A few days ago, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Joe Seme. He stumbled upon my decoy site by accident.

I'm always just thrilled when a decoy carver contacts me and this held true when I read Joe's email. He was kind enough to provide me with a detailed history of his career (quite impressive) and agreed to let me post some of his bio here.

First order of business - a link to Joe Seme's Art Web Site where you can find several pieces of his artwork in the form of Originals, Prints, & Giclees. You should check it out. This artist is quite talented.

My own personal collection consists of just two Joe Seme miniatures, both are from a set of 12 that were done by Big Sky Carvers in the 1980's.

If you have any miniatures from this BSC series, please contact me. I would be interested in purchasing them, or at least getting some additional photos posted here.

Ward Brothers Miniature Pintail Drake - Joe Seme

Elmer Crowell Miniature Redhead Drake - Joe Seme

	This Wood Duck Drake is from the same series as the pair above. I do not have this bird, I found these photos on ebay.

From Joe's site:

Joe Seme was born in New Jersey in 1946, but has lived most of his life in North Carolina.  He is a 1968 graduate of Florida State University with a degree in English and a concentration in American literature.  He served in the Marine Corps and owned a nightclub near Sugar Mountain in the early 70's.  Entirely self taught, he began to paint full time in 1973.  After twenty years in the North Carolina mountains, he now lives next to a salt marsh in Wilmington with his wife Deb along with their Chocolate Lab, Nellie, and two pet drake mallards, Quigley and Aflac.

Seme is well known for his major "trompe l'oeil" (fool the eye) realistic still life paintings which  are carefully researched and set up in his studio and may take three or four months to complete.  Many of these pieces utilize old books, decoys, guns and other sporting memorabilia from hunting and fishing, baseball, golf, and equestrian themes, as well as favorite regional antiques, old corkscrews, tin toys, weathervanes, carousel animals and other folk art.  Joe is a consummate packrat and collector of "stuff," which ultimately ends up in paintings.  His studio is like a museum.

From Joe's email in regards to his ducks:

The two miniature decoys of mine that you have (Crowell redhead & Ward pintail) were part of a set of 12 that were done by Big Sky Carvers. Originally, I did a set of 6 miniatures for Abercrombie & Fitch (before they became a teenage clothing store), back when they were a premier dealer in outdoor gear and sporting art. This was in the early 1980's.

Prior to that, in 1980, I did a set of 18 classic decoys in miniature for the Hamilton Mint and they were sold by subscription. I traveled around the country to museums and homes of decoy collector friends (including the Shelbourne Museum and well known collectors whom I knew, like Dr. George Ross Starr, Alan & Elaine Haid, Ted Harmon & others). I chose the very best & classic decoys by the greatest old time makers, from about 15 regions of the country. I copied the originals (in a little bit larger scale than the two that you have) and showed the artists at the Hamilton Mint how to paint & antique them. These included a Lee Dudley ruddy, Crowell sleeping black duck, Lincoln woodie, Keyes Chadwick merganser, Ward Bros. canvasback, Shang Wheeler bluebill, Wm. Bowman redhead, Tom Chambers canvasback, Ira Hudson black duck, Nathan Cobb bufflehead, Charles Perdew mallard, Charles Walker pintail, Gus Wilson eider, Harry Shourds redhead, John 'Daddy' Holly canvasback, John Williams ruddy, Ben Schmidt wigeon, and a John Blair pintail. (Many of the actual working decoys that I copied from have been sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last few years.)

Hamilton Mint planned to sell around 10,000 of each mini, and pay me around 30 cents each. I was pretty excited about it. After about 3 months, the Hamilton Mint had a corporate shake-up and the new guy in charge hated hunting (and anything connected to it) and the project was effectively killed, but under the threat of a lawsuit, Hamilton had to continue the project in a limited manner. Long story short, by the time the 18th decoy was released, there were about 100 subscribers left and the project died.

Back to Abercrombie & Fitch. I am a professional artist and A&F used to buy a lot of prints and originals from me to sell in their stores around the country. During a visit to my studio by the two buyers, they happened to notice a bunch of the Hamilton prototypes that I had painted & antiqued myself. I told them what had happened and I saw a "look" pass between them. It was almost like they were thinking the same thoughts. One of them asked if I would consider doing a ptroject for them along the same lines: 6 miniatures of my choosing; 500 of each (limited edition) but here's the catch: ALL PAINTED, ANTIQUED & SIGNED by ME; 3,000 ducks to be sold at $100 each; $50 each to me, but I had to pay $6 each for the castings. So after the first order which netted me about $12,000, I went ahead and bought 2800 castings. I sold Abercrombie about 100 more decoys and then they went bankrupt.

The 6 ducks I carved for A&F were based on actual working decoys. These included the Crowell redhead, Ward pintail, Joe Lincoln wood duck, Ira Hudson black duck, Charles Walker mallard and Lee Dudley canvasback. (The Ward and the Dudley were based on actual working decoys in my collection.)

The project stayed dead for years until Marc Pierce and I became friends and Big Sky Carvers resurrected it, but in a different way. The decoys were cast and painted in the Far East somewhere with a decal on the bottom. Big Sky sold a bunch of them to Ducks Unlimited, thus the duck head logo on the decal. These sold for about $10 each. At some point they expanded the set to 12 and sold them in shadow boxes at DU functions. That project is now dead also.

I still have quite a few Hamilton prototypes which I occasionally sell, as well as a few A&F prototypes. If you're interested in adding any of these to your collection, let me know. I also made my own hunting decoys which I sell and will make to order, as well as a few nice classic acrtual size reproductions like Dudleys, Hudsons, etc., as well as classic shorebired, both full size and miniatures. I'll send you some photos if you're interested.

- End of quote

I have received several emails in the past from folks asking me what their Joe Seme decoys are worth. I'm not in the appraisal business, however, I always respond with my best guess based on my experience and from what I have seen his pieces sell for on sites like ebay and Ioffer.

Thankfully, Joe provided me with a basic breakdown of what his decoys are worth, depending on the series and whether they are composites or original handcarvings.

From another email:

"As far as people asking you to appraise my decoys: If it has a DECAL on it, it's worth $9.95! If it's a CASTING and is signed by me in black Sharpie or signed and numbered by me in black Sharpie, it's worth anywhere between $75 and $100. If it's a WOOD miniature, signed by me, it's worth at least $300."