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Back in October 2022, my wife and I visited the Easton Waterfowl Festival. We had a blast and came upon a startling realization—there is an entire market dedicated to rare, historic, or realistic-looking duck decoys. These decoys sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars. In fact, one pair of decoys sold for $1.13 million in 2012!

How could this possibly be? And who are these collectors that can afford to shell out this kind of money? It already boggles my mind how much an average house near a metro station in the Washington, D.C. region costs (easily over $1 million). But spending that kind of cash on a wooden duck?!

Of course, not all duck decoys are so pricey. A six pack of mallard decoys will run you at least $34.97 at Walmart or $39.99 for a single decoy at Dick’s Sporting Goods. According to a sign at the decoy market, a “basketful of merganser decoys in a rural community” would cost $5.00 in 1950, $500 in 1985, and $1500 in 2005. That sign also pointed out that “In today’s world, they would all be priced individually!”

To be fair, some of this is just due to inflation as money loses its value over time. Even a relatively low average inflation of 2.59% over 100 years from 1920 to 2020 adds up. (At that rate, $100 in 1920 is worth about the same as $1,294.05 in 2020.)

But inflation is not the full story. Scarcity and condition mattered too. Many wooden duck decoys were lost during hunting or thrown away as hunters started switching to plastic ones. One article I found from an auction website quoted an auctioneer’s claim that “90 percent of [hand-carved wooden decoys] were repainted or [damaged].” All of this raised prices as more people starting collecting duck decoys, and trade shows, magazines, and auctions attracted wealthier clientele. Other factors determining wooden decoy prices include who carved it, when and in what region it was carved, and what type of waterfowl it was depicting.

Another reason why the decoy market can be so pricey is due to the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918, which greatly restricted duck hunting. Duck decoys, of course, float on the water to lure ducks into shooting range. After all, birds do use their calls as an alarm system to keep track of threats. So if a bird sees a fake bird hanging out then it will assume the environment is safe. The 1918 treaty regulated migratory bird hunting across both the United States and Canada, with the goal of both preventing a depletion of those birds as both a natural beauty and resource.

With hunting decreased, there was less demand for regular duck decoys and so many carvers and artists started instead to focus on decorative carvings that were meant to be more realistic and pretty than functional. These decoys could also be sold at a higher price to high-income sports hunters rather than those who hunted for a living or to put literal food on their table.

Needless to say, there’s an Antiques Roadshow joke in here. “Wow! That dusty and dull wooden duck among your grandpa’s old hunting gear was made before 1918? And it was made by the famous Portland, Maine decoy carver, Augustus "Gus" Wilson? Congratulations, your decoy is worth $125,000!”)

Oh and did I mention that there are specific companies whose sole purpose is to help you maximize your decoy earnings? Oh yes. There was not one, but two, such companies in the school gym that functioned as large decoy market at the Waterfowl Festival. I actually spoke to Mike of A&M Decoys and Folk Art, and he was kind enough to let me interview him on his work.

Mike reminded how the market was not just about decoys and hunting. Decoys can lure birds in for photographing and realistic decoys are carved specifically for art competitions affluent families buy for decoration. As he explained,

“There’s a really wide variety. You’ve got these world champion carvers and these pieces by Bruce Lepper that are designed to really look like they’re gonna fly right at you… Some of these are antique carvings that started this whole tradition of carving birds. It is uniquely American—Native Americans used to do carvings and it is a tradition that has grown here in the U.S. You’ve got different varieties (you’ve got Virginia, Louisiana…) and different appearances based on how they’ve interpreted the bird. Older decoys are found mostly in America and the value ranges so much on quality, condition, maker. For example, your most authentic shore birds are coming before 1918, before the treaty that pretty much outlawed the hunting of shore birds.”*

*Note these quotes were edited for brevity and clarity.

Mike also noted that while this high value market with antiques is mostly a North American phenomenon, carvings can be found all over the world.

I also had the chance to chat with Captain Keegan, a one-man carver who makes his own decoys both for sport and for sell. He explained to me how the labor costs of decoys can also matter the the final price. It takes many hours to hand-carve a decoy and if your labor is worth X amount of dollars per hour, you would want to recoup that cost when selling. Moreover, there is also the cost of the wood and the equipment needed to carve, cut, glue, sand, and paint decoys.

To be efficient, he said a carver ideally works on multiple decoys at the same time in different stages. You’d have several that are still being carved and sanded, others that need to be painted, others that are drying, and so on. If you got good at it, others would not be able to tell that a duck was once two pieces of wood that had its center hollowed out to help it float easier. The seam would be flush with the surface and practically invisible. In Keegan’s case, such work paid off with multiple awards at carving competitions.

So now you know more than you ever wanted to about the duck decoy market. Have you ever bought or carved a decoy? What was your experience like? Email back to let me know or login to the blog on Substack to leave a comment.

Until next (Bird!) time,
Grover

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