var itemNumber = window.ItemID ? window.ItemID : -1; function passpara(){return + itemNumber + \'&baseurl=\'+escape((function(){var d = return d })());}
gjoldan Store
function passparaSC(){return \'&baseurl=\'+ escape((function(){var d = return d })()) +
MINT! SUPERB ORIGINAL PAINT c1957 \"REG BLOOM\" Wood Duck Decoy KINGSTON ONTARIO a.imagelink {color:#000000;} a:hover.imagelink {color:#000000;} a:visited.imagelink {color:#00A8A8;} a.imagelink img.saleimage { border: 2px solid #000000; } a:visited.imagelink img.saleimage { border: 2px solid #00A8A8; }

REGINALD T. "REG" BLOOM (1916-2000); Photo of Reg in His Kingston, Ontario Shop; Taken in 1985.

OUTSTANDING FORM, ALERT TURNED HEAD!!

MINT CONDITION, Great Feather Stamping; c1957Reginald T. "Reg" Bloom;DRAKE GOLDENEYE,Wood Duck Decoy;Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada

-AWESOME 57-YEAR OLD, ORIGINAL FINELY DETAILED PAINT, FEATHERDETAIL & FINE, DETAIL CARVING!!

-EXQUISITE DETAIL CARVINGincluding "Horseshoe"STAMPED FEATHERINGBetween TheWINGS,as Well as Great Detail tothe Wings & Tail!!

AWESOME FORM HE FASHIONED AFTER DAVEY NICHOL BIRDS: Although Reg Bloom Used Davey's Smiths Falls Decoys as His Early Models, Bloom Developedan Open-WaterStyle and Form All His Own making Him One of Canada's Most Renowned Master Carvers!!

Perfectly CarvedAlert TurnedHead, Turned30 Degrees to Its Left, and An Incredibly Realistic Bill!

Also His Finest Mid-Career Form withits Somewhat Thicker Body & Sturdy Bill, Along with His Typical Fantastic Paint Job & Raised Wing Primary & CovertFeathers!! Awesome Fully Carved in Tail Feather Detail!!

DON'T MISS THE JOHN R. WELLS BLACK DUCK ALSO ON !!!!

SHIPPING INCLUDES INSURANCE

This beautifully-formed60 year old solid cedarDrake Common Goldeneyewood duckdecoy was carved and painted byReginald T. "Reg" Bloom (1916-2000)ofKingston, Ontario, Canada. Kingston is is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Kingston is also located midway between Montreal and Toronto and Kingstonis alsolocatedwhere the Rideau Canal makes its entrance into Lake Ontario.After canal construction was completed in 1832, itmade Kingston theprimary military and economic center of Upper Canada.

Kingston also has the distinction of being an excellent waterfowling area as it is surrounded by a plethora of waterways including outstanding marshes whichwere a natural magnet for migrating waterfowl. To the west of Kingstonstretches the huge expanse of Lake Ontario, to the east the Cataraqui Riverand then the Thousand Islands and the mighty St. Lawrence River.From the north flow the Cataraqui and Little Cataraqui Rivers which are a culmination of the other waterways and endless wetlands of the Rideau system. A few miles due south and across the merging waters of Lake Ontario as they form the St. Lawrence River are the bays, marshes and elegant coastlines of Wolfe and Amherst Islands.Kingston, however, is a rather unique area from a decoy carving standpoint as unlikemany other areas, it never truly developed an early and dominant decoy style and form that define its carving roots and early history. Many factors contributed to this lack of a defined decoy style and maybe the most important is thatthe area is so large thatmost of the carversnever knew of each other and/or each othersdecoys. Other contributing factors was the absence of a large population baselarge enough to supporta group of enterprising market hunters and their trade and also a lack ofwealthy sportsmen that would demand and pay top dollar for excellent gunning birds. Lastly, it has also been suggested that the low, but steady output of decoys from the Kingston Penitentiary also led to the lack of an identity for a "Kingston" styled decoy. Although not a great many decoy examples exist from Kingston prior to World War I, there were several Kingston carvers that began to establish themselves and gain some notoriety in between World War I and World War II. The carvers that emerged during this time period included the likes of Rupert Davis, Billy Little, Harry Norman, Joe Jarrell, Sprig Pearson and Hank Stratford to name a few. But the most interesting part is that these noteworthy Kingston carversdid not know each other and hence their was little similarity to their work. The Kingston carvers, much like Long Island, all developed on their own which led to one of the greatest diversities in style for an area that is independent and clearly detached from surrounding areas from not a geologic standpoint, but rather cultural. The one common denominator to the Kingston style of decoys is that a great many of the decoys wereadorned with some type of wing carving and possible some detailing to the tail and head. After World War II the Kingston style of decoy rapidly began to follow the form and style of the decoys carved by Davey Nichols and hisUncles from the Smiths Falls area of Ontario which was straight on up through the Rideau waterwayexactly 50 miles NNE of Kingston.

