The candymaker Mars spoofed Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue with its print ad for Snickers, which appeared on the magazine’s back cover.

COLCHESTER, CONN. – Nathan Liverant and Son’s calendar offers choice American antiques in a clever package. Company head Arthur Liverant, who loves a good joke, supplies much of the humor. His wife, Gigi, and daughter Hannah, both artists, design the handsome publication, which is distributed to around 2,000 friends, clients and antiques enthusiasts each year.

Liverant Antiques published its first swimsuit calendar in 2003.

Recently, what appeared to be the cover of a general-interest magazine devoted to American antiques turned up at newsstands everywhere and even made a cameo appearance on late-night television. The mock Home & Style cover, in reality an advertisement for Snickers candy bars, appeared on the back of Sports Illustrated’s 2017 swimsuit issue, mailed to three million subscribers.

The fictitious magazine promises such great reads as “Find Out If Salt Walter Destroys Mahogany (Spoiler: YES)” and “39 Infuriating Steps to Get a Swimsuit on a Chest of Drawers.” Hungry magazine editors get “loopy” for Snickers, suggests the tag line. The spoof bears a striking resemblance to Liverant’s 2003 and 2013 calendars.

Coincidence? Or do the Liverants have a secret admirer?

Reached by phone last week, Arthur Liverant told us, “I send out 500 calendars in December and usually include a handwritten note. We pass out another 300 or 400 calendars at New York’s Winter Antiques Show in January. Beyond that, we dispense another 500 to 700 calendars each year. I think somebody associated with the candymaker Mars must have picked our calendar up somewhere.”

The Snickers ad surprised Liverant and his staff. “I was watching Late Night With Stephen Colbert and was stunned when Colbert held up Sports Illustrated. There on the back cover was the ad,” says Ellen Sharon, who works in Liverant’s Colchester shop and quickly alerted her boss, vacationing in Florida at the time.

Far from being miffed, Arthur Liverant is pleased to see American antiques get such high-profile recognition, even if the Snickers ad, with its bikini and beach imagery, appears to borrow from his calendars. Liverant and his associate Kevin Tulimieri reached out to the Mars corporation and its agency for an explanation but have heard nothing to date.

Which leaves us all waiting for the other shoe – or bikini – to drop.

-Laura Beach

From Liverant’s beach-themed calendar.