April 12, 2025. 10:24am. THANK YOU to our bidders and consignors for making our Spring auction such a successful sale. Among other world auction records, Lot 1 realized $144,000, a NEW WORLD RECORD for an Anna Pottery Snake Jug (includes 20% buyer's premium). We will be compiling invoices over the course of the weekend and successful bidders will be hearing from us first thing Monday morning. Thank you again for your support of our auctions--we are always so appreciative of all of you and look forward to what other ceramic discoveries this year will hold. All our best, The Zipps
April 11, 2025. 10:49am. Important Final Notes:
We've reached the final day of internet bidding for our current Auction of American Stoneware & Redware! Thanks so much for all of your bids and for your strong interest in this sale.
Since bidding through the website will close at 9pm eastern time, here are a few last-minute reminders / things to expect:
Lots that do not reach a bid level of $10,000 by tonight's auction close sell at that time. Any lots receiving new competing bids after 8:50pm are extended 10 minutes beyond their final bid. For example, if someone bids on a lot at 8:55 tonight, that lot will close at 9:05, barring any other bids. (To answer a potential question, if you are already the high bidder during this period and decide to increase your maximum bid, this will NOT extend the auction time.)
Lots that have reached a threshold of $10,000 go on to final bidding in Saturday's phone bidding session, which will proceed as closely to a live auction as possible, and is open only to the top four bidders on each of these $10,000+ lots. Please make sure you have your current Phone Number(s) on file with us if you plan on participating in Saturday's phone bidding session. You can update your contact info by visiting: www.crockerfarm.com/members/account/ .
At the end of the online auction we will be posting hour-long time windows for phone bidding to the website: www.crockerfarm.com/schedule/
Whether you win lots tonight or are going to be bidding with us tomorrow, the website's catalog pages will update you accordingly. You will be notified that you've won any given lot in the following ways: On each lot page, right now you are currently updated if (a) You are the current high bidder (b) You have been outbid (c) You are a top four bidder. At the auction close, these same pages will also tell you if you've won the lot. Meanwhile, your My Bids page (available from any of the lot pages) will also keep a running score of what you have and haven't won. Finally, at the end of tonight's bidding we will be generating End of Auction Reports that will come to your email inbox, telling you everything you've won and everything for which you will be called during tomorrow's phone session. (Proper final invoices will also be emailed to you once they have been collated; these will be sent first thing Monday morning.)
Finally, you can follow Saturday's phone bidding online and see the final hammer price of each lot as soon as it sells at the following link; this page will remain blank until we have collated all of the phone session lots following tonight's internet bidding: www.crockerfarm.com/phone-session/
If you have any questions, please just let us know, and we look forward to speaking with many of you tomorrow. Thank you again!
All Our Best, Anthony, Barbara, Brandt, Luke & Mark Zipp
April 2, 2025. 9:00am. Bidding Is Now Open: Our April 2 - 11 auction catalog is open for bidding! Full online catalog. How to Bid.
March 31, 2025. 9:03am. Online Catalog Posted for Preview: You can browse all 390 lots in our Spring 2025 catalog here. Bidding starts Wednesday, April 2, at 10am; for those new to us, please familiarize yourself with the bidding process here. Thanks so much for your interest in our auctions! All our best, The Zipps
March 5, 2025. 11:28am. FIRST PHOTOS: Added our first photographs of stoneware to be sold in our upcoming April 2nd - 11th auction! Click here to view them. This will be another exceptional offering; thanks so much to our consignors! The catalog is going to the printer soon, so if you have a last-minute quality consignment, please give us a call today at 410-472-2016. All our best, The Zipps
February 1, 2025. 12:47pm. THANK YOU to all of our bidders for making our Winter 2025 Auction of the Carole Wahler Collection such a dramatic success. Among other very strong prices throughout, Lot 5 realized a New World Auction Record for Tennessee Pottery at $90,000. (Full results are available here.) We would especially like to thank Carole's family for entrusting us with her titanic collection. We will be compiling invoices over the course of the weekend and winning bidders will receive their invoices at 9am on Monday. Our Very Best, The Zipps
January 28, 2025. 3:16pm. Thank you for your interest in our current auction of the Carole Wahler Collection, 302 lots of American ceramics presented without reserve. As we enter the final days of bidding, here are a few reminders / quick notes:
--First, to answer a common question we receive from new bidders, we do handle our own professional packing and shipping (via UPS) in-house, keeping the process as simple as possible. Final invoices automatically include your shipping / insurance cost, but you can of course still pick your items up, as many bidders do. (A few lots in the catalog have a note beneath their description indicating that they are too large for us to handle ourselves; these can be picked up, shipped by a third party fine art handler or via some other method of your choice.)
