BIO

Crocker Farm, Inc. is a family business, owned and operated by Anthony and Barbara Zipp and their three sons, Brandt, Luke, and Mark. Anthony and Barbara began collecting and studying American stoneware in 1977, and began selling it in 1983. They have handled thousands and thousands of pieces of antique American stoneware and redware since that time.

Brandt, Luke, and Mark Zipp all have B.A. degrees from Johns Hopkins University, where they each graduated with multiple honors and were inducted into the nation's premiere scholastic honors society, Phi Beta Kappa. All three brothers grew up handling numerous pieces of American stoneware and redware from a very young age, and in this way their knowledge in the field has been said to be unmatched.

We have spent thousands of hours conducting original research on American stoneware and redware potters in period sources, such as census records, city directories and newspapers, and have regularly done so over the course of the last 25 years. As one of the primary outlets for original research in utilitarian ceramics, Crocker Farm's contributions to the field are now too numerous to list. Many attributions and concepts that have become boilerplate in our industry started right here at Crocker Farm and were first published either in our own auction catalogs or in lectures or articles. A few important research highlights that come to mind include:

• Brandt's rediscovery and reconstruction of the life of Thomas W. Commeraw, culminating in his groundbreaking and influential 2022 book, Commeraw's Stoneware: The Life and Work of the First African-American Pottery Owner.

• Luke's near-exhaustive research on the Baltimore stoneware potters, leading to the rediscovery of entire bodies of work that were lost to history. Attributions to key potters like David Parr, Henry Remmey and Maulden Perine are now routinely made solely based on Luke's work.

• The rediscovery and identification of now-famous masterworks including the Anna Pottery Liberty Monument, Broadway Water Cooler, George Duncan Ring Flask, and this iconic Coerlears Hook jar.

• Mark's incisive work on the highly prolific Bell family of the Shenandoah Valley.

• The first extensive published research on Washington, D.C. stoneware, which appeared in Brandt's 2010 article in Antiques & Fine Art.

• Luke's sweeping research on the all-important Remmey family of Baltimore, Philadelphia and Manhattan, some of which made its way into his landmark article in Ceramics in America 2004, as well as our 2013 lecture, Inferior to None: The Remmeys, First Family of American Stoneware.

• Brandt's ongoing Commeraw Project, which is now perhaps the most prominent iniative to identify and research forgotten American potters of African descent.

These are just a few of the important contributions we have made to the field of American utilitarian ceramics.

Our auctions have seen some of the highest prices ever paid for American stoneware and redware. In addition to numerous outstanding highlights, the David Drake jar in our Summer 2021 auction sold for $1.56 Million: the World Auction Record for American pottery! That auction was also the highest-grossing stoneware auction of all time, taking in over $3.1 Million. Click here to browse our many world auction records.

You might have noticed that we offer a wide variety of American stoneware and redware, ranging from New England and New York, to Virginia and the Southern U.S. states, to the potteries of America's Midwest. This always results in an exciting auction environment for all involved with high participation from all areas of American stoneware and redware collecting. Our high-quality, full-color auction catalogs, praised as the best the field has to offer, are essentially high-quality research texts and help to educate the collecting base on American utilitarian ceramics in general.

In August 2010, we acquired the historically and architecturally important Gorsuch Barn (1841) in Sparks, Maryland, giving American stoneware and redware a first-class, state-of-the-art auction home.

Always looking to further scholarship in this critical American handicraft, some of our notable publications and lectures include:

• At the Sign of the Big Jug: Faith, Freedom and Face Jug Making, Just North of the Mason-Dixon Line [Lecture on John Wesley, rediscovered African-American face jug maker of Columbia, Pennsylvania], by Brandt Zipp, Making Connections: A Southern Ceramics Forum, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (in collaboration w/ Colonial Williamsburg), Winston-Salem, NC, March 15, 2025.

• 20 Years of Crocker Farm Auctions! by Brandt Zipp, Crocker Farm, Sparks, MD, July 17, 2024. (Free video link.)

• Thomas W. Commeraw: Forgotten Free Black Potter of Federal New York, by Brandt Zipp, IHCC, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX, April 22, 2024.

• Thomas W. Commeraw: Free Black Abolitionist Potter of Federal New York, by Brandt Zipp, From the Ground Up: Ceramics in Context, Colonial Williamsburg (in collaboration w/ MESDA), Williamsburg, VA, March 23, 2024.

• Thomas W. Commeraw: Rediscovered African-American Potter of Federal New York, by Brandt Zipp, Online Lecture presented by Studio Potter and African American Archive of Columbia County, NY, October 29, 2023. (Free video link.)

• The Life & Legacy of Thomas W. Commeraw with Brandt Zipp, Online Lecture presented by Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, July 5, 2023. (Free video link.)

• Margaret Parr: Reclaiming a Baltimore Pottery Owner's Overlooked Legacy, by Luke Zipp, Fire + Clay Ceramics Forum, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (in collaboration w/ Colonial Williamsburg), Winston-Salem, NC, March 18, 2023.

• Commeraw's Stoneware: The Life and Work of the First African-American Pottery Owner, by A. Brandt Zipp, published September 12, 2022.

• Thomas W. Commeraw: Free African-American Stoneware Potter of Federal New York, by Brandt Zipp, American Ceramic Circle Symposium, Old Salem / Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, NC, November 8, 2019.

• Imitation and Innovation: Understanding Savannah River Valley Pottery within the Context of Other Antebellum Southern Stoneware Styles, by Luke Zipp, Henry D. Green Symposium of the Decorative Arts (Georgia Museum of Art), Classic Center, Athens, GA, February 3, 2018.

• A Century of Stoneware on the Island of Manhattan, by Brandt Zipp, New York State Museum, Albany, NY, May 5, 2017.

• Remmeys, Morgans, and Parrs: Differentiating the Style and Influence of Baltimore Stoneware's Founding Families, by Luke Zipp, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, NC, October 2016.

• "Stone Ware, at South River Bridge": The Stoneware Potters of Old Bridge, New Jersey, and Related Wares, by Brandt Zipp, "Dish Camp" / Ceramics Symposium at Historic Eastfield Village, East Nassau, NY, June 25, 2016.

• An African-American Potter in Federal New York, by Brandt Zipp, "Dish Camp" / Ceramics Symposium at Historic Eastfield Village, East Nassau, NY, June 23, 2013.

• Excellent Ware: The Harrisburg Stoneware Potters and Their Contemporaries, by Luke and Brandt Zipp, Historical Society of Dauphin County, Harrisburg, PA, April 14, 2013.

• Inferior to None: The Remmeys, First Family of American Stoneware, by Brandt, Mark and Luke Zipp, Crocker Farm / Gorsuch Barn, Sparks, MD, March 1, 2013.

• Manhattan Stoneware: 1795-1820, by Brandt and Mark Zipp, Gunn Historical Museum, Washington, CT, October 13, 2012.

• Baltimore Stoneware: Its History and Uses, by Luke Zipp, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD, 2011.

• "Washington, D.C. Stoneware" by Brandt Zipp, Available in Antiques and Fine Art Magazine, Autumn/Winter 2010.

• "Baltimore Stoneware" by Luke Zipp, Available in Antiques and Fine Art Magazine, Summer 2006.

• "James Miller: Lost Potter of Alexandria, Virginia" by Brandt Zipp and Mark Zipp, Available in Ceramics in America 2004.

• "Henry Remmey & Son, Late of New York: A Rediscovery of a Master Potter's Lost Years" by Luke Zipp, Available in Ceramics in America 2004.