Vendors bring antique wares to annual show
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By Christine Mastalio | Sunday, November 05, 2006 |
Nick Loomis/QUAD-CITY TIMES Steve Baughn of Colona, Ill., peruses the glass and porcelain wares at the Our Adventure display operated by Marlene and Gene Deshler of Marathon, Iowa, during the Antique Spectacular at the QCCA Expo Center in Rock Island on Saturday.
At the 12th annual “Antique Spectacular” show, shoppers wandered through booths full of furniture, clothing, books, glassware and decorations — all of it old.
While no reproductions were allowed at the QCCA Expo Center in Rock Island this weekend, traces of modern life have invaded the antiquing business. Dealers directed prospective buyers to their Web sites and accepted credit card transactions. The advent of eBay and other online auction sites also has changed the antiquing world.
Pat Gormley, owner of Mostly Old Stuff, a Moline-based antique and vintage business, only operates a virtual store.
“It’s easier to have a shop on the Internet,” she said. “If I want to do business at 2 in the morning, I can do that.”
She said eBay has made it more difficult for dealers to own one shop in one town, because buyers can target specific items through online dealers.
“The quality collector still wants to look at it, touch it, feel it,” Doris Renz of Belvedere, Ill., said. “People are buying on eBay and becoming dissatisfied. They want you to tell them about the antique.”
Renz said online dealers have not affected D&D Antiques’ profits, which she operates with her husband, but she has seen a decrease in live auctions.
The couple started selling wares 20 years ago after low schoolteacher’s salaries led them to purchase household items at auctions.
“My first salary was $3,000 a year,” Renz said. “We decided to watch what we were buying and make sure it would appreciate in value.”
According to Gormley, an item must be 100 years old to be considered an antique and 25 years old to be a collectable. Items between the two benchmarks are known as vintage, although these terms are used loosely in the antiquing world.
The event hosted 65 regional antique vendors. Not all buyers were concerned with the semantics of the trade, though.
“We have an old house and we like to fill it with old things,” said Karen Roberts of Viola, Ill. “We’re mostly just looking at prices. We look at auctions and on eBay.”
For Bert Shinbori of Bettendorf, auctions and antique shows were weekly outings when she was growing up.
“They have a good selection here. It’s top-of-the-line stuff,” she said. ““If you went to 12 stores you would get the selection you have here.”
Shinbori said she finds focal points to decorate a room around. She designed her granddaughter’s room around a turn-of-the-century patriotic poster.
“It gives the house a feeling of nostalgia,” said Ed Strobl of Waterloo, Iowa, carrying a 1940s-era print of a used-car lot.
Sporting jewelry from the Victorian era, Anna Depew answered questions about fur coats and button-up shoes.
“Really unexpected people come in and buy things,” said Depew, who works for her mother’s Nebraska-based Victorian antique business. “Antiquers who want a specific thing, people who want something old and crazy, women who realize vintage is coming back in style.”
Event organizer Kim Schilling of Council Bluffs, Iowa, said the show usually attracts about 4,000 people.
“I think it reminds them of something in their childhood,” Schilling said. “But the reality is vintage furniture is so well made, it’s going to last another 200 years.”
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
If You Go
The Antique Spectacular will continue from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at the QCCA Expo Center, Rock Island. Admission is $6 and parking is free.
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