Smiths Falls is located in Eastern Ontario and is 40 miles SSW of Ottawa and 30 miles north of the St. Lawrence River. The Rideau Canal waterway passes through Smiths Falls with four separate locks in three locations. It isalso known as the Rideau Waterway and itconnects the city of Ottawa on the Ottawa River, to the city of Kingston, Ontario on Lake Ontario.

Reg Bloom could not have picked a better core of hunters to fashion his decoys after, as the Nichols family of Smiths Falls, Ontario, is certainly one of the more important chapters in Canadian decoy carving history and began with brothers David K. (1859-1949) and Adam J."Addie" (1864-1928). According to their late nephew Davey, it was their growing displeasure with the mail order decoys that they were gunning overthat ledthem to make their own decoys in the early 1880's. This eventually wouldgrow intoa family businessand the passion and focus was passed onto their nephew David "Davey" W. Nichol (1890-1977)and would become his lifelong hobby as well as career.

David K. "D. K." and brother Addie were lifelong bachelors and lived, hunted and carved together. They carved with the most basic of tools including chisels and knives and their vise was simply their laps. The two brothers are only known to have carved decoys for theirown personal use and sold their rigs when they felt a new one was needed and created a new rig afresh.D. K. and Addie's decoys gave their birds texture with long feathered lines and usedvarious tools to carvetiny detail to break up the smoothly sanded surface of the wings, tails and heads.

Davey W. Nicholexperienced his first duck hunt with his two uncles at the age of 12.He was naturally drawn to the sport as he was very frequently a guest in their homes and under their "wings" he began to make his own decoys and develop his skills as an avid hunter and fisherman. This past time of carving decoys would be no passing fancy and the young Davey would go on to carve decoys in some capacity and frequency for seven decades. Like his uncles, the majority of his output was of birds that frequented the area in the largest numberswhich included bluebills, black ducks andgoldeneyes.

Davey Nichol's work certainly included the original techniques that his uncles had pioneered years earlier along with the locally evolved wingformand produced some of Ontario's most prizeddecoys. This beautiful and clean form was what impressed Reg Bloom the most and the sight of them was enough evidence to convince him that his decoys would be best suited by following Davey's form.Much like Nichol's, Bloom'sformrarely deviated toa decoy posed "in action" and hissolid-bodied decoys almost all portray a resting bird with a straight facing head. Nichol'sinfluence on other carvers is of legendary proportions and locally directly affected theKingston decoys of Reg Bloom and the other area carvers that became prominent after the end of World War II. .

VINTAGE PAIR OF DAVEY NICHOL WOOD DUCKS DECOYS AND ALSO STYLE AND FORM OF DECOYS THAT REG BLOOM WOULD FASHION HIS ENTIRE RESUME OF CARVED WOODEN DECOYS AFTER!!

