NEWS BRIEFS
February 11, 2026. 12:11pm. We would like to thank you for your support of our auction of Part Two of The Carole Carpenter Wahler Collection. This auction grossed an impressive total of $1,497,000 on 304 lots, including a 20% buyer's premium. Combined with Part One, held in January 2025, Wahler's landmark collection of 606 lots grossed over $2.8 million, over twice the collective high estimate of $1.25 million.
Full highlights are available here: www.crockerfarm.com/highlights/carole-wahler-collection/
The sale of Wahler's fifty-year assemblage of 19th and 20th century Southern stoneware and redware was both extremely gratifying to us as an auction house and validating to her legacy as an iconic collector and leading authority on Tennessee pottery.
We are currently lining up our slate of 2026 auctions and expect our Spring sale--to be held April 1st through 10th--to be an exceptional one. Offering the best in American stoneware & redware, we are grateful for the opportunity to regularly bring objects of this quality to market. Most of all, we feel our strength of properly interpreting these pieces and giving important objects (and the collectors who treasure them!) the voice they deserve is what sets us apart. If you are someone who plans on selling their collection in the not-too-distant future and care about how your legacy as a collector is forever established to the broader collecting world, we would love to speak with you.
We are currently accepting consignments for our Spring auction and beyond; please contact us today to discuss our market-leading presentation of your pottery and competitive commission rates. As the snow finally begins to thaw this week, we look forward to seeing you in warmer times at our Sparks, MD gallery for a year of exciting ceramics sales.
All Our Best,
Anthony, Barbara, Brandt, Luke & Mark Zipp
Full highlights are available here: www.crockerfarm.com/highlights/carole-wahler-collection/
The sale of Wahler's fifty-year assemblage of 19th and 20th century Southern stoneware and redware was both extremely gratifying to us as an auction house and validating to her legacy as an iconic collector and leading authority on Tennessee pottery.
We are currently lining up our slate of 2026 auctions and expect our Spring sale--to be held April 1st through 10th--to be an exceptional one. Offering the best in American stoneware & redware, we are grateful for the opportunity to regularly bring objects of this quality to market. Most of all, we feel our strength of properly interpreting these pieces and giving important objects (and the collectors who treasure them!) the voice they deserve is what sets us apart. If you are someone who plans on selling their collection in the not-too-distant future and care about how your legacy as a collector is forever established to the broader collecting world, we would love to speak with you.
We are currently accepting consignments for our Spring auction and beyond; please contact us today to discuss our market-leading presentation of your pottery and competitive commission rates. As the snow finally begins to thaw this week, we look forward to seeing you in warmer times at our Sparks, MD gallery for a year of exciting ceramics sales.
All Our Best,
Anthony, Barbara, Brandt, Luke & Mark Zipp
January 19, 2026. 10:40am. We've added an extensive Video Gallery Tour of our current Auction of the Lifetime Ceramics Collection of Carole Carpenter Wahler, Part Two. (Click here to view it.) Bidding starts Wednesday at 10am eastern!
December 15, 2025. 10:20am. We are extremely pleased to announce that Crocker Farm will be presenting Part 2 of the renowned lifetime American ceramics collection of Dr. Carole Carpenter Wahler (1937-2003) of Knoxville, Tennessee, from January 21 - 30, 2026.
Our first installment of Wahler's collection, sold last January, was the highest grossing single-owner stoneware and redware auction ever held. Part 2 promises to build off of last year's auction to further highlight the legacy of one woman's lifelong passion for American ceramics. As an ambitious collector, Wahler amassed a vast assemblage of seminal examples of American ceramics spanning the Southern states and beyond. In terms of depth, breadth, and quality, her collection has few rivals past or present. As a guest curator, she established herself as the recognized authority on Tennessee stoneware and redware while drawing deserved national attention to the state's rich ceramic tradition. As a dealer, she was a pioneer in the field of American primitive antiques, becoming an early specialist in stoneware. And as a scholar, Carole Wahler's painstaking research has forever shaped our understanding of regional stoneware and redware, fleshed out in books, articles, and her landmark collection. Offering 300 lots of 19th century stoneware and redware without reserve, this special auction will feature a number of famous Southern works with exhibition and publication histories.
A few selected preview photos are available here: www.crockerfarm.com/stoneware-auction/featured/
The full online catalog for this sale will be posted on January 12, and print catalog pre-orders are available here: www.crockerfarm.com/store/
(The print catalog from the first installment of Dr. Wahler's collection sold out despite extra stock on hand; if you plan on acquiring a copy, we recommend pre-ordering.)
Thanks so much for your interest in our auctions and we are all looking forward to January!
All our best, Anthony, Barbara, Brandt, Luke & Mark Zipp
November 14, 2025. 11:24pm. Thanks so much to everyone for their strong participation in this auction! Phone bidding for $10,000+ lots begins at 10am (click here for the schedule), and all winning bidders will receive their invoice (including any applicable shipping) around 9am on Monday morning. Thank you again! The Zipps
November 3, 2025. 1:00pm. Online Catalog Posted for Preview: You can browse all 470+ lots in our Fall 2025 catalog here. Bidding starts Wednesday, November 5, 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
October 16, 2025. 3:13pm. Added more photos of featured lots from our upcoming Fall auction, available at the following link: www.crockerfarm.com/stoneware-auction/featured/. Auction starts 11/5!
