Tohickon Glass Eyes

John Lawrence

John Lawrence

Active member
I thought the decoy carvers who visit might be interested in knowing that Tohickon Glass Eyes has a special going on right now that any order over $50 is shipped for free.

I just got off the phone with them while placing an order. These are the eyes prefered by most taxidermists, approved for use at most museums including the Smithsonian.

My buddy Jim Schmidlien uses them in his decoys also. And the best thing is that they are made right here in the USA, in Pennsylvania to be specific.

They've got some great new blends made specifically for redhead drakes that are super. They are what I'm currently using also.
 
John,

do you use the aspherical eyes, number 123 or which style do you prefer?

Thanks for the heads up, I do need to order a bunch of eyes.
 
Eric,

I do use the aspheric #123's. I think they are the best blended eye available right now. And you aren't buying from a middle man, you are buying right from the guys that make them. Plus they are employing Americans. Something very important to me.

A little tip, use a lighter brown blend on your hens and see how that eye jumps out at you.

Tohickon eyes--hazel aspheric 123 in both of these wigeon,

View attachment DSC02118.JPG

View attachment DSC02123.JPG
 
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A little tip, use a lighter brown blend on your hens and see how that eye jumps out at you.

Tohickon eyes--hazel aspheric 123 in both of these wigeon,
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John, I just started using them after a friend Grant Werdick mentioned them to me, I was using a different style from them previously. I do like the 123 however.

You mention the hens....guess I know why my decoys look wrong all the time since all this time I thought I was carving drakes!! : )

I like the tip on slightly lighter eye, dark brown just seems to be lost.

One more question, when you use a 10mm on a rh, do you notice that it looks a bit small once you get the lid and everything back on it? do you upsize to 11mm with the #123?? Thanks again, and those widgeon look great.
 
Eric,

Since everything I make is larger than life I like a bigger eye, 11's or 12's. In fact I'm waiting for a friend to drop off some 12 mm medium browns for my pair of Labrador ducks right now.

I'm thinking that I haven't made any Cinnamon Teal in a long while and was eyeing up the orange blend earlier. Sorry pun intended.
 
Those wigeon are a feast for the eyes John.....Beautiful!! I agree that Tohickons are the best......I have used them for as long as I can remember. They have such a variety......classic European eyes on wires for the "classic" decoys to the 123 and 124 for the realistic and contemporary. There are no absolutely no better eyes!!
 
I thought the decoy carvers who visit might be interested in knowing that Tohickon Glass Eyes has a special going on right now that any order over $50 is shipped for free.

I just got off the phone with them while placing an order. These are the eyes prefered by most taxidermists, approved for use at most museums including the Smithsonian.

My buddy Jim Schmidlien uses them in his decoys also. And the best thing is that they are made right here in the USA, in Pennsylvania to be specific.

They've got some great new blends made specifically for redhead drakes that are super. They are what I'm currently using also.
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I'm a satisfied customer. Several years back I was working on some huge scoter and wanted some large eyes in a very cold bluish-white. They called down the hall and said, yeah the guys will make you the of pairs you want today. I had them in a couple days.
 
And......they will usually custom make and paint any eye for any species for you. You should see the custom painted eyes they made for my decorative stuff.....great green macaw, scarlet macaw, toucans, gannet, many more even tawny frogmouth and potoo eyes.
 
And......they will usually custom make and paint any eye for any species for you. You should see the custom painted eyes they made for my decorative stuff.....great green macaw, scarlet macaw, toucans, gannet, many more even tawny frogmouth and potoo eyes.
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If I was carving a potoo I'd want to do one with its eyes closed. How did you pull that one off? They look stoned with their eyes partly open and thier eyes bug out wide open.

T
 
John, you have posted a number of your decoys since joining this site and I have you tell you, you make a great speculum.

Old time decoy makers like the Wards, Nelow, Moak, and others used to make their wings lay low on the side panels of their decoys. I used to think it looked a little funny and now most makers have a high side panel.

I come from the school that believes by highlighting certain aspects of a decoy that the block will decoy better than a life like bird. I know there is two schools of thought, but that is mine.

Your over size speculum, coupled with its low ride on the panel neatly combines an old look with a great duck attracting speculum. I guess what I am trying to say is I am a big fan of your style. Mike
 
Thanks Mike. I put a lot of time into studying antique decoys when I first started my journey towards a personal style. One of the decisions I made was to accentuate the speculum by manipulating the shape and position of the rear end of the side pocket.