VINTAGE PAIR OFREG BLOOMWOOD DUCKS (Note the Incredible Form & Style He Adopted From Davey Nichols' Wood Ducks)

One thing is for sure about Reg Bloom's mentor Davey Nichol, underthe tutelage of his 2 uncles,he became one of Ontario's most admired and copied decoy carvers in history. Combining what his uncles had taught him with local methods, Nichol produced lightweight decoys with small flat bodies and flat bottoms without keels or heavy weights. Nichol relief-carved wingsand on occasion added ahorseshoe stamp between them and a trademark of his decoys is a head that is set facing forward. He stamped, painted or carved feathers down the back and sometimes combined the methods for effect. The painting patterns Nichol created were simple, but he did experiment on occasion with blended colors or metallic powder to represent the feathers' iridescence. This decoy up for sale is a great example of this as the entire wing patch area was highlighted with a metallic paint and the back feathers are painted, combed and highlighted.

Reginald T. "Reg" Bloom (1916-2000) may have used Nichols' decoys to fashion his after, buton his own he possessed ahighly skilled level of carving and an awesome artistic eye for painting.From the mid-1940's to the early 1970's, Reg Bloom carved several hundred of the finest gunning decoys to originate from thatregion of Ontario. Reg was bornand raised in Denbigh, Ontario, and after high school he served in thearmy and was stationed in many different areas of Canada. Hiddid, however, finish off his career at theBarriefield Barracksin Kingston and ended up never leaving the area. Bloom met and married his wife Millie, a Kingston resident and native, and went to workin the maintenance department for one of the city's largest employers, Alcan, a prominent aluminum manufacturer. This would end up being Reg Bloom's life-time employer and he eventually retired after serving the company for 39 years, as its machine shop foreman in 1981.

REG BLOOMGOLDENEYESMADEA FEWYEARS AFTER THISDRAKE UP FOR sale. (Note:The Sculpted Crest on the Drake and Straight Facing Higher Heads on Both Decoys!

Reg Bloomwas introduced to duck hunting in the early to mid 1940's by fellow Alcan Aluminum employees and like a great many other fledgling gunners, Bloom realized that he could not afford to buy what decoys were available in the area. Reg's firstattempt at carving was adozen black ducks that turned out exceptionally well for a first timer. In 1946, right after World War II ended, Bloom met Davey Nichol and was so impressed with his birds that he bought a bluebill and a black duck decoy to use as models for his own work. Although the decoys were excellent decoys for Bloom from an aesthetic standpoint, the Nichol decoys proved to be ill-suited for the open waters of Lake Ontario and the waters off of Wolfe and Amherst Islands as well. Taking lessons learned from his early attempt and what he learned from the Nichol birds, Bloom modified his patternsto make a decoy thathad a deeperand solid body with a higher and heavier head with a thicker bill. The result was a decoy that could deal with the rough openwaters yet with a realism and beauty that could hold birds tight and effectively draw their wild cousins into gunning range. For the next 25 years, Bloom kept this basic design althoughhe gradually improved the form and style of his decoys as his creativity evolved. Much like Nichol, Bloom was very meticulous when it came to the stock of wood that he used for his decoys and as time went by Bloom became one of the most exceptional carvers and painters of his era. When Bloom encountered a knot or other imperfection in the wood for a decoy he would neatly and almost invisibly replace it with a dowel segment or other custom made plug. His initial output of decoys closely followed the paint style and characteristics of a Nichol decoy, but he gradually adopted his own patterns that were richin detail and aesthetically awesome, even though they were meant for and used as gunning blocks. He made and sold these decoys for a few dollars each and may have actually been the best bargains in the land considering thesuperb hunting decoy you were receiving.

