by Karl H. Pass

The Zipp family held their third stoneware and redware auction on Saturday, May 21 at the Washington County Agricultural Education Center in Boonsboro, Maryland. It appears that the Zipps are hitting their stride; several in attendance felt this sale represented their best material yet. Besides putting together quality offerings, one of the Zipps’ strengths has been their catalogs, which are well illustrated with excellent descriptions and detailed condition reports. The catalogs are of reference quality and show the Zipps’ interest in furthering scholarship in this niche of American ceramics.

The catalogs include no presale estimates. According to Anthony Zipp, six lots held reserves, and all but one sold. The other five reserved lots reportedly sold considerably above their reserves. The 390-lot sale totaled $556,550.50 (including buyers’ premiums).

In business since 1983 under the name Crocker Farm, the Zipps charge a straight 10% seller’s commission and 10% buyer’s premium. New to this sale was eBay Live bidding. Bidders who used this service were charged 18% buyer’s premium (15% with check or cash). Most of the lots that sold through the eBay Live service were between $100 and $400 and included many of the blue and white spongeware lots. The specially installed phone lines in the education center proved to be a vital asset. One hundred five lots were bid over the phone, and 60 sold via phone bidding, absentee bidding, and eBay Live. The majority of the top lots went to phone bidders.

The performance of the material at the top suggests a pent-up hunger for investment-quality pieces. Most of the lesser material did not excel, and some prices were soft with ordinary things selling below the retail market. A few knowledgeable people expected the early New Jersey stoneware to bring slightly higher prices. Overall, Virginia redware and stoneware brought high prices.

The largest consignment came from a collector in the Midwest who consigned a total of 140 coin banks. "We decided to include roughly half of them in this sale and will sell the other half either in the fall or next year," noted Tony Zipp. Thirty-three of the banks in the consignment were from the late Bill Bertoia collection. All of these were included in this sale and generated a lot of interest among collectors.

Bertoia had purchased them from the Seamen’s Bank for Savings sale on March 13, 1991, at Christie’s East following the F.D.I.C. takeover of that bank and sale of its assets, including the company’s collection of banks. At that sale many banks were put together in groups of three or four as single lots with very low estimates. Consequently, the Christie’s sale produced many sleepers; this time, people took notice.

The top bank lot from the collection was an orange and green glazed figural Santa Claus with toy sack. Probably from Pennsylvania, the nearly 10" high standing figure had coin slots on the back of Santa and his sack. Against heated phone bidder competition, it cost Robesonia, Pennsylvania, dealer Greg Kramer $33,000. A longtime dealer and authority on Pennsylvania redware, Kramer considered the bank "a must have." At the 1991 Christie’s sale this harbinger of Christmas cheer sold in a lot with three other Santas, a reindeer, and a snowman for $3300.

The first lot was the top overall seller in the sale. A glazed, molded whippet stamped three times "JOHN W. BELL/ Waynesboro, Pa" sold to private collectors from Virginia for $41,800, underbid by Greg Kramer seated in the back of the salesroom. It had chips to the base and wear on its nose.

The consignor purchased the whippet for $3 at a yard sale three years ago in Missouri. Not knowing what it was and seeking to identify the name on the stamp, she conducted an Internet search for "John W. Bell." The first hit was the Crocker Farm Web site. She e-mailed the Zipps for advice. Upon deciding that she would be best served by consigning the item to a specialty auction, the woman sent the dog to the Zipps.

"The consignor decided to have family and friends come over during the sale to watch the action live through eBay," remarked Tony Zipp. "I can only imagine what her reaction was after it sold."

The two-fold moral of the story is, that discoveries can still be made, and that the Internet is an ever-powerful networking tool.

According to scholar and author H.E. Comstock, the whippet was first produced at the John Bell pottery in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. The form was apparently molded from a chalkware prototype. John William Bell was John B. Bell’s oldest son. This particular example, circa 1880, is the first whippet that has surfaced bearing the John W. Bell stamp and the first Pennsylvania example of the form to be found glazed. One other glazed example is known but is unmarked and was likely made in Virginia. All other known examples of the form are painted.

The majority of surviving whippets are from the Bell family pottery in Winchester, Virginia. The earliest dated example is 1841, made by Samuel Bell in Winchester. One with the typical black matte finish, inscribed under its base "Solomon Bell/ Winchester," sold at Sotheby’s Dr. and Mrs. Henry Deyerle sale in 1995 for $13,800.

A copy of Dr. Comstock’s often-referenced book The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region (Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, 1994) sold at the auction for $357.50. He is currently working on two more books, Slipware of the Shenandoah Valley Region and Stoneware of the Shenandoah Valley Region.

Tailgating has become a fixture on the morning of a Crocker Farm auction. Two dozen or so dealers set up for free on tables in the pole barn next to the auction building. The morning was a time when many in the nationwide fraternity of pottery collectors connected with one another, buying and selling and showing new acquisitions. By 10 a.m., however, all attention was inside as the sale began. The building itself provided an ideal auction site, with display cases behind the podium, plenty of chairs up front, and phones in the back. The food concession was set up on the attached side and did not disappoint, serving tasty homemade pies, barbecue, and snacks.