BONUS: TREASURES AWAIT- INTO THE VAULT 2025!

Episode Transcript
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VO (01:41):
Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back
to the Ducks Unlimited podcast.I'm your host, doctor Mike
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Jerad Henson (02:46):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ducks Unlimited
podcast. I'm doctor JaredHenson. I'm a be your host
today. We got a cool episode foryou today.
I've got a couple guys from ourevents team. I've got David
Schuessler, our chief eventsofficer, and I've got Jimbo
Robinson with me, our managingdirector of events. And they're
gonna be talking to us a littlebit about Into the Vault. So,
Jimbo, David, thanks for beinghere.

Jimbo Robinson (03:06):
Absolutely.

David Schuessler (03:07):
Thrilled to be here.

It's a fun time of the year to be discussing the
Into the Vault. I feel like it'son the edge of of hunting season
for us in the South, and it'sexciting.

Exactly like we planned it, Jimbo. Mhmm.

Everybody's getting excited. I'm excited.

I'm excited every year for end of the vault.
It's like Christmas day.

It's a bunch of really cool stuff.

See, I'm gonna go back to the analogy I used on
another one. It's like when youget the magazine Yeah. From your
favorite hunting store. You'vebeen anticipating it. You've
been building it up.
They've been building it up, andthen it's unveiled. You get to
flip through, find the newstuff, find the things you want
for Christmas Right. Find thosethose news, but also the olds
that you didn't have that cameout years before. That's how I I

(03:51):
think of Into The Vault for formost of our buyers or auction
people or anybody that's lookingthrough it. They get to sit down
from, you know, fresh fromscratch every year and look
through over a thousand itemsthat is in Into the Vault this
year.

Yeah. A lot of a lot of scrolling this year.
Oh, yeah. Take a while to seeeverything in this sale.

Well, that sounds awesome. Can y'all give me a
little bit of a backstory onInto the Vault? I've I've seen
it. I've been through it, lookedat it, but it originated in
COVID. Is that right?

Yep. It it was in 2020, so this will be our
sixth sale, And literally, ourCEO, Adam Putnam, and I were
breaking the law. We came intothe building when we weren't
supposed to be here. We weretrying to figure out what we
were gonna do to move somemerchandise because we couldn't

(04:40):
be in event halls. It wasillegal to hold an event across
this country.
And he looked up at we were outin the warehouse, and he looked
up at the top racks on oneaisle. He said, what is all of
that stuff up there? And I said,well, those are items that have
been donated back to theorganization from supporters,
and we just haven't gottenaround to figuring out what

(05:01):
we're gonna do with them yet.And he looked at me. He said,
sell them.
Fortunately, because of COVIDand with people like Jimbo and
others leading us into thisonline auction world, we had a
way to move them. We came upwith the end of the vault
because, literally, some of thestuff came out of our vault that
we sold that first year, and weput 400 items online and could

(05:26):
have never imagined the responsefrom our supporters. It it just
the uniqueness of looking at theold items, stuff that you might
wanted to have bought when youwere 22 and you couldn't afford
it, and now you're 40 and youcan't afford it. And so it's
fun, and and it's grown amongstour chapters out there. Not only

(05:48):
are these items that come intoheadquarters that are donated
from families of aging parentsor deceased parents.
It's also those items that aredonated to local chapters who
send them to us, and it works asa consignment sale for our 2,400

(06:08):
chapters across the country.

That's awesome. And it looks like it has grown
quite a bit since then. Y'allsaid a thousand items this year,
and you started with 400, so

Well, it started as, you know, yes, and the
growth is is due to the backboneof this organization, and that's
our volunteers. Our volunteershave truly bought into the
opportunity to sell their someof their collectibles, not only
their collectibles, butcollectibles they know in in the
local community. And so as thesepeople are are passing away,

(06:38):
unfortunately, they're givingthe opportunity to send them
into headquarters, and we'llsell them to the masses instead
of on a local on a local level,which, you know, there's certain
things, decoys and originalsthat, yes, it it could sell at a
local event, but it wouldn'tbring the profit that it does in
the end of the vault sale. Andso that's the genesis of it is,

(06:59):
yes, at first, we sold thingsthat we had been collecting over
the years, and some of thesethings, you you have to hold for
three years because of taxpurposes, blah, blah, blah, so
we held a lot of those, but nowit's turned into opportunities
for chapters to receive creditfor the sale of these items, and
the volunteers have jumped allon board and they know a great
place to sell it.

And that's awesome because there are certain items
that do really well in certainparts of the country and very
poorly in others.

That's exactly right.

Like, being from Arkansas Mid South, decoys do
not do well in the Mid South fora lot of cases like they would
on East Coast.

But duck calls would.

But duck calls. Exactly. Duck calls do really
well in

that And that area. So duck calls type

thing, as you know.

