, but it is a hollow green winged teal drake, what we would call a sleeper or a back preener, and it you know, it's only 11 inches long or something like that.
Jon Deeter:Fantastic condition. The only one I know of of its kind, and really one of my favorite decoys. It's, you know, carved by Charlie, painted by Edna, probably made around, I don't know, 1910. That is a sleeper of a decoy, and it will it'll also be sold and included in the Jim Cook collection session one in April. But, you know, I also kind of a fun story.
Jon Deeter:So Charlie made here's a mint condition pair of pintails made around 1915, 1920 for a guy named GK Schmidt, and you can look at each of these is branded GK Schmidt. GK Schmidt was a banker. He owned a brewery in the Chicago area, and he was very enthusiastic about going duck hunting. He may have duck hunted some, but what he really did for us collectors is that he bought decoys from Charlie Purdue, he bought decoys from Robert Elliston, and he didn't use them. He put them in a bank vault, and they stayed in that vault in the basement for, you know, seventy or eighty years until they were finally opened up, and the the GK Schmidt rig of Purdue and Elliston Decoys then began to be sold.
Jon Deeter:So here's a guy that bought again, you know, we've got a pintail that's a 100 years old, and it's really had never seen the light of day because this guy bought him, thought he was gonna do a lot of hunting, got sick, and died. And so the condition remains just pristine there, whereas a lot of Purdue pintails mostly are beat up from from wear and use. Charlie was from Henry, Illinois, and he was a a great tinkerman craftsman. He could fix guns. He could do about anything.
Jon Deeter:And, you know, Charlie also sold his decoys through the VLNA store in in in Illinois. He made fancy calls. If you wanted to order a call from him, you could have your initials carved in and it'd be painted. Quite a character, and there's actually a Charlie Purdue Museum still today in Henry, Illinois. That's that.
Jon Deeter:Alright, Katie. My last and final selection for this podcast. I just love the Enoch Rindle decoys. Rindle was born in nineteen o four. He died in 2000.
Jon Deeter:He's from Stoughton, Wisconsin, which is the Western Side of Wisconsin, and he was born in a home that he died in, didn't have indoor plumbing, barely had electricity, I don't think, until the later years, and this guy was quite a talented he was a mason assistant and a farmer farming the land, the farm that he he was born on, and what he really enjoyed doing was making decoys. His production was, you know, a 100 or so decoys, so he didn't make a lot, but when he and his early decoys are a little more crude than this, but when he was in his perfect period, we have this pair of mallards, and you can see this the the negative space between the curly q tail. The painting is so soft, and then he stenciled his name on the underside. It's easier to see on the hen here. You know, Enoch Rindahl.
Jon Deeter:He actually painted feathers on the underside of the decoy. These are hollow decoys and made by somebody that was very had an intimate knowledge of what a mallard looked like. Never sold them, gifted a few pairs to friends, but basically kept everything he owned. He made some incredible geese. We have one of them in this sale.
Jon Deeter:You had just mentioned that one of your favorite decoys in the Tim Peterson exhibit, is at the Waterfowl Heritage Museum now, is is the Rheindahl goose, and I couldn't agree with you more. He made he Enoch Rheindahl made a a superb decoy and is really one of the best makers in the country.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I love him too in that he's so isolate. Like, a lot of you know, we just a great example because we just talked about Elliston and Purdue. Like, they feed off each other. Right?
Katie Burke:Like, their decoys have a style. They learn from each other. They are inspired by each other, but Rheindahl was alone doing this in Wisconsin. Like, there's no one else doing it the way he's doing it where he is.
Jon Deeter:That's right. He was very isolated, so his interpretation was what he wanted it to be, spent and lots of time getting it right. Yeah. Rindahl decoys are I think some of the sort of very underappreciated segment of decoys. You know, they don't have the name that Lincoln and Kroll and the wards do, and there certainly isn't the supply of Rheindahl decoys out there either, which may have with it, but they're they're they they stand on their own.
Katie Burke:Oh, yeah. For sure. And when you they're one of those when they're in, like for, like we'll talk preview, I think, is on the twenty second, but, like, when you walk into the preview, you can spot them quick. Like, they they stand out in a room full of decoys.
