Sunny- Hard to find showfrog

2 Tads and Dingley Dell

My story starts like most collectors who bought their first frog or Frogs while on vacation. My wife and I bought our first bronze frog a few years while on our honeymoon. We saw them first in Las Vegas and I couldn't get the attention of a sales person. One week later they made their way into our lives again while visiting Downtown Disney in Orlando Florida. Seems like Tim Cotterill and Loet Vanderveen make the same travel plans as most Americans. Vegas, Orlando, California, Hawaii, Key West all the popular tourist spots in America have the Joy of Frogs and other bronze art work. I just wish I had gone to Disney 10 years ago when Tim Cotterill started off so I could have found many of the elusive pieces that have become so hard to find today.

It started with Bashful. A cute little bronze frog that caught our eye and still remains today as one of our favorites. The collection has grown in the last couple of years and I have met Tim twice since my first purchase (and planning on another show before the end of this year) I've also met some great people along the way who share the passion of collecting frogs. My first bronze piece was a Loet Vanderveen piece I bought in my early twenties. Tim and Loet have a friendly relationship and both respect each others skills as artists.

Recently I signed up for "Trading Assistant" with ebay. If you have a Tim Cotterill frog or Loet Vanderveen piece you would like to sell but have never sold on ebay and need my assistance I would love to help. Contact me and we can talk about the best way to get your Bronze Artwork up and on auction. I'll take the pictures, list the description, answer the questions while you just sit back and enjoy the auction. Email me at Bronzefrogs@aol.com

Do you have a frog that you are looking for?  If I have it and I am willing to part with it I can list it on ebay. Many times I don't know what to list and it gets expensive to list them all

Understand the markings on the bottom of your bronze and a few other terms often found in the frogman community

Ever heard the term BF-6 (or Thinker) and wondered what that meant?

BF = Bronze Frog 1-92 (Tim Skipped 13 but the frogs are numbered in numeric order from 1-92) BK= Bronze Koi 1-5 BG= Bronze Gecko 1-5 BFM= Bronze Frog Mini's 1-5

Fact: Big Foot (BF-31) and Wake Up call (BF-51) , although not bronze frogs were included in the BF category

  AP=Artist Proof (Rare) AC=Artist Collection (Very Rare) FP=Foundry Proof (Very Rare)  FC= Foundry Copy (used for his earlier pieces and Very Rare) SN = Signed and Numbered (this is the most common number found with the largest edition. COA = Certificate of Authenticity (while all frogs now are currently issued with the COA you will find it hard to find earlier pieces with their original COA as Tim Cotterill wasn't always as popular as he is today) ES = European Series EV= Event Variation- Foundry=place where the bronze is cast and the patina is applied - Patina = A Patina is a chemical compound formed on the surface of the bronze that has dye and clear coat finish that give the frog it's jewel like appearance and luster. Each of Tim's original pieces go through a 6 step process making his patina the leader in the industry (in my opinion)

Have a bent toe or chipped patina? Contact your local gallery and they will most likely have a price sheet and can tell you the costs to have your frog repaired.  I've heard mention of a three foot rule. If you can't tell from three feet that the frog has a minor flaw you might not want to fix it. It takes time and money to have your frog repaired. If your frog has a scratch on the belly and can't be seen why fix it? Older pieces should be kept with the older patina's. In my opinion you should never repatina (is that a word?) a Purple Todd. It's faded? Great, that's why it's so rare and sought after. The earlier mottled patina with lots of browns are very hard to duplicate. To my understanding the people at the foundry can not always get your frog back to you with the exact patina you once had. This is all just my opinion and if you have read this far I hope that I have kept your interest level up and I also hope you leave with a better understanding of the art work.

Showfrogs- Galleries who carry Frogman Bronzes often times have shows with limited edition pieces most likely in the edition size of 100 or less (in a few rare cases they did more) These frogs are currently taken from inside the S/N edition. So if Tulip in the original color of blue was 500 S/N edition and Sunny was the showfrog done in yellow with the edition size of 100 EV. You would have only 400 blue S/N with 100 done in the yellow Patina. The 50 A/P's in blue are taken outside of the edition of 500 so there would be 550 Tulip's in total but only 450 were done in blue while the other 100 EV Yellow Sunny's. So in the game of numbers the 50 AP would be the smallest number making this the frog to be desired if it means something to the collector to have the smaller edition.  But there would be 450 in blue and only 100 in yellow- Color plays a huge part in the popularity of Tim's work. The Blue Tad sold once for close to 3000 on ebay. How many Orange Tads are listed monthly on Ebay? Some pieces just get bidding wars started as the very early show editions are almost impossible to find as nobody bought them with the intention of selling them down the road for a profit. The same applies for the BF 1-5 and many of the other earlier editions. A few years down the road I feel many of the recently sold out pieces and showfrogs will demand a huge premium as there is only 100 done in the show colors and the editions are going back down to the smaller sizes. This is great news for us (the collectors) as his popularity is on the rise and the edition sizes are on the decline. Bev Dolittle (realism artist) has edition sizes in the 10's of thousands and she sells them out with edition sizes as large as 48,000! Hopefully It is only a matter of time until Tim has that sort of fan base. Tim's art not only makes for a great conversation piece, but it also makes for a great investment

Let me know if I missed anything!! I love to help educate the new collector as we all started out with one frog and ten questions.

My feedback is currently at 100% and speaks loudly for the customer service I provide. I take special care and pride from start to finish with my auctions. I am also paypal certified and that means you as a buyer has up to $1000 buyers protection when making your purchase from anyone with the paypal shield. Not to mention full insurance is also taken for the unlikely event that your frog gets damaged in shipping. Bid with confidence and ENJOY!