Oh, yeah. We talked to Spence the other day,
and and and one of the things Isaid that we haven't stumbled on
yet, or that hasn't come in isat some point I believe there's
going to be a really nice duckcall collection come in. And I
agree with some of the thingsthat David kind of thinks, asked
kind of just threw the questionout, why do we think that we
haven't received that big duckcall collection yet? And it's I

(08:04):
think people those are easy tostore. Yeah.
You can hide those in a shoebox.So when you're passing those
things down, that's somethingthat is easy to put up on a
mantle or put up somewherethat's kind of out of place.
Decoys are not. Yeah. My dad hadshoebox.
Exactly.

I was digging through it the other day, I was
like, dad, did you know you haveI had two or three Wheaties
calls and some stuff like that.Was like, man.

Right now, we're experiencing the largest
transfer of wealth in thehistory of our country, and
that's from the boomergeneration down to either Gen X
or grandchildren, that's thenext. And that generation
collected.

They did.

The greatest generation did not collect For
much of their lives, they didn'thave money to collect or they
were fighting world wars. Theboomer generation collected, and
so as they downsize into smallerhomes or go into assisted living
facilities, so much of whatcomes in are their offspring or
their attorneys or whoever itmay be contacting us saying the

(09:01):
family has kept what they'vewanted. They want to donate the
rest to Ducks Unlimited. Andsometimes it's shocking what the
family does not want to keep. Imean, we've had $20,000 decoys
come in.

Right.

We've had original art, and we've some
we've had glass walls come in.That's right.

I'm not lying. That's right. There's a guy that
wants to donate glass walls fromhis office.

Beautiful. Beautiful. They etched.

That's Glass walls.

I don't know where we are in that process.

We need to we need to go get them. Well, there's
there's a lot of things thatwe're happy to take. There's
some things we can't. We talkeda little bit before we jumped on
about a little bit of this. Ihad someone reach out to me
about donating a grizzly bear tous, a full life size taxidermy
grizzly bear.
That's not something that wegenerally are gonna do. We can't
take in waterfowl taxidermy.Right. Right? That's a Lacey Act

(09:52):
violation.

We can't sell it.

We can't resell it.

We can't resell it. Could take it, and we
do have people that they'll justcome in Yeah. To the front desk
and say, hey. I've got thesefour mounts. I don't want them
anymore, and okay.

But we have a swan. We have a swan that

was donated. That's right.

I think I saw the

But you can't resell migratory Yes. A grizzly
bear, I don't know. Would I'venever had somebody offer a
grizzly bear.

I haven't looked into the the law It's as big as
this round table desk and aboutfive foot five, six foot tall on

a big mouth. There's opening corners in this
office that would be fun to putin.

But it would be very difficult even if if we
could legally sell that.

Logistically getting it to

a you store. Imagine putting that on the back
of a flatbed and driving it fromwherever Wisconsin or wherever
this thing is to Memphis?

It's in Little Rock. It'd be riding down 40.

That would be awesome. I would wanna be

in the car. So well, you've got a lot of
really, really cool stuff, and Idon't I I would love to try and
jump through a few of these.Some of these items jumped out
at me immediately, like, thiswould be a really cool thing. So
do y'all mind taking us throughsome of the stuff?

Oh, yeah. This is our favorite part.

Every year is different. Yeah. This year, I
believe the 2025 end of thevault, end of the vault six will
be remembered as the year of thefirearms. And some years, we
might have 20 firearms in thefirearms section. Some years, we
might have 60 in there.
This year, we have over a 140,and we are blessed with a vast

(11:31):
array of our shotguns of theyear. There's been 52 shotguns
of the year. That programstarted in 1973. We have forty
three years represented 43 ofthem. Yeah.
In the sale, including one ofthe hardest to find, which is
the 1974 Remington eightseventy. Hard to it's hard to
find. If you're a collector ofDucks Unlimited firearms, it's

(11:54):
hard to find because there wereonly 600 of them made. It's also
hard to find because in 1974 itwas the second year the gun of
the year program really wasn'tto the extent that it would
become, and being an eightseventy, I'm sure a lot of those
things were bought one night.They were bought on a Thursday
night.
Saturday morning, were in theduck blind.

That's it. That's one of the most dependable guns
ever made.

That's right. So people wanna collect the new
in box ones, and this one is newin box other than the one we
have in our collection up frontof the building behind glass.
This is the first one I've everheld.

Really?

Mhmm. And I've been working for DU for twenty
six years. So

That's awesome. So Yeah. Be looking for that.

It's been yeah. I mean, it's been one that we've
been not hoping or but it's beenone of our our it's kinda hard
to say a bucket list, but it'sbeen a bucket list item that we
would love to have sell in theauction, and and I think that,
you know, kudos to to whoeverdecided to part with this one,
but a new one like that. There'sonly 500. So you think about

(12:54):
this. There's only 500 of themmade.

600.

600.

500. 500 the

first year.

You're right.

600. Six hundred second year.

Yeah. So 600 of them made, and you gotta think
at how many events we have nowcompared to then and and how
many people actually shot itthen. To have we know of four
that are new in box. Mhmm.There's you know, that we know
of the collection of firearms,of complete collections.
There's three completecollections by one person, and
and David will talk about thatin a little while, but so you

(13:22):
that we know of four out of 600.That's there's just not a lot
out there. Right? And so to haveone this year is special.

