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 })()) + RARE \"EARLY NEW JERSEY DECOY\" c1875 JOE KING \"BLACK DUCK\" HOLLOW Wood MANAHAWKIN a.imagelink {color:#efe2ae;} a:hover.imagelink {color:#efe2ae;} a:visited.imagelink {color:#000000;} a.imagelink img.saleimage { border: 2px solid #efe2ae; } a:visited.imagelink img.saleimage { border: 2px solid #000000; }
Description

RARE & EARLY, SUPERB FORM!! c1865 JOE KING (1835-1913); \"BLACK DUCK\", \"Eastern White Cedar\" WOOD DUCK DECOY; MANAHAWKIN, NEW JERSEY

• AWESOME OLD GUNNING PAINT (Old & Dry with Great Patina) and Original Lead Ballast Weight!

GREAT AND TYPICAL JOE KING, VERY DEEP & SUPER-WIDE \"ICE GROOVE\" on the BACK!! PAINTED TACK EYES!! VERY RARE & EARLY \"HOLLOW\" BODY!!

Joe King was the Mentor of Lloyd Parker among Countless others and Widely Considered the Originator of the New Jersey Style of Decoy!!

• An Awesome Example of a Historic Jersey Shore Black Duck Decoy!!! Excellent for a 150+ Year Old \"Important\" Duck Decoy!!

BEAUTIFULLY & PRECISELY CARVED HEAD & BILL with a VERY NICE, VERY HIGH & WELL SCULPTED, RAISED, NECK SHELF and SOMEWHAT PINCHED BREAST!!!!

• IF YOU LIKE AWESOME \"CENTURY & A HALF OLD\" GUNNING DECOYS FROM FAMOUS CARVERS THAT WERE USED TO GUN OVER and STILL LOOK AWESOME THEN THIS IS A GREAT DECOY FOR YOU!!

SHIPPING INCLUDES INSURANCE

This Vintage, 150+ year old, rare and very nicely formed and executed BLACK DUCK decoy was hand carved and painted by the Widely-Accredited Originator of the New Jersey style of decoy, Joe King (1835-1913) of Manahawkin, New Jersey, census-designated place (CDP) and unincorporated area located within Stafford Township, in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. Manahawkin translates to \'land of good corn\' although this has been disputed by recent scholars claiming that it translates to \'fertile land sloping into the water\'. Manahawkin is the gateway to the resort communities on Long Beach Island, with Route 72 providing the sole road access, ending in Ship Bottom as it crosses Manahawkin Bay via the Manahawkin Bay Bridge. Manahawkin is also located 4 miles south of Barnegat and the world famous duck hunting grounds of Barnegat Bay and 8 miles north of Tuckerton, the home of the great Harry V. Shourds.

In the middle of the Atlantic Flyway, it no mystery why the New Jersey coastline was one of the most prolific waterfowling areas in the country from the mid-1800\'s to the early 1900\'s. This area was rich with large tidal bays, salt-marsh ponds, clean streams and swift-flowing rivers. It is thus no mystery why New Jersey\'s earliest forms of tourism involved guiding hunting parties along with the flourishing trade of market hunting. Among the areas frequented by the Victorian market gunners (1847-1901) was Sandy Hook south to Manahawkin Bay, Barnegat Bay and Great Egg Harbor Bay among many others. New Jersey decoys are often divided by area into Barnegat, Tuckerton, Manahawkin, Mullica River, Absecon, Head of the River and Cape May. A few of the more prominent Master Carvers from each area are Henry Grant (b1860-d1924) and John Dorset for Barnegat, Harry V. Shourds (b1861-d1920) of Tuckerton, John Updike for the Mullica River, Levi Truex (died 1934) and Captain Dan Showell for Absecon, Mark English for the Head of the River, Otis Townsend for Cape May and Joseph King, Lloyd Parker (b1859-d1921) and Liberty Price (carved c1870-1910) for Manahawkin. The wood used by these master carvers was Eastern White Cedar as during this time period huge stands lined the rivers from the coastline inland. New Jersey\'s first industry was cutting these huge forests to provide lumber for the burgeoning shipbuilding trade. Coincidentally, this wood provided the perfect material for the early decoy carvers in the region that were making the tools with which the hunters in the area used to harvest the abundance of migrating waterfowl. Although the predominant New Jersey decoy would evolve into a \"dugout\" hollow decoy with glass eyes, some of the earliest decoys were a mix of semi-hollowed and solid decoys with almost all having painted-on, tack or no eyes at all. And of these carvers, Joe King (b1835-d19130) of Manahawkin is considered by many to be the true father of the New Jersey style of decoys as it is known today and he was one of the first carvers to make decoys for a living, but never approaching the enormous output of New Jersey\'s most prolific sellers of decoys, Harry Vinuckson Shourds (b1861-d1920). Joe King carved at least a pair of decoys for just about every species of duck and goose that frequented the New Jersey region of the Atlantic Flyway. As the Patriarch of the New Jersey style of decoy, Joe King was the inspiration and often the mentor to countless numbers of New Jersey carvers and his patterns were adopted by the well-known master carpenter, boatbuilder and decoy carver Lloyd Parker, also of Manahawkin. Like his predecessor Joe King, Parker\'s decoys were much sought after by professional hunting guides for their parties to gun over. Like Joe King, Harry V. Shourds was one of a very select number carvers that was known to have carved almost every species of migratory waterfowl that staged in the Jersey region.

