How
to Find Antique Shops
By Barry Krause
Part of the fun of wandering around
the country is finding more antique shops to visit. I use these
methods, listed here from most to least reliable:
1. Ads in the
latest issues of antiques/collectibles periodicals, like this one,
are usually up-to-date. When dealers go out of business, they stop
advertising in publications. Regular ads in every issue indicate
business stability.
The size or creative content of an antique dealer's ad may or may
not reveal an antique shop's usefulness to you. Don't ignore small
ads or assume that the largest ads mean overpriced merchandise.
Don't prejudge any shop before you go there. Every shop is unique
in many respects, and the shop that you pass up may have treasures
at fair prices.
I clip out dealers' ads and arrange them in geographical order for
my cross-country drives so that I don't miss any or waste time back-tracking.
Sometimes I photocopy each ad on a separate sheet of 8-1/2 x 11
paper to carry with me in a file folder of shops in a particular
state or large city. Any extra space on the photocopied sheet lets
me write in my observations about the shop, such as "Excellent
paper collectibles reasonably priced, free parking out front, closed
on Mondays, doesn't take personal checks."
2. Referrals from other dealers and collectors are generally up-to-date,
but not always, and should be taken with a degree of caution because
they are offered through the eyes of one person who may or may not
appreciate the stock and business habits of the shop recommended.
But chances are that a fellow dealer or customer of a nearby antique
shop will know something about that shop's history, proprietor's
business style – including whether or not they buy as well
as sell what they stock right now – and a personal estimate
about the market prices of stock there, i.e., whether that shop
offers good value for the money that a customer spends.
Successful antique dealers understand that their chosen profession
is cooperative as well as competitive. Smart dealers don't resent
a nearby dealer making money, and dealers on friendly terms with
each other will refer customers to each other for mutual benefit.
For example, I collect old postcards, and dealers often steer me
to the best-stocked postcard dealers in their towns, including part-time
semi-retired dealers who sell out of their homes or only at an occasional
antique show, and never advertise anywhere, not even in the telephone
book. How would I ever locate these dealers if I didn't ask and
if other dealers didn't tell me about them?
Whenever a dealer refers me to another dealer, I always mention
the name of the first dealer to the second, such as, "Louise
sent me here because she said you have the nicest postcards in town."
Often I get a reply such as, "Yes, I know Louise. She used
to work for me before setting up her own shop. Would you like to
hear an interesting story about the rare postcard collection she
once bought for my shop?"
Of course I want to hear the story. I'm a writer, and the more anecdotes
I know, the more entertaining my writing stands to become.
3. Tourist information offices at state borders, capital cities
and in recreational areas can have the most convenient brochures
and road maps for the antique shops up ahead along your intended
route of travel. But these brochures are sometimes inaccurate and
outdated. Call or write ahead before driving a long distance to
be sure an out-of-the-way shop will still be in business when you
arrive there. When I was younger and dumber, I wasted long drives
to extinct shops.
Tourist information employees are underpaid and aren't supposed
to be experts in everything. If they aren't personally interested
in antiques, they probably have never visited the antique shopping
districts described in their hand-out literature, so don't criticize
them for not being a world's authority on antiques as you are! They
may not know more than their brochure does about antique shops in
their neighborhood.
I always thank these clerks profusely and make them feel as though
they've just directed me to heaven when they give me a list of antique
shops where I'm going. People are as important as things, aren't
they? All of us are merely temporary custodians of our antique collections
anyway, but the good will we spread while antique shopping may benefit
more people than our dusty glassware or furniture ever will.
4. Telephone book Yellow Pages seem like a good source of antique
shops, and often they are, with shops classified usually under business
categories of "Antiques—Dealers" or "Antiques
and Collectibles," but sometimes also under simply "Collectibles"
or specific fields such as "Coin and Stamp Dealers" and
"Furniture Used and Antique."
Phone book publishers may charge extra money to list a dealer in
multiple classifications, and some dealers might refuse to pay this
additional cost. Also, last year's phone book may list dealers who
have gone out of business. The lengthy "lead time" in
book publishing means that all books are outdated on the day they
are published. That's why we need antiques/collectibles periodicals
with current dealer information.
5. Antique shops sometimes congregate near each other on the same
street or around the block where rent is cheaper or across the highway.
A short drive or walk has repaid me with wonders uncovered in shops
I would never have found otherwise. For example, in Iowa, I ran
into a dilapidated farmyard barn converted into a mini-mall antique
bazaar where I bought some postcards from Hong Kong recently, priced
at 50¢ to $1 per card, and postmarked in the first two decades
of the 20th century. I couldn't resist following that country road
away from the big antique mall advertised on interstate highway
billboards but unfortunately "picked over" for desirable
foreign postcards.
When I go to the trouble of finding an antique shop that doesn't
advertise, but has merchandise that I enjoy and can afford, I keep
records of its location in several files, including my "traveling
folders," so that, if I ever pass that way again, I won't miss
that "mystery shop" if it still exists.
©
2002 Mountain States Collector
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