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by Rosemary Lee Potter
Special to Tropical Breeze
On any given Saturday it’s likely
folks are out garage sailing — well, sometimes it’s
just called going to a yard or estate sale. These sales are about
the same usually, an array of household goods and toys, decorative
items, pots and pans. Now and then, however, collecting fans run
across sales which mainly appeal to guys. Sometimes they even see
an ad for “guy stuff!” At these sales, lots of men turn
up — after all, how often these days can anyone come by tools
or hunting goods at a really good price?
The first guy-oriented sale: Fascinating!
Under a tent set up in front of the open garage were several tables
bearing a mix of tools. Nearby lay a shallow draft fishing boat
along with an adjacent pair of outboard motors. A beautiful, tall
steel-great blue heron sculpture stood by as sentinel ($2,000
— by the seller, Jim Green.) A multi-media artist of
Clearwater, Green owns Custom Sandblasted Signs (727-543-7298) or
emailto:
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As I walked up, Green was talking with a
buyer/dealer about some of his carved wooden duck decoys, a box of
‘em, just sold to become décor for sale at the
man’s RS Greenbaum Antiques down on Clearwater-Largo
Road.
On one table there was another decoy, a
big, somewhat unfinished, duck — with a beautiful pine head
and balsa wood body. ($225, as is). Behind the decoy sat an antique
Blue Rook Trap — a device for shooting clay targets —
for target practice. Still more hunting items! There was an old
record-player with a speaker and several recordings sure to attract
birds.
Seemed like a collecting adventure was
coming in for a landing.
I asked Green how he got involved with all
this hunting gear. The answer was simple and heartwarming. Green
told me that he and his father had carved all these sturdy wooden
decoys. That big one, the large duck, was the last one on which his
dad had worked. He went on to say that he and his father went bird
shooting when he was but a child. They boated for years on rivers
in his native New Jersey using 12 gauge shotguns, although, when
younger, he used a Daisy pop gun. He said everybody, that is, all
the men and boys, hunted that way back then. He went on that today,
there are far too many restrictions on hunting due to the steady
development and building which has encroached on the original
hunting areas.
At 17, though, Green suddenly stopped
hunting birds, taking up camera shooting instead. He’d
happened to wing a bird, then with great difficulty spent the whole
day locating the wounded creature to put it out of its misery.
Happier memories accompany the special
decoy collection not for sale at Green’s home/shop. He showed
off a pair of ducks he and his father had made and used. When it
came to talking about the clay shooting device (c. 1961/today
$400), Green said that he and his dad would take the machine and
clay targets out into a field and practice shooting. As to the
record player, farmers would get Green and his Dad to go out in
their cornfields around Freehold, NJ, play a crow-cawing record
over a speaker and then shoot incoming pesty, crop-destroying
crows.
So why Florida, Jim? More hunting here? I
asked. Not really, he replied. Green came to realize that most of
the outdoor experiences he’d shared with his dad involved
being outside in very cold weather. He hated it.
Off to a second sale featuring guy stuff:
This time there were electronic music items, some grills, heaters
and many small hand tools. The story behind this sale also involved
memories, this time of the seller’s late husband. The
widow’s sister was helping with the sale, enjoying
supervising the potential buyers out in the garage. She said that
after her brother-in-law retired from the Air Force, he’d
enjoyed acquiring various tools of interest, and electronic
equipment, not for any major reason, just as a sort of hobby. I
didn’t see any decoys in the lots, but there were some
fishing rods.
One thing I noted at both these sales, the
customers who came were mostly men and very often had a small son
with them, right at their side, talking and looking at the goods.
The widow’s sister gave one of these small fellows a
baseball, enjoying watching the two “men” browsing
together. At the earlier antique decoy “depot” several
men and boys also shared a companionable look-see.
Later in the day as I drove home I spotted
a small boat at the water’s edge in which there were a man
and a small boy, both standing, both holding a rod. Not likely the
youngster will forget a day like this doing something with his dad
like learning to fish.
So maybe creating practical collectibles
such as the carved decoys, developing a lifetime collection, doing
things together like fishing and practicing shooting, maybe
learning about tools while browsing at garage sales is a terrific
guy thing which builds a life-long relationship. I believe Jim
Green would agree.
There were 27 decoys at auction on Ebay,
at that moment I looked, the highest bid with three days and
fifty-four minutes to go, a bid of $499, this for a Vintage Schmidt
Sleeper Carved Wooden Duck Decoy. Its head is carved in the
sleeping, tucked back position. Many decoys were described as
“early” or “primitive.”
When I tried to find more information on
Schmidt as a decoy maker or on “sleepers,” as a
positional style, I discovered that for the past 40 years The
Midwest Decoy Collectors Association (MDECA) has offered a Sporting
Collectibles Show, complete with auctions, collectors’
seminars, classic decoy exhibits and 400 exhibitors’ tables.
As wooden decoys evolved into lighter plastic or paper maché
decoys, hunters started using wood ones in their homes as
memorabilia.
As with most collectible genres, there is
always much more to learn. It’s certainly so about this
traditional hunting item. A pamphlet entitled Decoy Collectors
Guide is available with information about decoys and about the
people who made them. Practical, historic duck decoys apparently
set many guys off on life-long collecting adventures!
© 2007 Rosemary Lee Potter. All
Rights Reserved.
Rosemary Lee Potter is a confirmed victim
of the collecting bug and can be reached by e-mail at
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or write to her in care of Tropical Breeze,
P.O. Box 585, Safety Harbor, FL 34695.
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