Joe King was most famous for several species of decoys including Brant, Black Ducks, Scaup, Canada Geese, Redheads and Goldeneyes and to a much lesser degree Buffleheads, Mergansers and shorebirds such as Snipe. Not a great deal of information has been published about the specifics of Joe King\'s family life and upbringing but his decoys did have many characteristics that were his and were widely and almost exclusively adopted by other carvers during the later years of his career and through the late 1800\'s and early 1900\'s by the vast number of Jersey carvers that followed him. A great many of the carvers from the 1860\'s to later 1800\'s were also boatbuilders or guidesmen by trade and there is some indication that King also was employed in these areas in some capacity during his lifetime. Some of his earliest birds were solid and full-bodied, but the bulk of his decoys, and like this black duck up for sale, were hollow, yet also very full-bodied. Like the decoys that would follow his form, the backs swooped down to the tail but not as sharply as other later carvers like Harry V. Shourds among others. Joe King\'s decoys were also carved with and without ice grooves immediately behind the head on the beginning of the back, although very deep ice grooves are something his decoys would become very well known for. King\'s decoys that did have ice grooves, like this black duck, had grooves that were deeper and more widely incised than those made by most others including Lloyd Parker. Lloyd Parker, also of Manahawkin, used King\'s decoys to fashion his decoys after and other than some marked differences like his shallower ice groove, their decoys look very similar for obvious reasons. Others that also copied King\'s decoy patterns, had ice grooves and followed similar lines, but again the ice grooves were shallower and less distinct. The ice groove was carved in for exactly the purpose it\'s name suggests it was meant for, to make handling easier when ice build-up made the decoys harder to grasp in late season weather conditions. Another characteristic of King\'s decoys were the pinched necks which gave the appearance of the heads having fuller cheeks, and like this Black Duck decoy up for sale, King\'s decoys heads were carved with the heads and necks \"reared-back\" and thus the forward thrusting base of the ovoid yet rounded neck widens greatly at the base where it was attached to the body. Many of his decoys, like these Black duck up for sale, employed rectangular lead \"pad\" ballast weights nailed onto the bottom (the original pad weight is still intact on this decoy up for sale), but some of his later decoy\'s weights were incised into the bottom much like the decoys made by Harry V. Shourds. King\'s decoys used leather for the line ties, although it was removed from this decoy at some point in time. King attached the heads of his decoys by using white, lead-based caulk/adhesive and finishing nails that were countersunk and the top holes filled with the lead caulk. However, like this Black duck up for sale, King\'s heads and neck bases on the body were carved so perfectly and precise, that no neck putty was needed to fill in at the attachment point. Many of his earlier decoys had the attached to the body using a dowel, although I am sure later decoys adopted a screw from the hollowed upper half and up into the neck of the head.  There are however other characteristics that the majority of King\'s decoys have, including carved bill/head separation, were well sanded, have a primer and finish coat and have simple yet effective paint patterns. Like this decoy up for sale, the Majority of King\'s decoys all had hollowed out cedar \"dugout\" bodies with the body halves also attached using a lead-based glue/caulk and were so well crafted you\'d be hard pressed to find one of his decoys with seam separation that is not perfectly intact. Many of the decoys carved by Liberty Price, also of Manahawkin, very closely resemble those carved by Joe King although while King\'s output stopped or at least dramatically decreased around 1880, Price\'s output is widely accepted to be from c1870 to 1910, around the time of King\'s passing.