One of the biggest advocates of a Reg Bloom decoy was Bev Hopkins, who used Bloom decoys and was also an ardent collector. Hopkins replaced his rig of Nichol decoys in the early 1950's asthe Bloom decoyswere a sturdier decoy and appeared just as realistic. Hopkins not only recalled other hunters sneaking on his rig of Bloom decoys thinking they were real, but also how nearby gunners would shoot at his decoys if one broke loose from its anchor line and floated into their rigs. Hopkins also remembered the time a flock of bluebills decoyed to his rig of 50 Bloom decoys 3 times, and how ducks would often pass by other rigs before settling into the Bloom made ducks.It is estimated that Reg Bloom made more than 2,000 decoysover the course of his career with the majority being bluebills. He also made several Goldeneyes, Mallards and black ducks and therarest speciesof decoys that he made were redheads, canvasbacks, teal, pintails and wood ducks. Almost all of Bloom's output was decoys carved in the typical fashion of theregion with heads that tend to be high and are usually forward facing. Thisdrake goldeneye up for sale fits that bill to aTee, howeverthe head on this drake goldeneye up for sale has a head that is turnedslightly to its leftand the head is what could be considered semi-alert. Bloom on occasionexperimented on a limited number of decoys by makinga handful of decoys that areeither front or back preeners, low-heads, heads on an angle and even tip-up bottom feeders. It is estimated that Bloom made maybe a dozen decoys with lowor tucked heads, even fewer front preeners and only a couple back preeners. The select few, ingeniously executed tip-up decoys that Bloom made were outfitted with a very unique, self-storing, ballast weight. The only other decoys that Bloom carved that radically deviate from his basic form were 6 bottom-feeding puddle ducks with no heads and a dozen magnum-sized black ducks. Bloom's finest work was produced in the late 1950's and earliest 1960's and he sold these decoys for $4.00 each and mallards and black ducks could be bought from him for $60 per dozen.

The form of decoys that Reg Bloom adopted from Davey Nichol eventually came full circle as a plethora of carvers in the region have copied the style of decoy that Nichol developed and Bloom perfected for open water use. Although most decoys of this "Smiths Falls" style are distinguishable from each others work, there are several early examples of Bloom's work that are extremely similar inevery way to the Nichol decoys made around that same time period. Maybe the easiest way to tell the difference between a Nichol and Bloom decoy is that Bloom's decoys did not have the coggling around the bill like a Nichol decoy; however, not all of Nichol's decoys had this awesome featureeither. The easiest way to distinguish between a Nichol decoy and a Bloom bird is the size and placement of the holding-screw holes that were covered up or plugged where the decoy was secured to a piece of wood and held in a vise. On a Nichol decoy, these holding screw hole plugs are 1/8" to 5/16" in diameter and in line with the bottom of the decoy on a head to tail plane. Exactly like this decoy up for sale, Bloom holding screw hole plugs are1/4" in diameter and are located diagonally on the bottom of the decoy and can be found anywhere from2 to 3 inches apart from each other. Another good indicator of maker is that Bloom's decoys are slightly more robust with higher heads and thicker bills and Bloom sanded the underside of his bills and tails whereas Nichol left them unsanded. Reg Bloom stopped carving gunning decoys around 1970 whenjust about the entire duck hunting world was converting to plastic, cork or other manufactured decoys and he concentrated solely on decoratives. Although, his output of decoratives was relatively small and he soon was carving only a few pairs of decoys a year that were slated for friends and family as gifts. The majority of his spare time in his later and waning years was spent building fine furniture for himself, family and friends. Although it can certainly be said that Bloom's decoys have their roots in the decoys produced by the great Davey Nichol, but over time Reg Bloom's decoys gradually developed a following of their own and many avid collector's stand by the premise that Bloom's decoys are right up there with the most versatile and effective decoys to ever be produced inOntario and Canada for that matter. Reg Bloom passed away on September 29, 2000in his adopted hometown of Kingston,Ontario at the age of 84.

