A PREENING Canada goose by Crowell, circa 1917, purchased by O’Brien for $684,500 at an auction in 2000. The 2000 auction ushered in a new era in decoy collecting.

“The market for decoys has never been stronger,” says Gary Guyette of Guyette and Schmidt, the nation’s top decoy auction firm. “Ten years ago I would have known everyone in the room at a decoy auction. Nowadays we have dozens of people bidding top dollar, and I have no idea who they are.” Although sportsmen still comprise the majority of collectors, recent auctions have broken new ground, broadening the field and livening up the market.  

In January 2000, Sotheby’s auctioned the collection of James M. McCleery of Texas, credited by many as the finest private collection of waterfowl decoys ever assembled. Much as Andy Warhol’s estate auction legitimized tchotchke collecting, the McCleery sale ushered in a new era of decoy collecting. It smashed nearly every decoy record to date, and, perhaps more importantly, welcomed a new species of decoy aficionado. The outstanding quality of McCleery’s decoys, further burnished by Sotheby’s public relations machine, lured long-time decoy hunters into bidding wars against newcomers whose only previous experience with birds was limited to dodging pigeons perched outside the auction house doors.

The McCleery auction brought in $11 million, shattering the presale estimates of $5 million to $6 million. A preening Canada goose by master carver Elmer Crowell (1864–1954), sold for $684,500, nearly doubling the previous auction record for a decoy. In fact, prior records were broken by four separate decoys in the landmark sale. The success of the McCleery sale set the stage for another highly successful and highly publicized event, the 2003 Christie’s auction of the Russell B. Aitken wildfowl decoy collection. Garnering a total of more than $2.8 million, the auction saw another decoy world record: $801,500 for a rare pintail drake decoy carved by Crowell. The same piece had previously sold at public auction in 1986 for a then-record $319,000.

Flight Patterns
These high-flying prices are becoming more common and, to stretch the metaphor, see no signs of heading south. O’Brien, a third-generation decoy enthusiast and collector, maintains that the New York auctions were just the beginning of a strong investment market. “The McCleery sale was the ideal sale at an ideal time—an unbelievable collection that came on the market in the middle of the tech boom and before the events of September 11,” he explains. “If you would have told me that even after the tech crash and the 9/11 attacks that we would have stronger prices for decoys today, I would have said you are crazy. But here we are.”

Indeed, the decoy market seems to be defying some conventions of the collectible world. Experts, albeit ones with significant interest in the continued growth of this arena, contend that several favorable factors are creating an atmosphere that is sympathetic to both buyers and sellers. According to Guyette, many highly coveted decoys will appear on the market in the next decade, as aging collectors liquidate their troves. “The typical decoy collector is in his 70s, and many of them are well into their 80s. I’m 54, and I’m one of the kids in this area,” he says. “This is coinciding with a flood of new buyers in the market, as well as an improvement in the financial situation of existing buyers. Consider these three factors happening together, and I think we will be in for an incredible ride for quite a while. I see no immediate reason for this market to top off.”