Inside One of the Greatest Decoy Assemblies Ever Sold: The Jim & Diane Cook Collection (Ep 764)

·52 min·5 clips

Jon Dieter reveals the upcoming auction of the Jim and Diane Cook Collection, a 400-decoy assembly valued in the millions.

The frame is tight. Rather than sitting on auction price, the conversation digs into why one maker's field skills gave certain decoys their pull. Kroll was not just a carver. The guest starts with him as a cranberry farmer, then explains why wealthy doctors, lawyers, business figures, property owners, and club people wanted him around. He knew how to manage duck stands and live-bird systems. He could train geese and ducks to fly out, circle, and bring wild birds in. The mechanics make the story. Tame birds came out of cages, made their loops, and returned while hunters worked the incoming birds. Then the carved decoys get their turn. The guest points to a 1900 rig with varied head positions, animation he says was unusual for working gunning decoys. The underside brand matters too. Kroll's later East Harwich, Massachusetts mark, tied to 1912, helps place a piece in time, and this one came before it. The talk then moves through raised carved wingtips, a back-preening wigeon drake, and whether a decoy with that much craft could still have been hunted. The answer stays cautious. It could have been a gunning decoy, but its condition and workmanship pull the listener toward handling and preservation too. The best stretch lets one decoy carry the full chain: maker, field practice, rich patrons, live birds, carved motion, and dated evidence.

As heard by us

Elmer Kroll's working decoys trace the line between field craft and collecting history.

The episode settles into a precise corner of waterfowl history, where decoys were first working tools and only later became objects of close study.

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Why you'd press play

Want to follow live birds, private clubs, and a pre-1912 Kroll decoy into one collecting story?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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