ST MICHAEL’S MD. – Five lots each brought more than $100,000 at Guyette and Deeter’s August 6 and 7 sale. The highlight, selling for $144,000, was a circa 1940 Mallard drake decoy in a sleeping pose. It had been made by Shang Wheeler, a Stratford, Conn., carver who mostly carved decoys for his own personal use. Mallards are not a common species in Wheeler’s neighborhood so he would not have made many, and this decoy is the only one known in the sleeping or at-rest pose. It is illustrated in the 1984 book on the carver, Shang. Also bringing more than $100,000 was a golden plover shorebird decoy by an unknown Nantucket carver; another shorebird – a greater yellowlegs – by Long Island carver William Bowman; a rare and unusual “ghost-fish carving” by Hans Janner, a Michigan fish decoy maker; and a large oil painting by Hermann Gustav Simon depicting two hunters shooting canvasback ducks from a sinkbox.

It was a strong sale with dozens of decoys, decorative carvings, paintings of sporting scenes, fish carvings and more that earned five-figure prices. A full report will follow.