FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

I have a piece of pottery I want to sell, but it's probably only worth a few hundred dollars. Do you only sell high-value items or will you sell my piece for me?

We sell pottery in almost all price ranges! Some people look at our highlights pages and assume that we only handle exceptional, ultra-rare examples, but that is not the case. Please feel free to contact us with your antique American stoneware or redware and if we feel it would be a good fit for our auction catalog, we will be happy to discuss its value with you. (Click here for more info on having us sell your pottery for you.)

How do I send you photos of my piece(s) for evaluation?

The easiest way for you to send photos to us is to email them to info@crockerfarm.com. If easier, you can also text photos to 410-343-9691. (This is a text number that forwards photos to our email address; for phone calls, please use our regular 410-472-2016 number.) If you'd rather send us photos the old-fashioned way, you can simply mail them to Crocker Farm, 15900 York Rd, Sparks, MD 21152.

What is your commission?

We charge the seller rates as low as 12.5% of the selling price.

How long does it take for me to receive payment after the auction, and how am I paid?

We mail you a check within 30 days of the auction.

How do I get my items to you?

There are basically three ways for us to receive your pieces:

Because we deal with consignors from all over the country, most of the pieces we sell are shipped to us. See "How should I ship my pottery?" below.

In the case of large collections or extremely valuable pieces, when feasible we can often pick up your pieces, and we travel extensively.

If you live nearby or otherwise would like to deliver your pieces, we are very accessible at our auction gallery, 15900 York Road, Sparks, Maryland 21152. Please simply contact us at least a day ahead of time if you'd like to meet with us there, as we are open by appointment only.

How should I ship my pottery?

We have been packing and shipping stoneware and redware for thirty years, so we are well-versed in this area. While these methods can vary somewhat depending on what you are shipping, following these steps is a good rule of thumb for safe transit of anything you may wish to send.

The main step you can take in making sure your pottery arrives safely is double-boxing with styrofoam peanuts and/or bubble wrap. In other words, you should pack your item in one box in which it fits comfortably, and ideally you should wrap that item in bubble wrap then fill the box with peanuts. You should then take that first box and put it inside another box in which it fits comfortably. You should fill the space between those two boxes with peanuts.

Realistically, you do have some leeway in packing materials. For instance, depending on the size of a piece, peanuts alone can probably do the job. However, the method above is the ideal packing method. If you have questions at all about this, please feel free to contact us.

Many of our customers do not pack their own items, but simply have the UPS Store or another full-service shipper do it for them.

As far as the actual shipping process goes, we have been recommending UPS for years and feel that they do a great job handling our packages. However, we also use the U.S. Postal Service frequently, and have been happy with FedEx. Basically, if you pack your item well, short of some strange catastrophe, it will arrive safely without any problems. We have shipped and received thousands of pieces over the last five years alone and have had very few problems with shipping damage, and almost every single one was the result of poor packing.

UPS Ground, USPS Priority Mail, and FedEx Ground are the specific services we generally recommend using.

Our shipping address is:

Crocker Farm, Inc.
15900 York Road
Sparks, MD 21152

What kind of paperwork is involved in consigning to you?

The only paperwork you have to deal with is our simple consignment agreement, which we generally mail you after we receive your item(s). (We are also more than happy to email you a PDF ahead of time that you can include in your box if you prefer.) In our consignment contract, you agree to just a few simple points: That you own the items, that you want us to sell them for you, that you agree to pay our low rate, and that we pay you within 30 days of the auction in which they are sold.

We always keep you posted on our home page about our next auction date. We hold three auctions a year, in the Spring, Summer and Fall.

How do I bid?

Please click here for a complete rundown of how to bid.

Can anyone bid?

Yes! We welcome all to participate. Again, please visit our How to Bid page to familiarize yourself with our process, but all it takes to sign up is a quick filling out of our registration page. (To answer another question that sometimes arises, you do not need to pre-register for each auction. If you've ever created an account on our site, you are all set, and can log in and start bidding.)

When do you post your online catalog?

Leading up to any given auction, we add photos of selected "Featured Lots" to showcase what we feel are exceptional pieces. However, those lots are just a fraction of the hundreds of pieces we sell in each of our auctions. Our sales typically run for ten-day periods on our website, with the online catalog being posted the day before the bidding starts. Prominent links to our online catalog are always posted on our home page and on other key pages throughout the website.

When will the print catalog be ready?