-- Bidders have until 9pm eastern on Friday, January 31, to participate in this auction. There will be a "soft" close on Friday evening, meaning that ten minutes are added to any given lot's countdown clock if it receives a bid at 8:50pm or later. A phone bidding session will begin at 10am on Saturday, February 1 (starting with Lot #1) for the top four bidders on items that have reached a bid level of $10,000 or more by Friday night's online auction close. All other lots sell on Friday night.
-- Just like our other recent auctions, beginning Friday morning at 10am, the website will begin notifying bidders if they are, in fact, in the top four for each lot. Remember that you must be one of the top four bidders to participate in Saturday's final phone bidding session on $10,000+ lots, and that your final bid must also be within 50% of the current high bid. (In other words, if a lot reaches a final bid on Friday night of $10,000, to qualify for Saturday's phone bidding, you must be one of the top four bidders, and have bid at least $5,000.)
-- We will be sending out a more detailed email about phone bidding and other end-of-auction notes as the week progresses. For those new to us, at the completion of bidding on Friday night, each bidder receives a detailed end-of-auction report via email, listing all of the items they've won, and any $10,000+ lots for which they will be called on Saturday.
All Our Best, Anthony, Barbara, Brandt, Luke & Mark Zipp
January 22, 2025. 3:21pm. Bidding has opened for our current auction of the Carole Wahler Collection. For those new to us, please familiarize yourself with the bidding process. Happy bidding! Our Best, The Zipps
January 13, 2025. 10:11am. Online Catalog Posted! The full online catalog for our upcoming auction of the Carole Carpenter Wahler Collection has been posted for preview as of 10am this morning. (Available here.)
Bidding starts on Wednesday, January 22, at 10am eastern, with online bidding closing at 9pm on Friday, January 31. Lots that reach a bid level of $10,000 by the online auction close are sold as part of the final phone bidding session on Saturday, February 1, at 10am; all other lots sell on the evening of January 31. (Please note that this is the same auction format we have been using since the beginning of 2020, except that the cutoff for phone bidding has now been raised to $10,000.)
Finally, we feel that the accompanying print catalog for this auction is the finest we have ever produced, and are excited to share it with you. We do still have copies available, and the cost is the same as our ordinary triannual auction catalogs, $30 plus $8.95 for Priority Mail. You can order a copy here: www.crockerfarm.com/store/
All our best, The Zipps
January 9, 2025. 10:32am. Catalogs are now shipping and the online catalog will be posted on Monday, January 13, at 10am eastern. We are very excited to be presenting Dr. Wahler's collection to you and hope that you enjoy seeing the fruit of her labors, decades spent assembling and researching one of the great American ceramics collections. For those new to us, please check out our How to Bid page to familiarize yourself with the bidding process, and we'll have more communications as we approach the start of bidding. All our best, The Zipps
January 1, 2025. 11:58am. Happy New Year! Our best wishes to all of you for a fantastic 2025.
December 18, 2024. 1:56pm.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! Pictured: Newly surfaced American face vessel from the Carole Wahler Collection (auction coming January 2025). Beaver, Pennsylvania, circa 1850, vessel fragment, face intact.
(We are closed for the holidays and will re-open on January 2. HAPPY NEW YEAR, see you in 2025!)
