Buyers Were Back at Music Valley Antiques Market

NASHVILLE, TENN.

:Buyers returned in new record numbers to the Music Valley Antiques Market during Heart of Country Antiques Week, February 8-13, according to show managers Jon Jenkins and Kay Puchstein. Ms Puchstein said, "the [antiques] market turned around here for us, that's for sure. We hope that is a growing trend for the industry."

The Music Valley show took place at the newly remodeled Radisson Hotel across from Gaylord's Opryland USA with more than 150 antiques dealers.

"Visitors were buying from the get-go," according to one Indiana dealer, who noted that furniture sold better for him than had been the case in the last several years. This show has had a variety of styles to the setup. About 30 booths are in the hotel's center atrium surrounded by plants, swimming pool and guest rooms lighted with skylights and electric lighting for a gardenlike setting. There is a ballroom and several conference rooms filled with merchandise, and there are more than 80 sleeping rooms that are converted to displays for the show.

Plain 'n' Simple, Lebanon, Ohio, was in a guest room that had undergone a makeover into a small antiques cottage for the week. Dealer Jack Rhodus specializes in early primitive furniture, also offering what appeared to be a rural American office, circa 1775. For Andy Hanzlian, this show is a vacation or at least a major change from his everyday life. Back home in Sacketts Harbor, N.Y., a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario, he runs a restaurant with a business partner. Here, he came with his friend and relaxed, selling high-end American furniture from the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth centuries.

Harriett Tucker and H.J. Hall, Springboro, Ohio, had a large collection of small tabletop antiques, including both English and American woodenware and treen ware. Neal Blodgett and his wife, Pat, from Higganum, Conn., have an oversized booth in the atrium filled with small antiques; nearly every item could fit into that proverbial bread box. Texan Jackie Hager brought a primitive room divider screen hand painted with a scene that appeared to be children going to school or church.

Another room that changed its character completely was that of Log House Antiques, Lititz, Penn. A visitor entering it would see the interior of a log home, circa 1800. The setting was a complement to the early furniture and accessories on display. Sandy Hart, Hart's Country Antiques from nearby New Oxford, Penn., offered furniture, but also showed a large assortment of wooden bowls; mixing bowls, chopping bowls, dough bowls and even some small enough to be soup bowls. Reilly and Jenks, also from New Oxford, have been regulars at this show for many years and do a large room setting in the atrium. At this show, their display was a well stocked early American kitchen.

Music Valley has exhibiting dealers from all around the country. O'Neill-Leonard, Austin, Texas, had a large display of redware pottery. Other Texas dealers included Sharon Smajstrla, with several folk art pieces, and Harper Antiques, offering a dining room ensemble for a small space. Mary Sparger, with help from her husband, Guy, came in from Mount Airy, N.C., with a mix of dining room and kitchen furniture. Lois Robinson brought a collection of painted furniture from her Charlotte, N.C., home.

Tom Cheap and Rose Reynolds, Period Antiques, Scottsburg, Ind., offered a large selection of early furniture and accessories. Virginian John Long had what might be called high country or furniture that was made in America by skilled craftsmen in the late Eighteenth Century. Tom Nagy is a Connecticut dealer who for this show brought an early high boy in Queen Anne style made in his home state.

Newly transplanted to Maine from Tennessee, Kim and Vera Gardiner still love their early American primitives from the 1800s. Two generations of Fithians came from the Atlanta area. Bob and Becky set up next to their son Scott and his wife Penny in the ballroom. The parents have an extensive collection of samplers and other small antiques, while the younger Fithians display furniture and porcelain. Nearby, Mark Witus from Gladstone, N.J., sold three hutch tables, one on the first day to dealer/promoter Bettianne Sweeney from Williamsburg, Va.

During interviews on Saturday with some of the dealers, most though not all were pleased with their results for the weeklong effort. Sales in furniture "had been generally better than for the past year or two," according to a North Carolina dealer, and he added, "I bought well, something which I had not been doing." His comments were echoed by many for the week.

This show is conducted - as are all Heart Week shows - twice each year, fall and late winter. The next show will be October 11-15. For information, 317-598-0012 or .