Our printed catalog--a roughly 150-page soft-bound book--is one of the very best references on American stoneware and redware you can buy. This is typically mailed the week prior to the start of bidding, as soon as it returns from the printer.

How do I buy a copy of your catalog?

You can order our catalog a few different ways:

Visit our online store and order with your credit card.

Give us a call at (410) 472-2016, and you can pay by credit card, as well.

Mail a check (made payable to "Crocker Farm") to: Crocker Farm, 15900 York Road, Sparks, MD 21152. We charge $30 per catalog and $8.95 for flat-rate Priority Mail shipping.

Our shipping rate for catalogs is flat, so the total for two catalogs is $68.95.

Can I look at the pieces in person?

Yes! We hold an auction preview during the ten-day bidding period, and you can view and handle every lot in the sale at that time. This is open by appointment only, so please contact us to set up a time!

How do you notify me if I'm a successful bidder?

At the completion of online bidding (typically a Friday evening), each bidder receives a detailed end-of-auction report via email, listing all of the items they've won, and any $5000+ lots for which they will be called on Saturday. (To familiarize yourself with the full bidding process, including the Saturday phone bidding session, visit our How to Bid page.)

The Sunday after each auction we compile invoices and your invoice is emailed to you first thing Monday morning. This will include a breakdown of the items you won, their hammer prices, your buyer's premium (see "What is your buyer's premium ... ?" below), and your shipping / insurance fee (see "How do I receive the items I won?" below).

How do I receive the items I won?

If you live nearby or would just rather pick your items up, you can feel free to visit our gallery in Sparks, MD and take possession of your lots. (We are open by appointment only, so please contact us before you make the trip.) However, the vast majority of our bidders have their items shipped to them.

We are experts in packing and shipping utilitarian American pottery and have shipped thousands of pieces over the last forty years. Unlike many auction houses that require you to deal with a third-party shipper, we do all of our own packing in-house, and send your pieces on their way to your doorstep.

We ship via UPS Ground.

On occasion we have people ask before the auction what a particular piece will cost to ship from Maryland to a particular zip code. We are happy to provide a rough estimate for this purpose, but there are a few different factors that determine what we will charge to ship an item--for instance, how many pieces you won (we can often combine a couple of smaller pieces into one box), and what the item ends up selling for (the insurance value is a big part of determining the cost of transporting an item). In general, just to give you a rough idea of what this usually costs, a not-overly-sized vessel (say, two gallons or under) shipped to a not-too-distant location (say, the northeastern U.S.) with a not-very-high hammer price (say, $300) will probably cost you around $35 to pack and ship.

What is your buyer's premium (and what is a buyer's premium)?

A buyer's premium is an almost-universal fee charged at auction houses, paid by the buyer as a percentage of the hammer price. Our buyer's premium for check and cash payments received with 15 days of your invoice is 20%. For example, let's say you win a lot that is hammered down for $1000 and you pay right away by check. Your buyer's premium is $200 (20% of $1000) and you would write us a check for $1200.

There are some other possible fees that can be added onto the hammer price of the lots you win, depending on how you bid or how you pay, as follows:

If you pay by credit card or PayPal, there is a 3.5% surcharge on your total bill (hammer price plus buyer's premium). (In the above example, the amount you would owe if paying by credit card would be $1242.)

Payment is due upon receipt of your invoice, and payments that are not received within 15 days of your invoice are subject to a 5% surcharge on the hammer price.

(See also the following question and answer regarding sales tax.)

Do I have to pay sales tax?

We are required to collect sales tax for only two states: Maryland and Pennsylvania. The rate for each is 6%. Whether or not you must pay sales tax depends on your circumstances:

If you do not live in either Maryland or Pennsylvania and have your item(s) shipped to you, you pay no sales tax.

If you are an antiques dealer or otherwise have a valid retail sales tax number, you do not have to pay sales tax unless your total payment is less than $200. (The State of Maryland will not allow a tax exemption unless you are paying $200 or more.) You can use a sales tax number from any of the 50 states; Maryland will, in the case of "antiques and used collectibles," accept sales tax numbers from other states, but you must provide us with a copy of your certificate.

If you are not a dealer or otherwise do not have a valid retail sales tax number, you are required to pay sales tax if you either: 1. Have your items shipped to Maryland or Pennsylvania or 2. Pick up your items at our gallery. (In the latter case, regardless of where you live, you are coming to Maryland and engaging in a purchase, so we must collect 6% Maryland sales tax, the same as any other retail establishment.)