Interesting about the '74 and the '73 is you
go online and you'll research1974 Ducks Unlimited gun of the
year or the '73, and you'll findwhere a bunch of them have sold.
And you're gonna go, Jimbo andDavid, they're pulling my leg.
No. We're not. Here's the thing.
In those years, Remingtonthey'll the first year was a

(13:51):
Remington 1,100. Second year wasRemington eight seventy. In
those years, Remingtonreplicated what they sent DU and
sold it at retail, but it haddifferent serial numbers.

That's

it. So to truly be considered a DU gun of
the year, even though they'rethe exact same firearm, there's
different serial numbering onthe five hundred and six hundred
respective respectfully thatwere sold through our events.
And this serial number of thisone is DU 18. Yeah. So it's it's

(14:23):
a d u and then a and then athree digit number on both of
them signifies that it wasshipped to D U and then used
inside of the events.
There are thousands of thereplicas, but we don't DU does
not recognize those as the gunof the year. Right. It has to
have that DU special serialnumber.

There's also a bunch of seventies that have
matching serial numbers, whichare really hard to find. Yeah.
But back in those times, certainchapters kinda you know how this
whole industry is relationshipbuilding. Right? And so certain
chapters would request certainserial numbers based on their
chapter number.
Is that right? I'm I'm trying tothink about

Yeah. Well, we we we had so few chapters in the
early seventies when you're onlysending out 500 guns.

It was easier to do.

It's like, okay. Well, the Peoria, Illinois
chapter gets number 78 everyyear.

Right. So people would get those same serial
numbers every year in their gunof the years. Now today, we
couldn't do that. It be anightmare, but so having
matching serial numbers ispretty is pretty awesome, and
there's a couple sets that havematching serial numbers. And it
looks like,

just based on the notes here, so it's, like, '77
through '79, all matching?

A '70 we have a '78 and '79 gun of the year
that has matching serialnumbers, but we have 74, 75, 77,
78, and 79 that are individualGun

of the year.

Gun of the year. Yes. Right. And I've never
I've never seen that Thatbefore. Like, that's incredible.
It's it's like opening thecatalog, Jimbo.

It is. It is. It's Christmas. It's like Christmas
catalog coming in.

Obviously, the most popular one continues to be
the 87 Gun of the Year fiftiethanniversary Browning a five.
Yeah. That's a a and theeightieth, and so the fiftieth

(16:24):
is one that seems to be, youknow, the one that they want to
complete that anniversarycollection. And if you're an

a five collector, there's a there's a pretty slick
one down there. There's aBelgian made. A Belgian

from 1948. 1948, so not all the firearms
are DU firearms. Right. And that'forty eight Belgian made A5 is
a great example. It is not newin box.
I believe the condition isexcellent, good or excellent on
But here's one that came in froman estate, and firearms other
than just the DU firearms camein. Of course, you know, when

(16:58):
everybody has an old browning,the first thing they do is go to
the barrel and see where it wasmade. Well, this one's stamped
Belgium. That's awesome. Sothat's really cool.

Yeah. And there's a there's a lot of people out
there that really look for thoseparticular guns, so that's a
that's a good one to have andand and that '48 is a is an
early I mean, that's

That's right. Yeah.

That's It is. I think I've got I've got one, but
he's like, '61, I think.

Yep. That's that's early in that postwar
once once the manufacturing hadgone back to Belgium.

Right.

We have the most expensive gun we've ever
put in the vault, an Holland andHolland 400.

I got to hold it yesterday.

Smooth, isn't it? It's heavy.

I bet

it'd Well, it's

a 400. I I was

impressed. Really? Yes.

Well, you hold it and you understand why that H
and H, you know, the mystique ofit Yep. Of the European
craftsmanship, but it's reallywhen you when you ratchet that
bolt back, it doesn't feel likemy model 700. No.

It's smooth. Yeah. It's

it's different. No. There's nothing
wrong with my model 700. Nope.I've shot a lot of deer with

it.

And the balance.

Yes. It's it's a work of art.

Yeah. And it was graded at 90%, you know,
whatever that means. That's avery high grade on a on a gun
that expensive. Right.

Yeah. So, you know, it's

a Is it

a used gun? I mean, has it been used and
fired? Is it or is it a newer

I believe it has been fired a few times. And
and the donor said, okay, I'mdone.

Gotcha. Right. That makes sense.

I'm sure it was bought by somebody then took it
to to Africa and hunted with itone time.

Yeah. And then they're done. It's it's been
appraised. It did come in withan appraisal and tax
implications. It's a $40,000Wow.
Firearm. And that and that'swhat the opening bid is. Yep.
And I'm daring anybody out therewho needs a elephant gun, go
ahead and bid.

Come on and get it.

We might drive it to you. We might have a trunk
full of presents if you buy thatof other presents if you buy
that $40,000 firearm, but wehave to try it somewhere.

Right. Well, and I mean, you're not gonna get the
opportunity to buy cheaperelsewhere.

No, you won't.

Right. That's the thing.

So Or if you're gonna find one.

That's

it. Or support Ducks Unlimited in the in in the
purchase of it.