I'm currently working on some really wacked out decoys That I'll have at Westlake wherein I pushed the borders and limits pretty hard. They are not the "normal" species one would think of as decoy subjects. But sometimes I just like looking for something different as in Tom Newell's and Keith's seabirds. I don't live by the ocean so I don't get that first hand reference on those so I chose something that I see around here. That is a tease in case you are wondering. I'll show everyone photos when they are done and after the show.

I'm also working on a pair of Labrador Ducks that a fellow ordered from me at Easton. It is an interesting story. He approached me at the auction and asked if I'd be interested in doing a pair for him. I originally told him no. I had never considered doing a pair of extinct ducks and I wasn't interested in gimics. A few hours later he found me at the High School just after we had set up. And asked me again, this time he had a photo album with him of the twelve other sets of pairs in his collection. There were some really good decoys in there by some of the top guys, George Strunk, Clarence Fenimore, Sean Sutton, Jode Hillman, Bill Gibian. I thought now this is a little different this guy is serious. Gibian was just up the aisle so I went and talked to him for a minute and he told me the guy was completely legit. And I took it as a real compliment that he thought of my work as good enough to be included with those kinds of guy's. So I agreed under the stipulation that I was going to do them in my style. He told me that's exactly what he wanted, something different. He then gave a book published in September 2009 called "The curse of the Labrador Duck" written by Dr. Glen Chilton who is an Ornithologist from Canada who searched out all of the remaining taxidermic example of Labrador Ducks in the world. He traveled over 82,000 miles over a six year period to catalogue and describe all of them. He told me he wanted to me to understand his passion for these ducks. He also gave me a reference folder containing emails with Dr. Chilton and photos of the taxidermic Labs and most of the scientific drawings that have been done on them. Over the course of about two months while I was reading the books I started scketching some ideas. I usually will draw a decoy somewhere between 30-40 times to workout size and shape relationships, color tones and such. With these there are only a few known antique references, and nobody is really sure that they are actually labrador duck decoys because the duck went extinct in 1875. Over that time period I couldn't come up with anything I was happy with, my drawings looked too much like everyoneelse's in the collection. So I did an internet search for info on Labs and ending up spending a couple days reading all of the additional stuff that I could find. What finally stuck in my mind was a decription of the Labrador duck as a transitionary species between Eider and Harliquins and the description as a small round bird of the water. The measurements I found said the drake was 20" long, and that compares to a redhead in size. With that information I drew another patternn this time very round and squat with a more diver/eider shaped head. I exagerated the fleshy lobes of the bill also. And to tie this back to your original comments about speculums I exposed a wing on the right side to show off the speculum. Now in about two weeks I'm hoping to get to see a first edition copy of the Audubon lithographs of the Labrador Duck, although he called them Pied Ducks on his drawing, that the University of Pittsburgh owns and will be exhibiting these at a lecture. My wife works there and is trying to get me an invite. According to history Audubon's is the only known example of any art work done from an actual freshly collected Lab. So the colors he shows are the best estimation of what one looked like in life. Sorry to diverge, but to bring it back to the topic once again Dr. Chilton recommended in his emails to this collector that he use a medium brown eye for both the hen and the drake. And I ordered 12mm medium browns from Tohickon for that.
 
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Just a heads up guys.

Some eyes I have ordered in the past have been, well not to fine a point on it, crappy. Unmatched heights and color problems. Other times the products have been top shelf. Be sure of who you are ordering from first of all, as I have found that some suppliers are selling eyes under the Tohikon name and even using the product numbers but these have to either be seconds or are just being passed off as the real deal when they just can't be.

Over all, I like laying hands on stuff before I buy it anyway, just ask Willy and Di from The Duck Blind, I think I have DNA markers on most pairs of eyes they have in stock, but that's why I love those guys. Service,value, and chocolate chip cookies all in one trip!


Regards, B
 
Just a heads up guys.

Some eyes I have ordered in the past have been, well not to fine a point on it, crappy. Unmatched heights and color problems. Other times the products have been top shelf. Be sure of who you are ordering from first of all, as I have found that some suppliers are selling eyes under the Tohikon name and even using the product numbers but these have to either be seconds or are just being passed off as the real deal when they just can't be.

Over all, I like laying hands on stuff before I buy it anyway, just ask Willy and Di from The Duck Blind, I think I have DNA markers on most pairs of eyes they have in stock, but that's why I love those guys. Service,value, and chocolate chip cookies all in one trip!


Regards, B
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Brian,

Are you saying that you have had problems with Tohickion eyes ordered from the factory or are you buying from someone who resells them? I've always found there eyes perfect, even their economy grade decoy eyes (103's) are perfectly identical.

T
 
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