William Hart Hollow Drake Bluebill Duck Decoy Prince Edward County Ontario
Hollow William Hart Drake Bluebill. Attributed to William Hart, a carver from Prince Edward County Ontario who carved with the likes of Bill Chrysler, this fine hollow drake bluebills a nice working example of his decoys. Carved with a slightly swimming head that is equipped with high quality glass eyes, this birdshows typical hunting wear but remains in all original paint, a rare occurrence. Unlike many other Hart decoys, this bird is nicely hollowed and equipped with a thin bottom board.
This decoy has very fine, clean scratch painting on its back. In worn original paint as a result of having a decoy line wrapped around it many times over the years. Typical roughness to sharp edges and corners, but very good structurally and a nice looking bird overall. I have done my best to document this decoy through both the text above and the photographs. I will do my best to accommodate any and all requests.
The decoy you are seeing is the exact one you will be getting, therefore, there should be no surprises if you have taken the time to scroll through all the photos and read the text. Unless the decoy is listed in 100% original paint, expect some old hunter touch-up. Almost every single decoy I have for sale was in fact a working decoy part of a larger rig and subject to typical gunning wear including rubs that were typically touched-up between hunting seasons as a way to pass the time during the off-season. Some of these decoys are more than 100 years old and over the course of many hunting seasons it is bound to happen. Like other carvers influenced by Chrysler to include Croft, Hitchens, and Weese, decoys by Hart can easily be confused amongst makers as there decoys have overlapping style similarities.
Hart was born and raised in Prince Edward County and ended up living in Belleville Ontario. Hart was a house painted by trade, another similarity to Chrysler, and worked with his brother Fred in Belleville. In addition to house painting, Hart was a band musician involved with belleville bands for 50 years. Hart made decoys for both himself and for sale during the course of his career in species from both the puddle duck and diver categories. His most famous birds are black ducks and exceptional mergansers.
His birds have been described as Chrysler quality, a very special designation. Some of his decoy were branded while others were not. If you have the book "The County Decoys" Jim Stewart has a lot more history and interesting information about the carver. If you don't have this book and collect decoys from north of the border, it is a great reference to have.
I say most because as you see some decoys will have a modest/fair-market reserve. Call it down-sizing if you will. If a decoy doesn't meet reserve, let's talk.
NOTE: As with most sporting collectibles, along with being a great addition to a game room or home decor, vintage decoys have shown to be a sound investment that seldom decrease in value. Each decoy is truly a One-Of-A-Kind item as no two hand-carved decoys are exactly alike and with so few available decoys from each carver, as time passes, they will surely only increase in value. Be sure to add my to your favorite sellers/searches.I have many more decoys to add from all regions including the Chesapeake Bay, Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, New York, Illinois, the St. The item "William Hart Hollow Drake Bluebill Duck Decoy Prince Edward County Ontario" is in sale since Sunday, August 20, 2017. This item is in the category "Sporting Goods\Hunting\Vintage Hunting\Duck Decoys". The seller is "dckhuntr" and is located in Butler, Pennsylvania.
This item can be shipped to United States, Canada.