That's a big thing too. Right? Yeah. All of these
all the profits go into Habitatwork, into to our mission.
Right?

Just like every just like every event we
do, this

That's it.

When I say it's a consignment sale for our
chapters, those are donateditems that are coming from from
our chapters.

And those those that money that the event system
raises, that's that's the breadand butter. That's what keeps
our our wheels spinning.

Yeah. It can be used on the prairies. It can
be used on the Gulf Coast,Central Valley, Chesapeake Bay.
But it's the money

we use to leverage.

And we leverage without it.

Yeah. We can't leverage.

It's the greenest dollar. I've heard Adam
Putnam say that and others saythat, it is the greenest dollar
we make.

All of the work we do, we get a ton of public
funding, but that all requiresmatch. You can't do it without
that match money, and this isthat match or wherever else it's
needed. So I saw one other gunon here, and I know that there
are some some Bonelli folks outthere that are always looking
for H and K or SBE one.

Yeah. Jimbo Jimbo doesn't wanna promote this
one. Don't know.

I'm not gonna talk about this one. So

last year, very, very late, very late in
the preparation for last year'ssale, Jimbo Jimbo and I were in
a meeting, and we have dedicatedstaff. All they do every day of
the year is get ready for thissale. And they are not maybe as
versed in shotgun history asJimbo and I are. And she said,

(20:47):
well, we just had a firearm comein. I'd like to show it to you.
She brought it up to themeeting, and our eyes got real
big, she opened the box, andthere was a there was a DU
edition SBE one from the latenineties, which is all black,
synthetic. Mhmm. That's when Iwas a regional director for the
organization. I remember thosefirearms well. There was a very

(21:08):
small allotment.
It was hard to get an SBE atyour local gun store. Many
people were going to DU eventsto buy this new revolutionary
Yeah. Automatic shotgun that wasrewriting how we, you know,
hunted ducks. So we were blownaway. It did very well in the
auction last year.

(21:28):
There was a volunteer out ofWisconsin that watched it
Really? And said, I have onejust like it, and I'm gonna send
it to y'all and put it in thesale. We have we have another
one. Okay. It did so well.
We started a conversation withBenelli over the summer about,
hey, could we

Bring something back.

Could we bring something back maybe as a for
our ninetieth anniversary? Itwas a it was a great discussion
until they took a look at themolds and said it's not
possible.

Really?

So there there will be no SVE ones. Like, this
is it. Like, you're not don'twait. They're not coming. Nope.
So this is an opportunity if youdidn't get one in the late
nineties or if you want thatpiece of history.

And this is a black synthetic?

Black on black synthetic. I love it because it
has the most basic DucksUnlimited stamp on it Mhmm. That
you've ever seen.

The barrel's bent a little bit. It shoots way
left and That's what all Benellido. Right? Scratched, you know.
I don't think it's no.
This one's this one's flawless.Really? If you're a Benelli guy,
like, it's I saw it last year,it just it brought back so many
memories of my my father andThat's you know, him shooting,
and he still shoots an SB oneleft handed.

Really? Mhmm. Well, I was I was thinking when
I saw this item, so my dad andmy grandfather both had the
walnut.

Mhmm. Well, that's what you got in stores.

Right? No. There's a DU. They have the DU in the in
the in the pistol in the bottomof the the grip. Yep.

Those are the ones

who wanna donate them to

the vault? H and Ks.

Oh, they're H and Ks.

They were custom. So but they have DU logos on
them, and they bought them at DUevents in the nineties Just like
you were talking about, like,they wanted that revolutionary
gun, that was where they couldget it, and they paid they paid
for them. But, man, that was acool gun.

Thinking back to it, much in how, you know,
like, some of these and I'm nota huge bourbon guy, but, you
know, you hear about, you know,bottles of Pappy are sold before
they ever hit the shelf. That'swhat was going on with Super
Black Eagles.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But at a DU event, everybody got a chance.
And as a regional director, Ithink I had five a year to
spread out amongst 42 chapters.Oh, wow. So there were five
chapters that that earned theright to put that gun on their
live auction, and I would getphone calls in my office saying,
hey, the Sanford, North Carolinaevents tonight, is the SBE gonna

(23:52):
be there? Yeah.
No. Okay. Well, where is itgonna be? And and that's they
would come, wait for theauction, hope that they were
going to bid. If they couldn't,you would watch them walk out

the back of the door.

They were there for that fight.

That gun. Yeah. Yep.

So Yeah. So I'm glad we've spent this much time
talking about it because, youknow, last year, I think I made
it about fifty minutes in thesale of that one. I've had one
bid on it, and it was out of myprice range quickly.

I'm not the

only one that's in love with it.

VO (24:29):
Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast sponsored by
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But there's more than just firearms.

There are. That's what yeah.

We are blessed with some fantastic original art
this year. Every year we havesome, what I like to refer to as
no name original art.

Right.

