Reflections from an Auction Filled Weekend

This weekend was wide open for us--and we quickly filled it with an auction on both Saturday and Sunday.  This is prime time to select good area auctions--and to find two good ones in one weekend can be a challenge most of the year--but not in the beginning of beautiful June weather.

First auction was way west of Chicago off of Highway 34.  A large house built in late 1800s that had always been in the same family. A grocery store magnate built it for his sisters and it has been in the same family all these years.  The auctioneer was one I was not familiar with--but it was a father son duo with a few other relief auctioneers.  A tree shaded yard and 12 flatbed wagons--plus rows and rows of furniture welcomed us--and our good parking place right across from the house.  There were about 150 bidder cards--and many of the other patrons knew one another--including a large handful of dealers.  I am not known in that part if Illinois--and I love floating around and listening to snippets of conversation:

1.  "I don't know what got those five chickens--we do have some fox around here though."
2.   "Call Ron in the city--he'll know what these kind of trunks bring."
3. "Barbara-how high do you want me to go on that box of fabric?"  "Not more than 15 bucks."  (box won for $22.50.)
4. "What time do they start serving lunch?"  "Not till 10am-but you can have a bismark from the BP right now if you want."
5.  "How long till they get to the furniture?  It is going to get way hot and I want to work in the garden some today."
6. "Did you see the wood-work in the house?  And the walk out attic?  I only dream about woodwork and an attic like that."
7.  "Let's rent out our house and buy this one."

Gotta love it.  What a crossroads of humanity.

We were diligent and did not bid on "just stuff" that we might have bid on a few years ago.  Shops, malls and shows are chock full of "just stuff"--and we are looking for the unusual.  Even if we come home with less inventory--I want it to be sellable.

Loot for the day-- several goodies including two fabulous  did I say FABULOUS  painted Scandinavian trunks--one dated 1867 and one dated 1814.  Just love a good country auction.

Next post:  Sunday's loot.

(zucchini blossom photo at top of blog?  In France and Italy you find these treasures in farmer's markets.  They are INCREDIBLE stuffed with all sorts of fillings or even fried up with a dipping sauce.  Can't find them in northern Illinois markets though--)

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!)

Mushroom Picking and Antiques

We are getting to the time of spring in the Midwest when morel mushrooms come into season.  These super mushrooms are little niblets of golden brown that grow in secret woodland places--and I guess would be the Midwestern equivalent of french truffles.  People who pick mushrooms--both here and in Europe, treat the locations like state secrets.  The rest of us--if we are lucky to see them on offer--have to pay huge prices for them in restaurant recipes--and I have never seen morels at a standard farmer's market.

Bohemians are great mushroom pickers and lovers.  This autumn on our trip to Bohemia and Moravia we were touring an incredible library and country house near Brno.  After meeting with an academic and  conservation staff we sat a few minutes in their offices.  Smack dab on the middle of the work table was this "houby basket".

Yes--this is a vintage basket, lined with leaves--used to wander in the woods and pick mushrooms.  Something about this seemed so timeless and charming to me.  Everyone loves mushrooms in Bohemia--and foraging for them was a lunch hour pastime.  Soooo Hansel and Gretel!!!

French markets have cepes mushrooms this time of year.  I remember traveling in the south of France and seeing cepes offered in recipes from omlettes to bread.  The flavor is remarkable and you just smell and taste the woods while eating them. They are one of those foods that you have to eat in season--right now-not later.  They do not transport well.  French strawberries are like that--you buy your fruit and must eat  it that day. The water content is so high and the taste is so delicate that they deteriorate in the fridge or even overnight. 

That is a crystal clear memory from my childhood.  In addition to the clear Midwestern seasons that would mark ones life years, fresh fruits and vegetables that were not available year round were like that.  Mushrooms-strawberries-peaches-tomatoes-figs---the march of time just like winter/spring/summer/autumn.

What do mushrooms have to do with antiques?  Last year at the Elkhorn Antique Flea Market in May--some dealer was selling morels for $20.00 a pound.  I balked at the price and passed them up. 

Please come back to Elkhorn this year Mr. Antique and Houby Man. 

No More Estate Sales

Years ago when I first started out in this business, estate sales were the best way to find inventory to sell at our shops and shows.