October 2, 2025. 10:36am. FIRST PHOTOS: Added our first preview photographs of stoneware to be sold in our upcoming November 5 - 14 auction! Click here to view them. This will be a truly exceptional auction! You still have till next week for your objects to make our print catalog. Please give us a call today at 410-472-2016 or contact us here via email if you'd like to be a part of this landmark sale. All our best, The Zipps
August 28, 2025. 1:42pm. Thank you to everyone for making our Summer 2025 auction such a success. With a gross total of over $1.15 million and led by the Norton deer crock at $72,000, this sale saw numerous new world auction records set, including:
$57,000: Alamance County, NC Flask
$54,000: Northwestern Pennsylvania Stoneware
$42,000: Isaac Hewitt Stoneware
$24,000: Boughner Stoneware
$15,600: Harvey Reinhardt Pottery
$12,000: Edwin Meaders Pottery
$11,400: B.B. Craig Pottery
(All prices include 20% buyer's premium.)
With the market as strong as it has ever been, we are really looking forward to what our Fall 2025 auction has in store. It's already shaping up to be another great offering, so if you'd like to take advantage of an ideal opportunity to have us sell your stoneware or redware, please do not hesitate to contact us today.
Thanks again!
The Zipps
$57,000: Alamance County, NC Flask
$54,000: Northwestern Pennsylvania Stoneware
$42,000: Isaac Hewitt Stoneware
$24,000: Boughner Stoneware
$15,600: Harvey Reinhardt Pottery
$12,000: Edwin Meaders Pottery
$11,400: B.B. Craig Pottery
(All prices include 20% buyer's premium.)
With the market as strong as it has ever been, we are really looking forward to what our Fall 2025 auction has in store. It's already shaping up to be another great offering, so if you'd like to take advantage of an ideal opportunity to have us sell your stoneware or redware, please do not hesitate to contact us today.
Thanks again!
The Zipps
August 8, 2025. 10:04pm. Thanks so much to everyone for their strong participation in this auction! Phone bidding for $10,000+ lots begins at 10am (click here for the schedule), and all winning bidders will receive their invoice (including any applicable shipping) around 9am on Monday morning. Thank you again! The Zipps
August 5, 2025. 8:18am. Thank you for your interest in our current auction, featuring over 500 lots of antique American stoneware & redware pottery. 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, August 8, 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, August 9 (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. (Full details on How to Bid are available here.)
-- 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.)
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.
Thanks so much! The Zipps.
--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, August 8, 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, August 9 (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. (Full details on How to Bid are available here.)
-- 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.)
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.
Thanks so much! The Zipps.
July 28, 2025. 9:32am. Online Catalog Posted for Preview: You can browse all 570 lots in our Summer 2025 catalog here. Bidding starts Wednesday, July 30, 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
July 11, 2025. 10:31am. Added more photos of featured lots from our Summer auction, available by clicking here. Auction starts 7/30!
June 25, 2025. 11:32am. Added some more photos of featured lots from our upcoming Summer auction, available by clicking here.
June 13, 2025. 10:40am. FIRST PHOTOS: Added our first preview photographs of stoneware to be sold in our upcoming July 30th - August 8th auction! Click here to view them. This will be a truly exceptional auction! We are now accepting consignments, with a deadline of June 30 to receive your items. Please give us a call today at 410-472-2016 or contact us here via email if you'd like to be a part of this landmark sale. All our best, The Zipps
May 16, 2025. 7:20am. THANK YOU to all of our bidders and consignors for making our Spring 2025 auction such a success. In addition to many strong prices throughout, Lot 1, the Anna Pottery snake jug, realized $144,000--a New World Auction Record for this beloved form and the highest price ever achieved for an American temperance jug.
Highlights are available here: www.crockerfarm.com/highlights/2025-04-11/
Our Spring sale came on the heels of our landmark January auction of the Carole Wahler Collection (highlights available at: www.crockerfarm.com/highlights/2025-01-31/), with both auctions demonstrating the extreme strength of the current market for quality examples sold by our firm.
We are pleased to announce that our next (Summer 2025) auction will be held July 30 - August 8 and we are NOW ACCEPTING CONSIGNMENTS for what will be another exceptional offering. If you would like to take advantage of our unparalleled knowledge, customer base, and implicit trust in the marketplace as the forefront of the antique American ceramics market, please do not hesitate to contact us today. (410-472-2016 or info@crockerfarm.com)
With over $50 million sold and in business since 1983, our company holds virtually every significant world auction record for American stoneware:
www.crockerfarm.com/world-records/
Despite all of this, we are proud to continue to offer some of the lowest rates in the industry.
Thanks so much for your interest in our auctions. We hope you are enjoying the spring weather and look forward to speaking with many of you over the coming months.
All our best, The Zipps
Highlights are available here: www.crockerfarm.com/highlights/2025-04-11/
Our Spring sale came on the heels of our landmark January auction of the Carole Wahler Collection (highlights available at: www.crockerfarm.com/highlights/2025-01-31/), with both auctions demonstrating the extreme strength of the current market for quality examples sold by our firm.
We are pleased to announce that our next (Summer 2025) auction will be held July 30 - August 8 and we are NOW ACCEPTING CONSIGNMENTS for what will be another exceptional offering. If you would like to take advantage of our unparalleled knowledge, customer base, and implicit trust in the marketplace as the forefront of the antique American ceramics market, please do not hesitate to contact us today. (410-472-2016 or info@crockerfarm.com)
With over $50 million sold and in business since 1983, our company holds virtually every significant world auction record for American stoneware:
www.crockerfarm.com/world-records/
Despite all of this, we are proud to continue to offer some of the lowest rates in the industry.
Thanks so much for your interest in our auctions. We hope you are enjoying the spring weather and look forward to speaking with many of you over the coming months.
All our best, The Zipps