Manahawkin was also the home of Joe Tom Cranmer (who carved fantastic black ducks) and his mentees Lou Cranmer of Cedar Run, NJ, who carved in the late 1800\'s and Bill Cranmer of Beach Haven, NJ, who carved in the early to mid 1900\'s. Joe Tom Cranmer\'s decoys were similar in style and construction to the decoys of his neighbor, Samual Bounds, also of Manahawkin. Both of their decoys had a prominently carved tail, unlike the more gentle slope of the decoy\'s of Joe King. Like his mentor Joe Tom, Bill Cranmer made a well-constructed, highly effective working bird and one of his decoys won an award at the 1948 New York Decoy Show. Bill Cranmer\'s later decoys were influenced by the decoys made by Lem and Steve Ward of Crisfield, Maryland.

Joe King quite possibly lived during one of the most prolific eras in waterfowling history. As noted, Joe King is credited as being the maker of the first Jersey styled birds, and to his credit, they were considered so adequately aesthetic and functional that a great many of the subsequent carvers in the region made no dramatic changes to his design, but rather tweaked them with their own ideas like wide, sweeping tails and neat, forward-aimed heads. The final touch to the decoys from the late 1800\'s was the wonderful, yet somewhat simplistic paint jobs that employed using a high quality oil and lead based marine paint which was also a carry over from the local boat building knowledge on what to use to best protect the surface of a boat for the longest period of time possible. The painting techniques and the quality of the paint used was extremely serviceable and the number of decoys that exist today in original paint is a testament to the quality of his finishes.

This Joe King Black Duck encompass all of the great characteristics of the great Jersey Shore carvers and is in excellent condition. The paint is mostly old Gunning repaint but it does have an excellent patina. This decoy is in excellent original condition and is as solid as the day it was made over 140 years ago.

SOUTH JERSEY SHORE MERGANSERS (Like This Joe King Merganser Pair Up For sale): There aren\'t many places in the country where a collector can specialize in merganser decoys from a specific area. An exception to this rule is Southern New Jersey and specifically from Barnegat to Cape May. And of these specifically painted and carved birds, nowhere else can you find the painted wing patterns indicative of the region except on these South Jersey merganser decoys. It is also rare to find an area where mergansers decoys are plentiful because they were carved in such large numbers because they were the intended species to be shot. In many other areas you\'ll find them sporadically, but as confidence decoys, but their sheer numbers here indicate otherwise. In many cases the birds were hunted in the early spring before other species arrived in mass numbers for the market gunners. Also, depending on the economics of a time period and the cyclical abundance of birds, mergansers may of may not have been sought after for their fare as a table bird. When more edible ducks were available mergansers were typically not shot and during hard economic times the price of a shell was a consideration as to the ducks being hunted or shot at. While mergansers or \"fish ducks\" are plentiful in the midwest and other areas, you\'d be hard pressed to find good examples of merganser decoys other than on a hit and miss basis except south Jersey and parts of Maine and Massachusetts.

This Joe King Black Duck decoy up for sale is perfectly symmetrically carved and painted with an awesome fairly high-head, yet reared-back posed head and neck which was quite a typical posture for the area during the late 1800\'s and after the turn of the century, but not quite to the extent of a Joe King decoy (especially the pinching to the neck). The bill is extraordinarily accurately carved and has perfect head/bill separation. The head is as solidly mounted as the day it was made. This decoy is as solid as the day it was made and although I am sure it saw heavy action being gunned over although it has withstood the test of time remarkably. This 140-Year Old Black Duck decoy was life-size carved and measures 17\" long x 5-1/8\" wide x 6-5/8\" tall and weighs a very rig-manageable 1-lbs., 13-oz. A real Black duck in the wild is around 21\" long from bill nib to tail and if you stretched this decoy out it would come to almost exactly 22\"; a pretty good life-sized depiction for this decoy. This decoy is perfectly symmetrical from every carving standpoint and is a testament to the outstanding quality control and prowess as a Master Carver of Mr. Joe King. I can only imagine how neat it would be to see 3 dozen of these decoys riding in tandem over 2 foot waves on Manahawkin Bay with a small flock of very wary black ducks giving it the fifth look and thinking about settling in. This truly important part of decoy making history would make a great addition to any collection of historic duck decoys and shorebirds. If you have any questions or would like any additional photos feel free to email me. Thanks for looking.

The First 9 Photos are of this Excellent old Joe King Black Duck Up for sale Followed by 7 Photos of other Joe king Decoys and a couple other Vintage new Jersey decoys from Joe King mentees!!