Jon Deeter:That's right. Maybe we should talk about that too, Katie. Yeah. So the the, you know, the schedule at the Lombard Weston Hotel is that from four to 7PM on the twenty second, we will set up a preview for all of the items, a two day preview for all of the items in this 420 page auction catalog. Everything will be on display, be perfectly decorated, cocktails, a great event.
Jon Deeter:If you've got any interest in decoys, wildlife art, I would encourage everybody to come and see the presentation there. You can ask questions, find out about stuff. I mean, we've got x rays of items if people wanna understand the structure. We've got a catalog with guaranteed descriptions. This is the largest catalog we've ever put together, Katie, at 400.
Katie Burke:Oh, really?
Jon Deeter:Yeah. It's it's and probably the best catalog we've ever produced. So that's gonna be in Lombard then. We're the sale will start on the twenty third at 10AM, run till about 4PM, and then again on the twenty fourth at 10AM and run throughout the end of the day. And there's gonna be lots of items besides the Jim Cook collection in here, but the Cook collection certainly is the highlight.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And it's not like and to come for the if you are out of town if you're in town, you should definitely come. But if you're out of town, it's not even just the sale. Like, you have the whole decoy show going on with room to room trading on Wednesday, and there's a lot to do and see if you wanna check out decoys.
Jon Deeter:Yeah. It's the biggest event of its kind in the country. North American Collectors Association puts on a great event, very well organized. It's a fantastic group of people that put it together, and it's fun to be a part of. This is our forty second year or something like that now, Katie.
Katie Burke:That's crazy. Yeah. So will you have so you'll have to sell the twenty third and twenty fourth, and I know you always set up a table on that Saturday. Will y'all have some of the next Cook Collection stuff on display to look at?
Jon Deeter:Great question. We will be previewing session two of the Jim Cook Collection on Saturday, the twenty fifth, and then that those items so we'll then do a separate catalog for the July sale, session two of the Jim Cook plus some other great collections, and that will be sold in Easton, Maryland July, I think, are the dates.
Katie Burke:Oh, it's Easton in in July. It's not St. Michael's?
Jon Deeter:Nope. In Easton and at the country school, which you've been to. Same place as we do the same place as we do the November Okay. Waterfowl.
Katie Burke:That's amazing.
Jon Deeter:Catalog for this sale, call our office in St. Michael's, Gayet And Deeter Inc and go look at the website. You can see the flipbook catalog for the auction. If you go to bid.gayetanddeeter, you can see the items listed with their estimates, their condition reports, you can register and bid that way. Again, you can order a catalog or come to the auction.
Jon Deeter:There's lots of ways to bid, lots of ways to participate.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I even like like, I know a lot of people, like, somebody say, weigh out their price range, but I like I have the app even if I'm not there because I like to follow along. Yeah. It's fun to see how things go, so you can just follow along for fun too. That's neat.
Jon Deeter:That's right. We we talked today, you know, Katie, we talked about a lot of decoys or a group of decoys that are gonna be pretty expensive, you know, 5 figure range and up, But not everything, as you know, is that expensive. We're gonna have 620 lots in this sale, and, you know, there will be things that'll sell for $500 and a thousand dollars. So we we do we'll have decoys for everybody's taste.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Jon Deeter:For beginner and experienced collectors alike.
Katie Burke:And it's safe, which is always good to know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, John, thanks for doing that. I'm excited.
Katie Burke:I'll be there, on Tuesday.
Jon Deeter:Good. Who are coming with?
Katie Burke:Chris behind the camera over here. He's coming with me, and we're gonna do some podcasts in the room to room. So on Wednesday, we're gonna go and do some stuff in people's rooms with their stuff.
Jon Deeter:So Good.
Katie Burke:Well, Jon, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Jon Deeter:Katie, my pleasure. Always good to see you and always fun to share stories about decoys.
Katie Burke:Well, I'll see you in person in, like, a few weeks, so that'll be fun.
Jon Deeter:You got it. Take
Katie Burke:Well, thank you, Jon, for coming on the show. Thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac, and thanks to you, our listener, for throwing wetlands and waterfowl conservation.
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