Image: Colleen Williams/Ken Bramer
Rick’s crock, double-stamped, salt-glazed, and decorated with the same hand-painted cobalt butterfly pattern found on the famous $32,000 piece, had spent decades in storage on his farm after his original $750 purchase. I got the twin sister to it.'” By the next morning, Rick had driven 400 miles overnight to reach Bramer’s driveway by 8am.
“A guy from up by Watertown, South Dakota, called me and said, ‘I got the fourth crock,'” Bramer told Cowboy State Daily. “He said, ‘That one you sold down there for such big money? When he recognised the resemblance from news photos, he called Nebraska auctioneer Ken Bramer directly.
How the $32,000 sale to Lois Jurgens set off “crock mania”
Jurgens couldn’t even attend the auction herself, since it fell on her 91st birthday and she was volunteering at her local church; by the time she arrived at the fairgrounds, a fierce three-way fight between bidders from Texas, Kansas and Iowa had already pushed the price to $32,000, according to the New York Post. Jurgens told journalist Colleen Williams it was, in all her 91 years, about the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. Alongside it, he also brought an 18-inch Red Wing bowl so rare it doesn’t appear in standard collector guides. Both pieces are headed to auction on 18 April at the Phelps County fairgrounds in Holdrege, the same venue where Jurgens’ crock sold. Like the Kansas collector who placed the winning $32,000 bid while out pheasant hunting, Rick has chosen to stay anonymous, telling Bramer he doesn’t want people knowing what he has or where to find him. Red Wing expert Larry Peterson, who has collected the pottery for 55 years and co-authored three books on the subject, said interest has spread to related pieces like decorated beehive jugs. Peterson doubts Rick’s cracked crock will match $32,000 given its condition, but expects strong interest regardless. Since the Jurgens sale, Bramer said he has fielded thousands of calls, texts and emails from people asking whether their own crocks might be valuable, managing to respond to around 250 so far.
Auctioneer Ken Bramer, who had only jokingly told her beforehand they’d “done a little better than $100,” said Jurgens went weak in the knees and had to be helped onto the stage when she learned the final figure. Rick’s crock does carry one flaw the original doesn’t, a crack down the back, which he said he bought that way.
Collectors believe as many as six of these specific decorated crocks exist, with three previously well known among insiders before Rick’s emerged as a fourth.
