Memorial Day, Ebay and Rhubarb Pie

Happy Memorial Day!!  Quiet weekend on the Street With No Name.  We have packed the car for a trip to Madison and Odana Antiques this week.  We have had strong sales and need to restock and freshen the booth.  Treasures include a 1900s point of purchase display stand from the American Hoe Company and a terrific inlaid table with the date 1912 in the intricate design.

Ebay is calling my name--and I have listed a few things including vintage medicine bottles and an English needlepoint and inlaid slipper stool.  Needlework seems to be hot hot hot right now on ebay--and I still have several pieces to list.  In the shops--needlework can sit for months without moving.

Since it is almost 100 degrees today--what a great day to make oven baked bbq ribs and Dear Husbola's favorite rhubarb pie.  After all--the kitchen is already hot--what is a little hotter?
I love the Rhubarb Custard Pie Recipe from my Grandmother's vintage Betty Crocker Cookbook.  Pillsbury dough sure makes it easy.

Rhubarb Custard Pie- Circa 1950               400 degrees 45 minutes

Do not prebake lower crust.  Everything goes raw into the hot oven

Filling--4 cups raw sliced rhubarb
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
dash salt
1/2 teas cinnamon (says nutmeg but we prefer cinnamon)
3 beaten eggs

Top with crust.  Egg white wash and sprinkle sugar.  Make a few slits.
YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY.

Enjoy your holiday.

NATO Summit or Elkhorn Antique Flea Market

As this year continues to just fly by,  my calendar tells me that May 19-20 are significant for a variety of reasons--the weekend brings both the NATO summit to Chicago and it is the antique flea market opening season in Elkhorn Wisconsin.

This blog will always be a "politics free zone" so I will not comment on the summit.  But I will urge you to jump in your car--and come to the nicest antiques event in the midwest.  The Walworth County Fairgrounds hosts this market four times a year--and we think the first is always the biggest and the best.

More than 600 dealers--in and outside--selling all manor of vintage treasure.  We will be in the North Hall--firmly in a covered space, concrete floor and next to good restrooms and the grilled brat seller.  Yeah we have heard that many customers never make it into the buildings--but we beg to differ.  Of the 10,000 folks who go through in a weekend--we get a large part of that--and enjoy doing the show.

So--if transportation nightmares  are not your style and personal safety is a priority, make the journey to Elkhorn Wisconsin instead..  Early buying starts at 1pm Saturday for a premium admisssion and Sunday starts at 7am till 3pm for five bucks.  Grab yourself a spring perennial, a bunch of home grown asparagas and rhubarb, a Lion's Club brat or a Future Farmer's of America breakfast sandwich, wander on good footpaths and under mature trees  and peruse stall upon stall upon STALL of vintage and antiques treasure--and leave the craziness to downtown Chicago.

Discounts Are the Name of the Game Now

The hardest thing I find about the antiques trade is proper pricing.  Dear Husbola and I do not sell "common" items.  In fact--we find the usual stuff you see in most malls very boring.  Really--does anyone even LOOK at depression glass anymore?  Stacks of glassware and dishes are "dead in the water" as we say--if they sell at all--they are selling for a fraction of what they once were.

Shoppers are more savvy these days--they ask for discounts now far more often than they once did.  Everyone knows that antique sales have slowed--and the chances that sellers are more hungry for a sale has increased.  Shoppers know that--and are not shy about asking for "a  better price."  I know it--and I do it myself.

But some shoppers are so RUDE about it--it makes me want to scream.

Most recently, we set up and sold at the Blumen Gardens show in Sycamore Illinois.  It is our second year and we sold well--and 99% of the buyers and shoppers were pleasant, conversational and respectful..  But ohhh--that 5 % was a real wing ding.

Respect is a two way street.  Respect for our customers needs to bet met halfway with a respectful understanding that we do not get our inventory for nothing--and you ask me politely--I will discount politely.  Seems simple.

Take the woman who spent 15 minutes going through a large container of vintage sets of dice.  I had not intended to sell any--they were just decorating a large bowl--but when people started asking--I figured I would sell.  Now these were CHEAP!  REALLY cheap.  Her purchase came to six dollars.

"I'll give ya five," was her wonderful offer.

HAPPILY when a shopper is making a purchase of consequence--we give an attractive discount.  We realize that that is part of the antiques commerce.  When we sell in an antiques market setting like Elkhorn--we especially expect it. 

But--at a lovely indoor show--knocking a buck off a 6 dollar purchase?  No thank you.

I told this Wonderful Perspective Customer--"No--at that price point there is no discount."  At this point--she shot me a look that would have withered limestone.  Or curled the toes of the Wicked Witch of the East.

Funny--I forget all the great customers that weekend--and remember This One Treasure.

(PS-She bought them anyway---)
(PPS-Why the artichoke picture?  Just because it is spring and in season in France--and pretty!)