January 27, 1999
Lure for Stein is research on duck decoys
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Say 'duck' to Ken Stein and he won't hit the floor. He may reach for his wallet, though.
The Garfield Township resident is an avid collector of duck decoys, amassing an assortment of them numbering in the hundreds during his four decades of collecting.
"I started collecting decoys at 16 or 17 when my neighbor who owned a fur farm on McRae Hill Road gave me some balsawood mallard decoys," said Stein, a Traverse City native who owns Stein Motors in Blair Township.
"I collected coins as a kid and as I got older I wanted to collect something else no one else was doing. If you grew up in northern Michigan you did fishing and hunting but I had never seen a decoy before."
Stein was hooked and for years thought he had found a unique vocation. Then he slowly began meeting other decoy collectors in the region and going to collector shows after he married his wife, Mary. Since then the hobby of sports collectibles has exploded in popularity and there are books, magazines, websites and shows devoted to decoys.
He has been winnowing his collection, which peaked at 500, down to a favored few dozen in the past ten years, favoring quality over quantity. But that does not stop people from dropping off decoys at his office, which sports a small portion of his collection, or sending him them in the mail. He has two or three boxes overflowing with decoys he is willing to trade, sometimes trading 20 or 40 decoys for one in great condition.
"People find them at garage sales, in attics or wherever and bring them to me," said Stein. "Each day someone comes by or calls to talk about decoys."
Stein also advertises locally to find decoys and he often appraises finds for other people. He advises people not to throw away grandpa's old tackle box or decoys, these items may be valuable.
"The ad is for awareness," he said. "People call me up and say, "Dear old Dad died and Mom didn't like his duckhunting because whenever he went he got drunk so she wants to throw away his decoys.'"
Part of the lure of decoy collecting for Stein is doing the research on products and manufacturers and what types of duck decoys were used where and when. Decoys are something of a folk art native to the United States; they are not found in Europe. The oldest known decoys are 3,000 years old and were found in caves in Nevada.
Most that are available for collecting now were mass produced between 1880 and 1920 and Michigan had many decoy factories. Stein's area of specialty are manufactured decoys, especially those that have never been used or have their original paint. Finding an original decoy that has not been painted over is a rarity, but that is where the value lies.
The reason they are rare is that they were used, year after year, generation after generation to attract ducks. Hunters would usually put out a dozen or so of the same type in the area they chose to hunt in, perhaps strung together and labeled with the hunter's name. Every season before the duck season opened most hunters brought them out early and painted them. Hunters often owned dozens of decoys, different types of ducks for different areas or times of the season.
"It is a natural thing to go through before duck hunting," said Stein, who has used various decoys in his collection to hunt over the years. "Come August, you get the boat out, dust it off and get the decoys out, paint them and check the line weights."