And and that's the original art I can afford to
collect. But we have some bignames this year. We have a Ralph
McDonald, which back in thenineties, 2 thousands was a
mainstay inside of our eventsystem doing the youth based
images. Mhmm. This actually is aa black lab retrieving a candida

(27:03):
in a cornfield.
No youth in So it's really cool.It is. Yep. It's a McDonald
without that that trademarkedlittle boy or little girl in it.
We have an Art Lemay artist whois still painting out of
Florida.
Everybody if you you don't knowthe name Art Lemay, you have
seen his work. Mhmm. A lot ofthe classic pictures of of or

(27:28):
excuse me, prints of four orfive of a species in flight. The
boys were the real famous one hedid Right. With all the Drake
puddle ducks on a log.
And then three Jim Killins. AndJim Killin what what Art LeMay
was to painting youth, JimKillin was to painting dogs. He
is considered one of thegreatest canine sporting artist

(27:50):
ever. The three we have have nodogs in

them.

Really? They're all images of flocks of
ducks coming in. They'regorgeous. They're beautiful. Jim
passed away in January '24, andas a tip of the hat to him,
these three will start at the atthe same price level of the last
one he appraised for us, whichis well below well below their

(28:17):
value.
But as a as a as a tip of thehat to Jim, we're gonna stick
with his very humble appraisalof his own artwork that he would
give us when we would have anoriginal.

That's awesome. So this is a unique opportunity.

There's there's not gonna be any more
made.

That's it.

Yep. That's it.

Yep. Looks like lots of decoys.

Well, the second biggest or maybe the the biggest
the second biggest or biggestgrouping, I think, is is decoys.

We get a lot of them.

Yeah. Well, and I see great names here. I mean,
people always recognize Masonsand and Job's, Animal Trap,
Hudson Bay, those questions.

So What's what's cool, and and David will tell
this story, but what's cool iswhen we get a massive box of
them Mhmm. And people don't knowwhat they have. Yep. I mean, we
got one this summer. We got oneright before the sale last year.

Yeah. It's it's they're still out there.
You know, that antique roadshow,they're still out

there. They're still there.

And and I

think we're about to see a a wave of them.
Not every decoy that we havedonated makes into the vault. If
they exceed a certain thresholdin value, we have a partnership
with Gayet and Dieter, who arethe premier decoy who is the
premier decoy auction house inthe country. And they will take

(29:38):
it into one of their sales at nocost to DU as a partnership we
have with them. This one decoythat we did it with, a box came
in.
I kid y'all not. The ITV staffcame to my office and they said,
hey, a box of decoys came in.We'd like for you to take a look
at some of them. I I know justenough about decoys to be
dangerous, and I can go into aroom and look around, and while

(29:59):
I can't exactly call out theartist, usually I could get the
part of the world it came fromand Right. And have an eye for
we ought to do some research onthat one.
And I'm looking at them. I kidyou not, there are old carry
lights on the floor.

Really?

There are old g and h's on the floor. Yep. And
I'm looking at them just kindagiggling to myself going, yeah,
I don't think I can do anythingon that one. Although, I did
think they put them in the sale,and that's cool. Can't get those
old Italian carry lightsanymore.
No. I saw one, I said and I I Ipicked it up, I turned it over,
I didn't know the name. And Isaid, I don't know this name,

(30:35):
and I I can't remember the nameright now. I said, but this is a
this is a really, really, reallygood looking decoy. Yeah.
So they researched it. It was aNorth Carolina carver who had
not carve for very long, and hislast decoy had sold for $25,000.
Wow. So I sent a picture of itto Guyette and Dieter, to John
Dieter, and his first his textback to me is, how many do you

(30:57):
have? And I said one.
He said, foam it and send it.You know, we put foam around it
and package it and send it. Theysold it for $20.

Really?

And it came in a box with carry lights and G
and Hs.

Same story. Last year, I'm already out of Kansas,
same thing, and you'll know thename Peterson. Was it Peterson?
What was the one that JohnRitchie had?

That's the one I just told the story.

That was it?

Yeah. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah. That's and so when I remember being in the
phone after you found out fromGuy and Dieter how much it was
calling John and he going,really? That just came off a
shelf at a, you know, volunteer.I think a volunteer bought them
at a, like, a yard sale Yeah. Orsomething like that.
Can't remember

the exact not an estate Yep. Deal. Like, there
was nobody to call and say, hey.It was literally they were they
were to garage sale, boughtthem, said send them in, see
what they're worth.

That's it. So well

They're out there.

They're there. Decoys for sure.

Well, and so You can't

put decoys in a shoebox, Jimbo.

No. No.

Like duck calls.

That's it. And it sounds like we have a really
good flight of decoys for thisyear.

Oh, yeah. We do. We absolutely But if you're

a collector Yeah.

Or if you just like certain species

That's it.

Like yeah. There's a few out there that and
I'm not gonna call him outagain, but I know that there's a
gentleman that that likes acertain species that not
everybody else loves. Right. Andso

he Would that be a shoveler?

No. Not a shoveler. No. No. It's actually
coots.
Coots. I did it again. Sorry,Cody.

Calling you out, Cody Orr.

But there are like, he has a coot corner in
his office, and he has someawesome coots. He bought some
last year, and apparently, helikes puffins too, but we're not
gonna talk about that.

Don't have any puffin decoys.

