Brad Keeler Ceramic Birds

A Site for Brad Keeler Bird Collectors
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Production Eras
I have identified (at least in my mind) about three different eras or stages of Keeler bird production. Many of his birds were produced in all three different eras with no changes visible.
His earliest stage was when he was producing in his garage, these can be identified by the signature "Bradster". He then moved into his first factory and signed the pieces "Brad Keeler" incised in the bottom. The third and last era was production from his second factory and after his death, I believe this is when a lot of his pieces became smaller, simpler, and had ink stamps rather than hand incised signatures.
Descriptions and Markings
There are three basic methods of marking I have found to date. The most common is an incised mark, usually consisting of his name and then below that a lower case "no" and a number. Many of these markings are difficult to almost impossible to read due to heavy glaze fill in.
The second most common is an ink stamp on the bottom of a piece, this is usually just a name and number. The third type of making is a foil label. The foil label is black and gold and reads "Brad Keeler Artwares". Pieces with the foil labels are also marked in one of the other two ways.
General Observations
Although I use the following observations as guidelines for myself I cannot guarantee they are 100% correct. They are simply rules I go by as a dedicated collector.

If a piece isn't marked it is not a Brad Keeler bird. I have yet in all my years collecting found a bird without a mark that I can attribute to Brad Keeler. There are some that the glaze is so heavy it obscures the incised mark, but the mark is always there.

You will find "double" birds that are nothing more than two individual production birds with the bases molded together.



My interest in Brad Keeler birds started many years ago when I was trying to educate myself on California Pottery. While I studied many of the more common "collectible" potteries I quickly came to realize that out of the thousands of production ceramic birds made there was only a handful of Artists that had consistently made top quality pieces.
 
 I quickly came to realize that although there were some common Keeler pieces available the bulk of his production line of birds were very hard to find and to this day there are some numbers in the production run that I have not found.
 
Anyone interested in Brad Keeler realizes he died young and only produced for a short span of around 10 years. This may have attributed somewhat to the scarcity of some pieces but in reality the whole California Pottery movement did not last that much longer than his production years. I think some of the scarcity was due to the high quality/high cost (compared to other cheaper potteries at the time) and the delicacy of a lot of his pieces.


Rarity and Pricing.
There are some of the Brad Keeler birds that are not hard to find and can still be purchased around the $20.00 range. There are also some Brad Keeler birds that are very rare, I have seen a few bring upwards of $500.00 in E-bay auctions.

Cross collecting - or more than one collectible group interested in a piece, i.e flamingo or duck collectors competing with Keeler or California Pottery collectors. This phenomenon has resulted in many Keeler birds becoming harder to find and priced higher than the bird itself would demand. 

Recent Antique phase - many years ago before the "Antiques Roadshow", "Ebay"  and other shows that drove everyone to think they were antique dealers Keeler birds were still hard to find but were reasonably priced. Do not get drawn up into some of the crazy high pricing, a lot of people who see the quality of these birds will price them without even knowing which are common and which are the rare pieces to find. Buyer beware!, some pieces are worth the high prices, other pieces are not.