The crowds just kept on coming at Cider House Antiques Show, here in the pavilion.
Review and Photos by Tom O’Hara
BOUCKVILLE, N.Y. – Madison-Bouckville Antiques Week, August 13-20, again experienced great attendance and full exhibit fields for the week’s sometimes chaotic activity, setting up exhibits, buying, selling, packing out to move to another field and more buying and selling. And that was just what the exhibiting dealers were doing. Customers were running from field to field, watching what fresh merchandise would come out each day as the exhibitors added to their stocks during the week. Many dealers had held some things in reserve or bought items as they were brought in early in the mornings by other exhibitors, or acquired them at auctions conducted early in the week.
In this early part of the week, the lead is clearly the activity created by Jim Dutcher’s Cider House show with more than 200 exhibitors in the pavilion, large 30-by-120-foot tents and the Cider House shop, which is open year-round. This field, at the western end of all the activity, features more amenities for the exhibitors and public than most, including free parking for hundreds of vehicles, spaces and hook-ups for campers and motor homes and restrooms, all of which are a positive draw for the public.
Maple Side Antiques, Titusville, Penn. —East Expo
And the shopping is great, too.
Mario Gauthier, Auburn, N.H., was selling from his collection of small things so quickly that he and his partner had no time for conversation. Their inventory includes small objects, such as perfume bottles in silver overlay from 100 years ago, unusual silver serving pieces, special pieces in porcelain, china and crystal.
TLC Antiques, Pottstown, Penn., was enjoying equal success early that week with the firm’s selection of various forms and types of glass ware from the first half of the Twentieth Century. There was pattern glass, carnival glass, Depression and some Tiffany, too.
Assorted firearms from Morocco, Algeria and Albania were selling well for Rex Brant. The Filmore, N.Y., exhibitor had a collection to offer, all in good working condition, he said, and from the Nineteenth Century or earlier.
David Evans is a relative newcomer to Madison-Bouckville, as this was only his second year at the show. From Waldoboro, S.C., he brought an assortment of antiques and early collectibles, including furniture and decorative accessories along with many stuffed animals and hides converted to rugs. He also did a good deal of shopping prior to opening his own exhibit at Cider House, finding several great collectibles. His sales included a set of valuable late Nineteenth Century framed landscape photographs; an 11-foot-long Old Town canoe; a miniature log cabin and a pair of Art Deco leather armchairs. In addition, Evans purchased a large collection of miniature license plates, the kind that kids put on their bicycles in the 1950s with their names on them, as well as the store display from which they were sold. During the show, he sold several hundred of the plates individually.
Sandy Fowler of Antique Articles, Dunstable, Mass., was selling from her collection of antique delft tiles. Under the Pines is Edward Correia’s business from Sterling, Conn., specializing in steampunk lighting, which was selling very well.
Darlene Ballard from nearby Hamilton, N.Y., was showing her collection of clocks and also Nineteenth Century Italian wine bottle stoppers. She not only does this show, she is also a permanent exhibitor in the year-round Cider House Shop at the front of this show.
Along the street there were many other exhibitors successfully selling from their collections.
Russ Frayko from Sussex, N.J., was showing a collection of typically New York oak and maple furniture from the Nineteenth Century. He said sales were good, pointing to several Larkin-style pieces with sold tags.
Jean Tudhope, East Middlebury, Vt., and Janice Goodwin, Hinesburg, Vt. —East Expo
Across the street at Whistle Post there were a couple of matching rocking chairs, like the kind seen on front porches, ready for new seats.
Madison Auction Service, Madison, N.Y., was offering a collection of Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century American and English mahogany and walnut furniture. This exhibitor was also a big contributor to the week’s auction action with a sale on the first weekend offering furniture, fine art and folk art.
Another of the large fields doing business all week long is Mark Peavey’s East Expo. Here more than 100 dealers exhibit in tents on the roadside next to a cornfield, offering their antiques, which are dominated by early American country style.
For example, Vermonters Jean Tudhope, East Middlebury, and Janice Goodwin, Hinesburg, were sharing tent space to offer an assortment of American home crafts, furniture and tools. There was a set of four birdcage Windsor chairs, an assortment of braided rugs and smaller mats and various tools and machines for the kitchen of 150 years ago.
From Pennsylvania, Ron and Mary Minges brought stoneware, toleware and early textiles. Their red daisy quilt sold. Ron said it was Mennonite and 100 percent handwork.
Another Pennsylvania dealer, Dan Freeburg, from Wilcox, was busy with his assortment of goods from the Eighteenth Century. His merchandise concentrated on smaller pieces, such as wall cupboards in original paint, a tabletop desk with lift top and drawers, pierced tin lanterns, several mortar and pestle sets and early textiles. Among these was a quilt, probably 100 years old, in very good condition.
Ponzi’s Antiques is a dealer from Trumansburg, N.Y., who prefers the more elegant Georgian styles in furniture. On offer this week was a collection of mostly American pieces, including a corner cupboard in mixed hardwoods, a cherry chest of drawers, probably Connecticut, and a Sheraton or Federal mahogany two-drawer stand with drop leaf sides.
Game boards, small painted furniture pieces and wonderful hooked rugs and mats are the specialty of Horsefeathers Antiques from Delhi, N.Y. Tom and Jan Newcomer have been collecting for a long time, grew into dealing and now they are a fixture at East Expo.
While Cider House and East Expo dominate the early part of Madison-Bouckville Antiques Week, they are not all of it. The Madison-Bouckville show promoters include a total of 14 fields, some with just a couple dozen dealers to the big fields, such as Cider House with 200. Now that the 2017 edition is over, plans are already being made for next year with show dates August 13-19, so mark your calendars.
For additional information, www.madison-bouckville.com.
