With a shotgun under his arm and a phone in his hand, a man obsessed with classic Red Wing pottery paused his pheasant hunt and bought a 30-gallon crock for $32,000.
It was Jan. 10 and at an auction in Nebraska, the man on the phone outbid everyone, including a man standing at the back of the room who continued bidding until it hit $19,000. Then all that were left were the heavy hitters calling in.
“We had three people on cell phones calling in bids, one from Iowa, one from Kansas, and I think one from either Arizona or Texas. … the guy in Kansas won out on it,” remembered Ken Bramer, the auctioneer.
“Passion. We refer to them as passionate collectors,” explained Red Wing expert Larry Peterson, who has done business with the unnamed Kansas buyer. He apparently went back to hunting pheasant after making the purchase.
“This is a unique piece. It’s 30 gallons, which makes it extremely rare,” explained Peterson. "It’s got stenciling on the side, which is not common at all.”
“Some people think there’s four of them out there. I know of a damaged one. There’s probably four or five of them out there in the world,” continued Peterson.
For much of its life, this crock dwelled in obscurity. It was an exceptionally heavy afterthought, left in the shed or out on the porch or by the grill. It took two adults to move it.
No one could see it was a sleeper gold mine accruing value year by year.
It was shaped by clay pulled from the earth around Red Wing, Minnesota, and fired in a massive kiln sometime in the late 1800s.
Think of the crock as the tricked-out Yeti cooler of its day. It was used to store everything from pork to pickles, butter to biscuits, down in the cellar where its fired clay walls grew as cold as the cellar floor. This imbues it with the power of refrigeration.
Much later in life, it would store propane.
This rare antique crock comes with butterfly art and deep roots in Red Wing, Minnesota, southeast of Minneapolis on the Mississippi River. It sold for $32,000 on Jan. 10, just in time for its owner’s 91st birthday, auctioneer Ken Bramer told Cowboy State Daily. Lois Jurgens said when she heard the selling price, it felt like she was in a dream. (Courtesy Ken Bramer) 
This rare antique crock comes with butterfly art and deep roots in Red Wing, Minnesota, southeast of Minneapolis on the Mississippi River. It sold for $32,000 on Jan. 10, just in time for its owner’s 91st birthday, auctioneer Ken Bramer told Cowboy State Daily. Lois Jurgens said when she heard the selling price, it felt like she was in a dream. (Courtesy Ken Bramer) 
This rare antique crock comes with butterfly art and deep roots in Red Wing, Minnesota, southeast of Minneapolis on the Mississippi River. It sold for $32,000 on Jan. 10, just in time for its owner’s 91st birthday, auctioneer Ken Bramer told Cowboy State Daily. Lois Jurgens said when she heard the selling price, it felt like she was in a dream. (Courtesy Ken Bramer) 
This rare antique crock comes with butterfly art and deep roots in Red Wing, Minnesota, southeast of Minneapolis on the Mississippi River. It sold for $32,000 on Jan. 10, just in time for its owner’s 91st birthday, auctioneer Ken Bramer told Cowboy State Daily. Lois Jurgens said when she heard the selling price, it felt like she was in a dream. (Courtesy Ken Bramer) 
This rare antique crock comes with butterfly art and deep roots in Red Wing, Minnesota, southeast of Minneapolis on the Mississippi River. It sold for $32,000 on Jan. 10, just in time for its owner’s 91st birthday, auctioneer Ken Bramer told Cowboy State Daily. Lois Jurgens said when she heard the selling price, it felt like she was in a dream. (Courtesy Ken Bramer)
Crock Life
Lois Jurgens never paid much attention to the hulking stoneware crock sitting on her back porch in Holdrege, Nebraska.
Her late husband Dick had moved it from the family shed years ago when they built their home in this south-central Nebraska town of around 5,000 people. She asked him to put a board on top so she could use it as a table next to the grill.
“Dick did the grilling, so that’s what he used to put the tools,” Jurgens told Cowboy State Daily, describing how she stashed extra fuel tanks inside.
That was about the extent of her relationship with the massive vessel that had weathered decades of indifference from Jurgens.
Last summer, she considered putting it in a garage sale for $20. Her son thought about hauling it to a community sale, but it was too heavy to lift.
“It just stayed on the porch,” Jurgens said.