No. Not this year. But he has a and so he
buys them, and so it's justreally neat. People like certain
species, and they have a bond toto something for some reason
that that not everybody knows,and so they'll go through and
buy the the ones that may not beas as high valued, but they like
to have a collection of thosecertain decoy species.

Right.

We hear about those too, and those are really
neat. Those are great storiestoo.

Yeah. Generally, people collect by manufacturer.
Right. Right. That's, you know,a lot of people go for
Manufacturer or Carver.
Yeah. Or or Ward Brothers orsomething like that. But

Yep. There's LL Bean, the old LL Bean court
decoys are really cool. Theyare. They may not be the highest
valued, but I remember seeingthose from back in the day in
the in the magazines, andthey're just really neat. I
think that's a a staple.

Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other
day who did not know LL Bean haddone decoys. I'm like, how do
you and it was a duck hunter.

I mean,

big time duck hunter. I'm like, how do you

They probably didn't wear bean boots either.

No. They weren't from East Of The
Mississippi. Yep. And I thinkWest Of The Mississippi, they're
just nobody knew. Right?

I mean, L. L. Bean

I hunted over some bean decoys with my
grandfather, old ones.

I my dad had had some. Yeah. But I mean, L. L.
Bean was a staple in our house.
Everybody had L. L. Bean boots.You had a L. L.
Bean back pack.

You were the East Of The Mississippi though.
Right?

Mean, it was you know,

my grandfather always wore bean boots. That was
his go to duck boot.

Oh, yeah.

We're on the other side of Mississippi, but not
far.

Yeah. Well, I think the bean boots, every I
mean But boots

was his duck boot.

They tamed the West.

Right. They did. I mean, but you go back and look
at Ella Bean's coming back.

Yeah. I think that's a good

The kids, like, both my daughter has an Ella
Bean backpack, and so it waskind of a full circle moment
this year when she's like, dad,I want this one. I was

like, really?

I had a blue one.

We have so many decoys in our warehouse. We
get a lot of like, that seemslike that's the first thing that
comes in from these estates. Atsome point, we're going to have
to do an end of the vault decoyonly sale one summer. We have
boxes and boxes and boxes ofthem.

Well, if you're a decoy collector, you definitely
need to be following along onthis end of the vault.

Or a Terry Redland.

Or a Redland. We have a lot of them. I need to
hide this. Actually, I'llprobably send it to my mom. My
mom loves she's got, like, fiveor six Redlands.
Really? Yeah. They're all brandsfrom Medieval banquets, but,
like, loves Redlands. Lovesthem.

There's a special place for Redlands. I
mean, like,

I I can name do light, it's gorgeous.

Yeah. And I I I can name so many volunteers of
mine throughout the years when Iwas a regional director that
they would buy a Redland, andthey knew the exact place it was
going in their house, and itit's probably still there. I
mean, mantles and and andredlands are, to me, are just
different than other prints, andand they fit in people's houses,

(35:23):
and there's a lot of them outthere. And I think that that's
why, you know, your mom, I knewanother lady then, she had four
or five of them and they were in

her hallways. That's it. Well, they've got
that they've got most of themhave that waterfowl side. Some
lifestyle. But it's it's notjust waterfowl focus, so a lot
of women love those printsbecause you can put a outdoor
print in your house, but itbrings a lot of color and a lot
of not just waterfowl focus.
So they did really well there,at least that's why my mom liked
them. I'm not saying mom's aninterior designer, and so she

(35:53):
loves that pop of color.

We're gonna have more than two dozen of
them. We we Two dozen. We havean we have a nice collection of
Redlands, a big collection thatcame out of Wisconsin. Really?
Yep.
And so every year, we're we'reputting two or three dozen on
the sale. Mhmm. And they'regreat. And there's they still
retain their value. You can'tget an original Redland.

(36:17):
I know a very I've alwaysactually, I've only seen one.
Right. So the the the prints arewhat's there, and obviously,
Terry's passed on, and there'snot there's not gonna be any
more made.

No. And there's nobody else doing it like that.

And there's there have been many that have
tried.

That's it. They've tried, but it's not the same.

He was he was one of a kind.

Looks like duck stamp prints and going way back.

Yeah. We've got some old ones, some very
hard to find ones when the whenthe additions were very low from
the the thirties, and havereally more more older ones this
year than new ones, and that'sjust what comes in. Right? So a
lot of a lot of federal stampand prints. Again, a lot of good

(37:01):
old ones.
A lot of people collect stampand prints based on the date to
signify something in their life,either got married, were born,
something like that, and have alot of great just prints. Just
overall

Oh, yeah.

Duckhart. Got some mosses and some Reese's and
Radix's and boots. It's a goodcollection. It's hard to say
what has been the best into thevault. Jimbo, I can't think back
to one having this wide aselection of all the different
categories.
I mean, all the knives. Therehad to have been a knife
collector that sent in hiscollection. I've never

seen Absolutely.

I've never seen this many knives of the
year in one sale.

Well, and we one year we'll have one a lot of
years, we have one item thatmakes that category stand out.
Right. This year, we have a widevariety in every single
category, and I don't thinkthere's just that one thing.
Last year it was the the knives,the steak knives.

