Photos courtesy of the T. Johnson collection

This large turtle is a beautiful example of Otis' folk-art. It is weighted with lead but does not

have a line tie, so therefore it was not intended as a fish decoy. It measures 13 inches

head to tail and has a "wing spread" of 13" as well. Marbles are embedded into the body,

and old jewelry was used for the eyes. The legs are copper tubing with cotter pin toes.

Farmall Orange tractor paint was used on the belly. This may be the only turtle "toy" made.

If any Otis Lael collector's happen to be reading this, we would love to add photos of your

Otis toys, or other folk-art carvings to our galleries. Please e-mail us your photos.