Birthday Surprise
On Jan. 10, auctioneer Ken Bramer stood before nearly 300 people at the Phelps County 4-H building and dropped his gavel at $32,000 for the weathered piece of pottery.
It was Jurgens’ 91st birthday.
She wasn’t there to hear it but instead volunteering at a funeral at her church that morning.
When she arrived later that afternoon, Bramer spotted her in the crowd and stopped the auction.
“Lois, could you come up to the front?” he called out.
He told the crowd this was the lady who owned the crock. Then he asked her what she thought it brought.
“Well, I hope you got $100,” she told him.
“We did just a little bit better,” Bramer replied. “We got $32,000.”
Bramer’s wife and son grabbed hold of her as she went weak in the knees. They walked her to the stage and sat her down beside the crock for a photograph.
Rare Find
Before the auction, Bramer called Peterson, the Red Wing expert. He’s co-authored three books on the subject and has operated a shop in Red Wing for 30 years.
Peterson explained what made it special: It’s unusually large size, and it bore a double stamp reading “Red Wing, Minnesota,” which is uncommon.
Plus, the crock featured a hand-painted cobalt butterfly design applied by craftspeople who worked like cake decorators, dripping blue pigment onto the clay before firing it in a kiln at 2,200 degrees.
“It’s size, it’s rareness, it’s beauty, and it’s got the double markings on it,” Peterson said.
In its heyday, the Red Wing Stoneware Company was shipping pottery like this across America by rail.
The company operated from 1877 to 1967, producing everything from salt-glazed crocks to dinnerware.
The glaciers that carved Minnesota left behind some of the finest stoneware clay in the country, said Peterson, just 10 to 15 minutes from Red Wing. The railroad system carried the pottery to small towns across the nation — including Nebraska.
Pioneer Refrigerator
“When they butchered a hog, they would put the meat in those, and then they’d render the lard and pour it all the way over it, so it covered it completely up,” Bramer told Cowboy State Daily.
Families would scoop out the lard, grab a piece of meat, and head upstairs to cook dinner.
Others made sauerkraut, pickles, or wine in the vessels. Peterson described how families would layer sand with vegetables like carrots and potatoes to preserve them through winter.
Bidding War
The week before the auction, Bramer’s phone exploded with calls and texts after his daughter posted photos on social media.
One collector called midweek offering $10,000 cash to pick it up immediately.
“I can’t do that,” Bramer told him. The piece was already advertised. It wouldn’t be fair to Jurgens.
On auction day, Bramer started the bidding at $1,000, knowing what he had. By $10,000, people started dropping out.
By then, 80 to 90 percent of the crowd was standing, phones raised, recording video, remembered Bramer.
The last similar piece to sell went for $12,750 in 2012, said Bramer, while Peterson remembered another that went for twice that.
Small-Town Fame
Jurgens now finds herself recognized around Holdrege.
“I can’t even turn my back so that people don’t notice when I’m in some place eating,” she said. “My daughter says, ‘Mom, they’re all pointing this direction.’ I know the conversation is going on.”
She doesn’t have a computer, so her daughter tracks the social media attention for her.
“I just shake my head and can’t figure it out,” Jurgens said.
She describes herself as “just a typical woman” who “just has stuff.” She has no other hidden treasures waiting to be discovered, she said.
The crock’s journey from porch table to auction stage still feels unreal.
“I keep wondering if I’ll wake up from my dream,” she said.
For Jurgens, the windfall arrived at a contemplative moment in her life. At 91, with failing hearing and eyesight, she wanted to spare her children the burden of dealing with the heavy piece after she was gone.
“I thought, well, I better get rid of it,” she said.
Back in Red Wing, Peterson said pottery’s legacy continues to inspire a growing cadre of collectors and fans.
“We have a Red Wing Collectors Society, which is getting close to its 50th anniversary, which is really a great group to promote Red Wing,” gushed Peterson. “I’ve been involved with the Pottery Museum of Red Wing.”
He described his vision for the museum. “We are working to redo the main kiln," he said. "The kiln was 100-feet long, and it’s the largest pottery kiln in the world at the time it was made.”
Peterson said the key ingredient to it all remains in abundance.
“I want to open up a clay pit so potters can dig their clay," he said. "There’s a lot of potters today that want to use their clay to work with.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