When we lived in a Chicago hi-rise--I would get up early--and make the reverse commute to a news stand in the near western suburbs and get the local papers and scope out the estate sales.  This was before the internet--so the only way to find out what sales were happening was to check out the classifieds.  I would spend a happy morning  doodling around Oak Park and environs and get treasure to sell.  There was some competition--but not much--and I never came home empty handed.

Nothing stays the same.  Fast forward to my life way west of the city now twenty years later.  Sales are published on special websites,  in online papers and on craig's list.  Thrifting and repurposing in are in vogue now--and competition for the treasure has increased many fold.  More hands and feet are mining for gold.  The gold is still out there--just not at estate and garage sales for me.

Oh sure.  We all have seen the tv shows where the person has found a $50,000 widget that they bought for a buck at an estate sale.  I have a few incredible stories I think I have shared on this site.  Like John Wayne's high school yearbook that I found at a local estate sale for $30 bucks and I sold for four figures.  Really.

But no more.  Maybe this realization comes because it is my birthday today and I am becoming more profound in my old age.  No more estate and garage sales for me. 

The antiques trade is truly a food chain-garage sales on one end and high end auctions or antiques shows on the other.  Over time--Dear Husbola and I have purchased at these two venues and all in between and found items that we can sell onward. A dealer has to buy right.  If we buy items at retail and try to sell onward--our inventory will get old and stale and not move on.  Savvy shoppers know these days what items are worth.  It just boils down to how much time I want to spend  looking for things.  I get no pleasure anymore from stopping at 15 garage sales or estate sales and finding little of interest.  In this case I do not enjoy the journey because the rewards have become more scarce.

So what am I saying?  I would rather pay a bit more and buy my inventory a little higher up on the food chain than at a garage or estate sale.  I will let someone else stop at those 15 sales, find it, clean it up, repair it, futz with it--and I will buy it room ready and sell it on.  I will just be more selective--so there is a fair profit in what I buy--certainly not as large a profit--but my time is worth something, right?

So--my fellow Way West of Chicago Antique Dealer Competitors can breathe a big sigh of relief.  We will not run into each other in front of a house at 5am for an 8am sale.  I will not be sitting in a cold car waiting for a sale to open.  I will no longer show up at a sale that is advertised to open at one time with no early birds and then has opened early to a few pushy dealers.

  But let's keep in touch--I'll come visit your shop or show and become one of your better customers.

I'll Never Be Able To Talk the Talk

The spring show and selling season is upon us--and with gusto.  If sales so far are any indication--this could be a very good selling year.  Let's hope so--in spite of my inability to Talk the Talk.

I read some antiques journal and magazines--and have added some flea market styling type magazines to make a decent attempt at figuring out what people are buying in the vintage and antique markets these days.  Is it all white or chippy shabby white?  Is is sort of Belgian browns and creams and chocolates?  Is it big pops and snaps of color?  Or lots of bright discordant hues as a hodge podge?

I am not sure there is a consensus this year-- nor am I sure there are any real "style mavens" anymore.  I remember somebody named Martha was able to get half the country to buy yellow ware one year and green jadite the next simply by publishing photos in a magazine.  Or "The Woman Who Used to Live in Chicago and Her Name Starts with an O" who could get people to buy a particular type of brownie made in Geneva or get people to make a book an instant best seller.

I do know that sometimes I hear other dealers use language that just makes me smile when I hear it--or even chuckle under my breath.

"This has just  FABULOUS detailing!"
"What KILLER hardware there is on the piece."
"Isn't this a DELICIOUS color of yellow"
"AWESOME AWESOME original surface!"
"What a PRECIOUS frame on a SCRUMPTIOUS print."

Oh my.  I've tried--I really have tried.  Dear Husbola has tried too.  Can't do it.
I hope that our inventory speaks for itself.   I hope that taking care with display and attractive pricing can make our goods for sale all those things--fabulous-killer-delicious and awesome.

Ok Ok--really--the layers of original paint on the cabinet doors IS killer--and the assortment of enamelware--filled with fresh flowers will be precious--and the old painters bucket and brushes ARE awesome!

Come see these and other treasure at the Blumen Gardens Show in Sycamore IL April 27-28.