 

ABOUT AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS

The American black duck (Anas rubripes) is a large dabbling duck. American black ducks are similar to mallards in size, and resemble the female mallard in coloration, although the black duck\'s plumage is darker. It is native to eastern North America and has shown reduction in numbers and increasing hybridization with the more common mallard as that species has spread with man-made habitat changes.

Description Male\'s beak is yellow Female\'s beak is dull green

American black ducks weigh 720–1,640 g (1.59–3.62 lb), measure 48–63 cm (19–25 in) in length and 88–96 cm (35–38 in) across the wings. Although they are similar to mallards in size and broadly overlap in weight, according to a manual of avian body masses, they have the highest mean body mass in the Anas genus, with 376 males averaging 1.4 kg (3.1 lb) and 176 females averaging 1.1 kg (2.4 lb). The American black duck somewhat resembles the female mallard in coloration, although the black duck\'s plumage is darker. The male and female black duck are generally similar in appearance, but the male\'s bill is yellow while the female\'s is a dull green. The head is slightly lighter brown than the dark brown body, and the speculum are iridescent violet-blue with predominantly black margins. The black duck has orange legs and dark eyes. In flight, the white underwings can be seen in contrast to the dark brown body. The behaviour and voice are the same as for the mallard drake.

Breeding

Their breeding habitat is alkaline marshes, acid bogs, lakes, ponds, rivers, marshes, brackish marshes, and the margins of estuaries and other aquatic environments in northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, across Ontario and Quebec as well as the Atlantic Canadian Provinces, including the Great Lakes, and the Adirondacks in the United States. Female black ducks lay an average of 9 eggs.

Black ducks interbreed regularly and extensively with mallard ducks, to which they are closely related. Some authorities even consider the black duck to be a subspecies of the mallard, not a separate species at all. Mank et al. argue that this is in error as the extent of hybridization alone is not a valid means to delimitate Anas species.

It has been proposed that in the past, black ducks and mallards were formerly separated by habitat preference, with the dark-plumage black ducks having a selective advantage in shaded forest pools in eastern North America, and the lighter plumage mallards in the brighter, more open prairie and plains lakes. In recent times, according to this view, deforestation in the east, and tree planting on the plains, has broken down this habitat separation, leading to the high levels of hybridization now observed. However, rates of past hybridization are unknown in this and most other avian hybrid zones, and it is merely presumed in the case of the American black duck that past rates were lower than those seen today. It should also be pointed out that many avian hybrid zones are known to be stable and longstanding despite the occurrence of extensive interbreeding. American black ducks and local mallards are now very hard to distinguish by means of microsatellite comparisons, even if many specimens are sampled Contrary to this study\'s claims, the question whether the American haplotypes are an original mallard lineage is far from resolved. Their statement, \"[N]orthern black ducks are now no more distinct from mallards than their southern conspecifics\" of course only holds true in regard to the molecular markers tested. As birds indistinguishable according to the set of microsatellite markers still can look different, there are other genetic differences that were simply not tested in the study.

The hybrids cannot be readily distinguished in the field and consequently, much of the species\' hybridization dynamics remains unknown. It has been revealed in captivity studies, however, that the hybrids follow Haldane\'s Rule, with hybrid females often dying before they reach sexual maturity this underscores the case for the American black duck being a distinct species.

This species is partially migrator and many winter in the east-central United States, especially coastal areas; some remain year-round in the Great Lakes region. These birds feed by dabbling in shallow water, and grazing on land. They mainly eat plants, but also some molluscs and aquatic insects. The eggs are a greenish buff color. They lay from 6–14 eggs, and hatch in an average of 30 days.

This duck is a rare vagrant to Great Britain and Ireland, where, over the years, several birds have settled in and bred with the local mallards. The resulting hybrids can present considerable identification difficulties.

 An American black duck (top left) and a male mallard (bottom right) in eclipse plumage. Comparison chart showing difference from female MALLARDStatus

The black duck has long been valued as a game bird, being extremely wary and fast on the wing. Although this is a species of least concern, it is slowly declining due to habitat destruction. Some conservationists consider the hybridization and competition with the mallard an additional source of concern, should this decline continue.The hybridization itself is not the major problem; natural selection will see to it that the best-adapted individuals still have the most offspring. But the reduced viability of female hybrids will cause many broods to fail in the long run as the offspring die before reproducing themselves. While this is not a problem in the plentiful mallard, it will place an additional strain on the American black duck\'s population. Recent research conducted for the Delt Waterfowl Foundation suggests that hybrids are a result of forced copulations, and not a normal pairing choice by black hens.