Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

03/09/2010. 11:59:47 AM. For those interested in selling your pottery in our April 10 auction, just a reminder that the consignment deadline is tomorrow, March 10. Please contact us as soon as possible to discuss your pottery with us. We will be happy, as always, to give you an idea of what we think your stoneware or redware would bring in this very exciting sale; email us or give us a call at (410) 337-5090. Our consignment rate is only 11% of the hammer price (10% plus 1% for insurance); click here if you'd like to read more about selling your pottery through us.

03/08/2010. 05:05:15 PM. Added more photos of April 10 stoneware to featured page 9.

03/04/2010. 03:03:47 PM. Added more April 10 featured photos to pages 7 and 8.

03/03/2010. 02:10:40 PM. Added two exciting pieces of pottery to April 10 auction featured lots page 7. Our deadline to include your pieces of stoneware or redware in the color catalog for this exciting sale is one week from today. Please contact us if you are interested in including your pottery, or if you would like us to give you an idea of what your pieces would bring at our auction.

02/23/2010. 04:24:55 PM. More April 10 auction pics added to pages 5-7.

02/11/2010. 02:43:53 PM. Added more April 10 auction photos to pages 3 & 4.

02/05/2010. 02:25:44 PM. Our first photos of featured April 10 auction lots have been posted this afternoon. We hope you enjoy them! We are receiving exciting consignments on a regular basis; if you would like to include your pottery in this sale or would like to have us give you a free pre-auction estimate, please feel free to contact us.

01/31/2010. 11:59:36 AM. Thank you to everyone for making our Kelly Young estate auction such a success!! Prices realized have been posted here and winning absentee, phone, and internet bidders will be contacted this week. Keep an eye out for photos of featured lots from our upcoming April 10 auction, which are coming soon.

01/27/2010. 02:25:00 PM. Just a quick reminder that our auction of the collection of late Wm. Kelly Young will begin at 10am Eastern Time this Saturday, January 30. An auction preview will take place on Friday, January 29, from 1-4pm, and Saturday, before the auction, from 8-10am. You can view and handle every lot in the sale during the preview and we will, of course, be on hand to answer any questions you might have. Also, please feel free to bring any pottery (or photos) you would like us to evaluate. We are always happy to discuss your stoneware and redware with you!

For those unable to attend, your absentee, phone, and internet bids are all very welcome. Click here for info on all of our many bidding methods. Please try to have any absentee or phone bids in as soon as possible. We can continue to accept them until 8:30am on the morning of the auction, but getting them in hand sooner makes our preparations for auction day a little bit easier.

Our Ceramics Show & Sale, where dealers and collectors offer their stoneware and redware for sale in the south half of our building, is held concurrently with our previews and auction.

All events take place at the York, Pennsylvania, Expo Center (also called the York Faigrounds), in the Old Main Building. Click here for directions.

Finally, the Original York Antiques show will also be held at the York Expo Center in Memorial Hall East (just south of our building) on Friday from 10am-6pm, Saturday from 10am-6pm, and Sunday from 11am-5pm.

01/21/2010. 03:12:25 PM. Some important LIVE INTERNET BIDDING news: We are working with Artfact to bring you an easy-to-use, more streamlined live bidding experience through crockerfarm.com!

As many of you know, we have been using Artfact--the world's premier live auction bidding platform--to provide our LIVE internet bidding for almost five years now. For those unfamiliar with live internet bidding, there are many different ways to bid at our auctions. The most familiar way to seasoned auction goers is to simply show up at the York, PA Expo Center on the day of the auction, register at the front of the room, and then bid. But for those who can't attend, we offer several absentee bidding methods, and you can read all about them by clicking here. One of these is live internet bidding, where you can watch our auctions progress in essentially real-time--you can see what lot is selling and what price the bid is at. You can bid by clicking the BID button and if you win, we send you an invoice, you pay us, and we ship the item to your door.

All of this being said, in the past, in order to bid live during the sale you had to leave our site and deal directly with Artfact.com. This is great if you are already familiar with Artfact or if you otherwise make Artfact a regular part of your online travels. For those that are familiar with Artfact and enjoy using it, we definitely encourage you to continue doing things the way you always have. By the way, OUR ARTFACT CATALOG is now online, and you can visit it by clicking here.

However, Artfact has recently rolled out a new and exciting service that we are implementing in time for our January 30 auction. By simply visiting www.crockerfarm.com/live-internet-bidding/, you can set up live online bidding without having to travel to Artfact.com.

For those interested in the availing themselves of this new online bidding opportunity, here are a few things to keep in mind:

When you first travel to the page, you will see a prominent "REGISTER" button on the right-hand side. Click that and you will be able to register to bid. Those that have used Artfact in the past know how this works, but one thing you need to know is that there are two components to bidding in any given sale.

First, you have to sign up for a "Bidder Name" in order to bid live through our website. (This is a username that is a totally different thing than any previous Artfact username you have, or crockerfarm.com username you have--if you've ever signed up to leave absentee bids directly through our website.) When you click "REGISTER," you will see a line that reads "Don't have a Bidder Name yet? Sign up here." Click "Sign up here" and you can fill out the quick form to create a Bidder Name.

Second, you have to actually register for any given auction, just as you would if you were to attend one of our auctions in person. After you create a Bidder Name for the first time, you can simply proceed through the registration process. Once you do that, and you are approved, you will see that the old "REGISTER" button has been replaced by the word "APPROVED." Simply return shortly before 10am eastern time on January 30 and you can bid live over the internet.


A COUPLE OF FINAL NOTES:

The standard Artfact fee of 3% of the hammer price of all lots you are successful on is also charged for this service. (Please read all of our terms and conditions here.)

I think this new service will make the live internet bidding component of our auctions more straight-forward and easier to use. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. We'd also love to hear your opinions of this or any of our bidding methods. We try to make our auctions as accessible to bidders all over the country as possible, so we hope this is just another way of doing that.

01/20/2010. 06:58:03 PM. The online version of our Kelly Young catalog has been posted! We hope you enjoy viewing Mr. Young's remarkable collection. Click here for info on all of our many bidding methods. You can leave absentee bids directly through our website--you can still also do it the old-fashioned way, of course, but this is a fun and easy way to leave bids. A link to sign-up is posted on each lot page; those who signed up for a previous auction are already all set--just log in and bid.

01/18/2010. 09:17:22 AM. Our Kelly Young auction catalog started shipping last Friday. Order your copy today by visiting our online store, giving us a call at (410) 337-5090, or sending a check for $34.95 ($30 plus $4.95 Priority Mail shipping) to Crocker Farm, P.O. Box 725, Riderwood, MD 21139. (Catalogs are $30, and shipping is a flat rate of $4.95, no matter how many catalogs you order--so two catalogs cost $64.95.)

01/18/2010. 07:23:49 AM. Now Accepting Consignments for our April 10 auction!

01/11/2010. 01:20:01 PM. We added a couple of new blog posts last week. Check them out by clicking here. More Kelly Young collection-related blog posts on the way in the near future...

01/08/2010. 02:51:38 PM. Just passing along that Ceramics in America has dedicated its entire 2009 issue to the subject of the Moravian potters of North Carolina. The cover features a fantastic Moravian fox bottle, which you can see here. I believe it is still in the pre-order stage, but keep an eye out for the latest edition of CiA from your favorite bookseller. We will be selling two excellent examples of Moravian figural bottles in our January 30 Kelly Young auction, and this segment of the American ceramics field seems to be hotter than ever right now.