Jim Keefer's repairs don't stop at head vases,
he's also professionally trained in fine
porcelain and pottery repairs including:
American, German, Japanese, etc.

     Jim also collects and repairs McCoy pottery. 
You'll find this article written about Jim in McCoy Lovers' NMXpress^®.

TIL DEATH DO US PART

Jim Keefer talks about his McCoy collection and answers the Big Question:
What's the one piece you'll never sell?

On the swampy late July afternoon that I spoke on the phone to Jim Keefer-long distance from Manhattan to Blue Springs, Missouri, not far from Kansas City-I got more than I bargained for. You see, Jim was really good for two interviews. In the first he was the keen McCoy collector of 15 or so years, with about 300 pieces. In interview number two he spoke as the sole proprietor of Gimmi a Break, the porcelain and pottery restoration business he started after retiring as a supervisor for General Motors. We talked about collecting first. What brought Jim and McCoy together? I asked.

"I guess it started with this little antique mall not too far from where I live. I decided to sell a few things in a little bitty booth in the mall just things I picked up at yard sales. It didn't take me long to get hooked on this antiquing stuff. I remember I bought this little Fiesta piece for a nickel and sold it for $35. Anyhow, part of the deal was you had to work in the mall one day a month. So on the days I worked the mall, I would look at the stuff in other people's booths. One dealer had a bunch of McCoy, and I got interested in it. I also saw the McCoy book-the black Huxford book-and started reading up on it. The more I learned, the more I liked it. I started looking for McCoy at flea markets and yard sales. Pretty soon I was looking for specific pieces. Back then you could still find nice pieces for less than five dollars, even in antique malls."

Like most collectors, Jim has zeroed in on a few favorite McCoy categories.

"Most of the things I like are on the small side. I'm not into the giant jards and peds, I have a large collection, I think about 50, of the Dragonfly flowerpots and just about all of the flower forms. I love the stretch animals and the miniatures all the ladder pieces, really. I like to do different things with colors too. For a while I was totally into white."

Jim works a lot during the week, but he shops on weekends, almost always with Carol Reed, his girlfriend of five years, and another couple who share their collecting passion. "We'll put about 150 miles on the car on the weekend, doing a different circuit of shops and malls," Jim said. "We stay mostly in Missouri, but occasionally we get into Iowa."

One such shopping adventure yielded the piece Jim says he would never part with. When they make a made-for-TV movie about the story, his girlfriend, Carol, will be the star.

"We were doing the malls one day, and just as we were leaving this one place, I walked by this medicine cabinet and a little brown piece caught my eye. I stopped to look at it and saw that it was a Witch. I had never seen it before. I suspected that it was McCoy, but I wasn't sure. I showed it to Carol and said I'd look it up in the book when I got home. Of course, I'm always saying that I'll look stuff up, but I usually forget."  Luckily Carol did not forget.

"We got home and of course, I forgot all about looking in the book for the Witch. Without telling me Carol found it in the book, realized that it was for sure McCoy, called the mall, bought it over the phone, and had them ship it. Then she gave it to me as a present. She's done that several times-surprised me with McCoy. She also bought me the Cat and the Zebra planter. I like them too, a lot, but it's the Witch I'd never give up."

I changed the subject to restoration. How did he come to change careers?

"A lady came to a town near here and gave a week-long course in porcelain and pottery restoration, and I decided to take it. The class had six students, and I'm the only one who stayed with it. I took to it right away. I had studied art in college, and I just enjoyed the work. It's not for everyone, though. Most people don't have the eye for color that you need. And lots of people can't stand the fumes."

The McCoy pottery in Jim's house is divided into two basic categories: the pieces he considers "his"-that is, part of his collection-and the pieces that may or may not be passing through.

"There are certain things that I buy and I know I'm going to keep: the flower forms, Dragonfly pots, miniatures, and so on. Then there are the pieces I see that have damage and I think,' I can fix that and sell it' I buy quite a bit of pottery that needs restoration. I must have five Indian Head cookie jars with chipped feathers or noses sitting on the shelf upstairs. Of course, what happens is I'm so busy fixing things for other people that I don't get around to working on my stuff. I'll probably end up putting a lot of those things into an auction one day."

Jim has restored McCoy pottery over the years, but these days his assembly time is populated mostly by head vases. Somehow the word got out about Gimmi-a-Break in the head vase world, and Jim is their go-to guy. He doesn't work on McCoy all that much anymore, and frankly, he likes it that way.

"I love McCoy it's what I collect, after all but I have to tell you restoring it is hard. It's sort of ironic because the things that we admire about McCoy are the same things that make it so difficult to restore really well. The complicated designs, the details, the colors they're all so demanding when it comes to restoration. And because the pieces are relatively hard to come by, it's not like I get to work on the same piece every day of the week. With the head vases it's much easier to match the pottery and the color, and I'll sometimes see the same piece several times a month. It gives me a chance to get really good at it"

Not surprisingly, Jim is picky about the condition of the pieces he chooses for his private collection, especially the quality of the mold.

"To me the mold makes all the difference in the world. An old or worn mold can give you a piece that looks really ordinary. When the mold is clean and crisp, the piece mat comes out is gorgeous. I'm always upgrading my collection, looking for pieces that came from a better mold."

When it comes to McCoy quantity doesn't especially interest Jim. He's content to keep his collection relatively small. He's attracted by unusual pieces, especially those that aren't in the reference books. Two such pieces he picked up a couple of years ago are vases with extraordinary paint jobs and a mysterious signature. He bought them both for $35 from a little old lady who refused to separate them.

"If you look at page 197 of the Huxford book, I've got the middle vase on the top shelf. But instead of being white it is painted in all kinds of bright colors, like some of the Cope pieces-green, purple, red, and trimmed in gold. All the decoration is under the glaze. The other one is the green vase on page 201 of Huxford-the middle row on the right. On the one I have the green is painted over with those same bright colors and trimmed in gold. The paint is under the glaze on this piece too. And both vases are signed 'Ruby.' I sure would love to find out who Ruby was."

Another of Jim's valued finds is a Dragonfly pot in lavender, which, as far as Jim knows, does not appear in any of the books. I suggest that it was a lunchtime special. Jim laughed. "You're right. It probably was. But I always think its funny what a big fuss people make about some of the unusual colors. Like people are always making a big deal about the coral pieces. I agree that coral is a nice color, but I have to laugh because all they did to make coral was combine pink and yellow. Lavender is just pink mixed with blue. You can see them coming to the end of the day and just not wanting to waste paint."

Before we left the subject of what Jim looks for, I asked about his want list. "I'd love to have a Hillbilly miniature to go along with the Witch and the Cat. And I've always wanted that vase with the lizard handles. Of course, it would have to come from a good mold."

Sounds like a job for Jim's girlfriend.

Kathleen Moloney
MeCoy Lovers' www.mccoylovers.com
NMXpress® July 2005

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