Oh, Randall. The Randall knives.

Right. They made that that that collection stand
out. This year, it's just thethe variety. And it and I think
it allows for more opportunityYeah. Because it's it's what
people like.
It's it's there's something thatfits different. And what's
what's crazy is to watch peoplebid in the collectibles. That's
my favorite part because it's sorandom. Right. And it'll be

(38:19):
something that we don't thinkabout that will get big bids,
and and that's in everycategory.
Like, there'll be somebodythat'll start hitting certain
certain items, and so when youhave such a wide variety of
items in every differentcategory, it brings in so many
more new people.

And and this this year's collectibles is full
of one of a kind items. And thatso I'll give give everybody a
kind of a cheat sheet item here.If it says prototype, it's one
of a kind. Every year Yeah. Wehave our merchandise committee,
which is made up of volunteersfrom around the country that
come in and vote on what's goingto be in next year's merchandise

(38:56):
package that goes out to ourevents.
Some years, you'll get theseitems that have already been
designed with Ducks Unlimited onthem and everything. They're one
of a kind. They're a prototype.If they don't get voted in, the
company will say, y'all go aheadand keep it and use it for your
fundraising efforts. Some years,there might be 10 of them.
Some years, there might be 50that end up staying here. This

(39:17):
year, this past year, was a verybig year of prototype staying
with us. So that collectiblesection, it is full of one of a
kind items that nobody else isgonna have it. That's awesome.
And it's gonna get sold on onthis sale.
So if you see prototype, thinkone of a kind. Because anything

(39:38):
that's one of a kind has highervalue than something that's been
replicated numerous times.

Oh, yeah. Right.

Jimbo, what's your item this year? Not that
you want. What's your item? Doyou you you were just talking
about the ones that like the DonKnott's the signed Don Knott's
picture of Barney Fife a fewyears ago that went for some
unbelievable amount of moneybecause five or six people
wanted it. What's what's youritem this year that you think is

(40:04):
just almost going to be comicalin how many people want it at a
at a relatively low price?
The ornaments. Ornaments. Okay.

There's a there's some ornament people out
there, and I think that there'sa couple ornaments. I know that
there's a couple prototypes. Ithink one of those is gonna hit.

Okay. Mine is the 1996 Minnesota fireplace
hearth clock.

Fireplace We

have a lot of supporters from Minnesota.

Think my people not that I'm from there,
if you can't tell from myaccent, but I think my people in
Minnesota are gonna want thatclock.

The hearth clock.

Yes. It's awesome. I can't wait to see what all
comes through.

There's some salt and pepper shakers that are
kinda funny. The real world castresin. There's some figurines.
We have Buster.

Of the Boomer Buster and Skeeter series that
you can't find anymore.

1996, Doug. And what's cool about collectibles,
some almost start at a dollar.$5.10, see where

it goes. Right. And see

where it goes. And those are the fun ones to to
watch. You know, we all kindahave our time. Tripp and I go
deer hunting every year onThanksgiving morning, kind of
our tradition, and and so he heloves to ask me, hey, dad,
what's what's going, you know,well, and and what funny items?
And so we'll we'll sit there,and and we're in a big box blind
so, you know, we can show eachother and we kinda have a great

(41:26):
time of loading and reloadingand reloading again that that
site because it's constantlychanging.
See where it's at. Yeah. Andthen you'll see the big
afternoon. David kinda watchesit late Thanksgiving. I like to
watch it early Thanksgivingmorning, and then late
Thanksgiving, David will watchit, but there's always there's
always that that group of peoplethat finish their their

(41:48):
Thanksgiving lunch, hit therecliner, hit the couch, have a
little football on, maybe afire, and they start bidding.
Yeah. And you can tell when whenbecause there'll be one person
who'll hit seven items. Right.And he's been kinda scrolling
through, and so that's a lot offun to watch, and a lot of those
random kinda collectible itemswill get hit. You know?

My family watches it while we're eating
Thanksgiving lunch.

Do

you? Yeah. Because as my boys were growing
up, I would have them come inand help, either clean, you
know, print glass, getting readyto be photographed. And so there
was a kind of a a family buy inon the success of this,
especially during COVID when wehad nobody in the office. Right.
And so, yeah, we turn it on andand I give updates.

That's that's fun. I'm gonna have to do that this
year.

It's fun. It's a lot of My

mom's gonna be bidding. I know. She's

On the Redlands?

So Redland well, she likes all the collectible
stuff too.

Okay. Good.

And then I got a buddy of mine that's a decoy guy
that will will go through itevery year.

There's a lot of decoy. More than a 150
decoys.

But he does.

Yeah. That's a lot.

And like you mentioned, people have their
specialties. He likes the olderfactory decoys, but like
southern factory decoys. Yeah.That's his specialty.

Pascagoula. We have some Pascagoulas in there.

His that's his go to, so being from this area.
Well, we've talked about a lotof really awesome items. I'm
super excited about it. Give usa little more detail on dates
and how to how to go about,like, finding all this stuff,
but then also, like, we'vetalked a lot about this was all
stuff that our volunteers andpeople have donated to us. If
people have stuff that they wantto donate to End of the Vault or

(43:19):
to DU, let's start there.
What's the best way to do that?