This awesomeDrake Goldeneye or Whistlerdecoy up for sale is an awesome example ofsome of Reg Bloom's most sought after work with itssemi-alert and slightly turned head, which is considered to be up their with his most sought after poses.This drake whistlercombines all oftheunique and painstaking detailthatBloom was noted for including the gorgeous, feathercarving and stampingto the back feathers, and straight-line wing feather detailand tail feather detail. The raised wings were carved with perfect symmetry and the detail to the primaries, secondaries and covert feathers is flawless.The beautiful and intricate body feather paintstarts at the neck and changes direction with the contour of the body and go all of the way back to a finelystraight-line, carvedtails. The bill on this beautiful decoy may beits finest and most Nichol-like feature with its perfect form that is detailedwith lightly carved in mandibles that run the entire length of the bill and nail-definition that is uniquely carved in from the bottom. Thesmall nostrils were done with absolute precision as theywere flawlessly "tapped-in" carved and detailed.And you certainly can't overlook one of Bloom's trademarks as this decoy exhibitshis perfectly executed somewhat thick body and sturdy bill. The head hasvery fine metallic green and metallic limefeather painting that starts at the billandfills the side of both sides of the headuninterruptedand stops near the puffy jowl cheeks at thebase of theheadand creates a perfect feather"grain". Much like anythingBloom did, the head was mounted tothe carved neck seat with uncompromisedprecision. Theneck was carved perfectly so thatit flows precisely into the body so that when it was attached, it "accepted" it so perfectly there is no interruption to the flow. As he did with all of his excellent hunting blocks, the head on this decoy was attached to the body with a wood screw that was inserted into a recessed hole in the bottom and the hole was then covered with a pounded in dowel end to protect the joint from water seepage. The taxidermist gradeyellowglass eyes were also carved in and located with uncompromising precision and truly jump off the surface as if they are looking at you. Finally, the paint job on this olddecoy is perfect in every respect and theerratic "goldeneye"feathers on this decoy are amazing as they turn and twist with thecontoured body just as a wild duckin nature looks. This decoy was certainly made old school as his working birds from this era and beyond. Thisvintage solid-cedar,awesomeduck decoyup for salemeasures 14-1/8" long x 6" wide x 6-1/2" tall and weighs asturdy andvery rig-manageable1-lb. 13-ozs. The mint andimpressive drake very clearly went straight from Reg Bloom's work bench and onto a discriminating collector's display shelf.This drake goldeneye is in perfect , mint structural condition and it impressively has Nowear and No rubbing to the decoy and without any cracks, chips, breaks or defectsof any kind. There are2 very small andhard to noticedents dentson the right side,but if anythingthey add character to this awesome gunning decoy by one of Canada's most revered carvers. This bird is as solid as the day it was made and as you can see by the bottom photo, the two 1/4" in diameter screw holes that were used to hold the decoy when it was carved are still intact with the filler he used to plug them. These two holes are also perfectly located 2-1/2" apart on the bottom and are located diagonally on the bottom across from each other. As you can also see by the bottom photo,Reg Bloom sanded the underside of the tailsand the bills on his vintage decoys and this decoy exhibits that trait perfectly. There are no chips or crackson this decoy and it hasNo edge wearand No rubbing, which really is a testament to the outstanding craftsmanship and condition of this decoy, and also a testament to the care it received in the many years it spent in a private collection. These must have been great rig birds to hunt over as ducks must have been fooled by its realism from a distance and then were comfortable "holding" right next to it as its is astounding.I am sure that to see his decoys in action must have been a sight as I am sure that they were diving and feeding and sleeping andvoid of danger while sitting among these beauties. I am sure any passing duck that saw a rig of these relaxedandtrue to form decoyswould dive right in and relax themselves. This would be an awesome addition to any decoy collection and if you have any questions or would like an additional close-up of an area of the bird feel free to email me. Thank youfor looking.

JUST A VINTAGE AND BEAUTIFUL MINT GUNNING DECOY FROM ONE OF CANADA'S MOST REVERED MASTER CARVERS!!!!

BELOW IS SEVERAL MORE PICTURES OF REG BLOOMS AWESOME DECOYS FROM DIFFERENT TIME PERIODS AND OF DIFFERENT STYLES DURING HIS CAREER!!

VINTAGE PAIR OFREG BLOOM"HIGH HEAD" CANVASBACKSFROM 1962!!

VERY RAREPAIR OFREG BLOOMREDHEADDECOYS FROM 1958 or 1959!!

VINTAGE HIGH HEAD REG BLOOM BLUEBILLS WITH FORWARD FACING HEADS!!

VINTAGE 1960's BLOOM MALLARDS; NOTE THE VERY UNCOMMON & RARE HEAD POSE ON THE DRAKE!!

VERY RARE1960's BLOOM TIPPER WITH UNIQUE BALLASTAND HEAD-LESS FEEDER!!