Many readers of Antiques & Auction News follow the marketplace for antiques. Early stoneware and redware pottery is among the most popular categories within the field of American antiques. The foremost auction house in the country specializing in this field is Crocker Farm, based in Sparks, Md. In November, at its third sale of the year, the company sold an important early Shenandoah Valley redware dish, inscribed JE / his Dish / 1808, attributed to Peter Bell, Hagerstown, Md. The 14.5-inch-diameter tapered dish with rounded rim, profusely-decorated on the interior with a central flowering daisy plant in cream and dark-brown slip, surrounded by a cream slip band with wavy brown stripe covered in a clear lead glaze over an orange clay ground, brought $39,000. This was important due to being one of the finest surviving works attributed to the early Hagerstown, Md., and Winchester, Va., potter, Peter Bell (1775-1854). Only two examples of pottery are known bearing Bells impressed makers mark, P. BELL, yet a number carry an attribution through stylistic attributes, including the distinctive grape cluster or fish scale motifs like those found on this dish. This example was attributed to Peter Bell in the pioneering book by Alvin H. Rice and John Baer Stoudt in 1929, The Shenandoah Pottery, and is pictured on page 266. Not many Shenandoah Valley redware objects with an early date such as 1808 have survived, also making this particular example rare. In good condition, with a few minor rim chips and base chips, it previously sold in 2007 at the major sale for Dr. and Mrs. Donald Shelley through Pook & Pook for $18,720. To learn more, visit www.crockerfarm.com.