Jay Robinson? Oh, boy.

Coming in hot. Set you up for that one. Yeah.

Jay Sanderson at ducks dot org.

J sanderson.

David Schuessler: Jsanderson@ducks.org. That's (43:33):
undefined
Julie Sanderson who oversees allof our end of the vault
operations. If you have anythingor if you know your regional
director or somebody on yourlocal chapter committee. Right.
You can contact any of thosepeople, and they will know what
to do with it, how to get ithere.
The the access for the sale isinto the vault.org. It will

(43:59):
start 09:00 central time onMonday, November 24. That's the
Monday before Thanksgiving, andthen we will run it thirteen
days. We will close it Saturdaynight on December 6. I believe
they're closing it at 09:00 thatnight, but all of that
information will be on the site.
Some some tricks, there is asearch feature on the site, and

(44:22):
with the thousand items, ifyou're just interested in
decoys, I mean, you cancertainly just type that into
the search. Or there's a dropdown function where we have
everything categorized where youcan just pull up those sections,
whether it's firearms,originals, trips, decoys,
whatever it may be, there's aselection of about 12 to go and

(44:43):
choose from. A big thing toremember is that we do not
charge shipping out of thissale. We also do not No
shipping. No shipping, nobuyer's premium.

No buyer's premium.

If you buy an item for a $100, your credit
card is going to be charged a$100, and we are gonna ship it
out of this office within fourto five business days of the
auction closing. And we know alot of people by their by some
Christmas presents on this, andwe we wanna get we wanna get the

(45:17):
items out as fast as we can Aspossible. So they're there in
time for Christmas. We also havea buy it now section, which is
some of our current merchandise.That'll come boxed up ready to
be wrapped.

Ready to go.

Ready to go.

And if you buy a firearm, that's gonna have to go
to an FFL.

Your local FFL, you'll be contacted by
somebody in the office on Mondayor Tuesday following the sale to
let you know where it's going orto discuss with you where you
would like it sent.

So if you're interested in that bent barrel
Bonelli

Yes. Scratched up.

You know where to find it. Well, Jimbo, David,
thank you all so much forjumping in today and and going
through. Are there any otherthings y'all wanna kind of hit
on before we we jump off here?

No. You know, the last thing I would say is
even if you have no intention ofbidding, just go look around.

Oh, look.

It's see what's there.

A 100%. So much fun.

It is. There's a lot of really cool stuff.

There really is. And there are always deals.
Yeah. Every year, there areplenty of items that I look at
the sales manifest and I go, howin the world did this not sell
for more? And there are thereare huge steals on this.
The more items we put in westarted with 400. We're at a
thousand now. The more items weput in, the more steals that

(46:32):
happen every year.

That's it.

Scroll to the end of every category because
I'm gonna tell you, a lot ofpeople don't get to the end.

And if you're out previewing it right now,
you'll notice it's underconstruction. It's in draft
mode. That's one of the coolfeatures that we kind of offer
is you get to see the housebeing built along the way. And
so if you get there and you seea gun that's a dollar right now,
it's not gonna end up being adollar to start the bid. Right.
But the in the preview mode isis turned on. So if you go to

(47:01):
intothevault.org right now, youcan you can see the house being
built, see the items beingadded, and they're they're
adding items every single day,and they will add items even
throughout the sale, and and andthey will add more items as the
sale is going on. So keep keepspeople coming back.

They'll add, yeah, they'll add items all the
way up until the time we turn iton. Yep. And then we'll keep
adding.

Keep adding if you keep getting them.

All the way up through the sixth. Really?
They'll keep adding items inthere.

So keep looking. Oh, yeah. Be sneaking things in

there. And a lot of times, she'll hold some gems
back. Yeah. Okay. And put thosein after three or four days

Literally, hold some gems back.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. There's a great jewelry section in
there.

Yeah. Mhmm. So so if you need to get out of
trouble with your wife

Go and buy you could go and buy the h and h and
then go and buy a piece ofjewelry.

As long as you make sure you get something for

Both in there in time for Christmas.

Isn't hers. Yep. Best way to do it.

Well, Jared, thanks for having us.

Yeah. Jumbo, David, thank you. I'd like to
thank Chris, our podcastproducer, for always laying down
a World famous World

famous Chris Isaac That's ladies and
gentlemen. The man of myth,

the legend. And as always, I gotta thank the
listeners. Thank you all forlistening in. Y'all tune in next
time.

VO (48:18):
Thank you for listening to the DU podcast sponsored by
Purina Pro Plan, the officialperformance dog food of Ducks
Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan,always advancing. Also proudly
sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskeyand Cocktails. Whether you're
winding down with your bestfriend or celebrating with your
favorite crew, Bird Dog bringsaward winning flavor to every
moment. Enjoy responsibly.

(48:40):
Be sure to rate, review, andsubscribe to the show and visit
ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinionsexpressed by guests do not
necessarily reflect those ofDucks Unlimited. Until next
time, stay tuned to the Ducks.

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