Cord Shows had nearly 2,000 visitors for its traditional Memorial Day antiques fair at Lasden Park, where more than 80 dealers offered antiques and early collectibles to the record-breaking crowd.
The one-day event on May 28, which has been plagued for several years by heavy rains, enjoyed fine weather for this year’s show. According to show manager Vivien Cord, “The great weather probably helped our attendance and the sales as well. The customers came in great numbers and it was a pleasure to stay for a while and do some buying.” Cord makes the show into a family day with live music and food service in addition to the antiques and vintage collectibles.
The morning opening was timed for all buyers to enter together, no early birds at a Cord show, so the line was very long, with about 200 people waiting for the first look at the exhibits.
Forget Me Not’s was near the entrance with an extensive collection of early stoneware, pottery and glass. The owners, Phyllis and Kathy Beyer of Torrington, Conn., have been dealing for more than 40 years at shows, as a mother-daughter team, although Kathy was just a child in the early years. From their signature red and white transfer ware collection by Mason, they sold 13 pieces to one early customer. A porcelain statue of Elvis found its way out of their booth to a new collector.
Court Street Place Antiques of Cranston, R.I., held court near the front of the show and wrote up sales in stoneware and porcelain, including a Roseville pitcher, Marblehead pottery, a pickle crock and several other items.
Baltimorean Bob Lavallee’s inventory featured a large quantity of smalls, most with an English heritage. There was fishing tackle and lures, desk accessories such as inkwells and small rulers, a hair clipper, early keys and other small tools, corkscrews and some stoppers. It was a very large collection of very small things.
Maile Allen of Colonia, N.J., offered prints and maps. The father and daughter team exhibit frequently in the New York suburbs with an excellent collection of antique paper ready for framing and hanging.
Among the art dealers at the show were Jon and Nancy Kugelman from West Hartford, Conn. As the show is outdoors, their offerings were great wall hangings from listed artists. One example was an etching by noted Scottish artist Andrew Affleck, circa 1920, of a windmill, which was priced at $215.
Furniture is still a staple for most dealers here, and there was an abundance of it on the Lasden lawn that day.
Rick Pirozzoli of Sport Hill Antiques in Redding, Conn., was offering furniture from throughout the Nineteenth Century. Among his sales was an early drafting table, which had a cast iron base. Also offered were an early workbench, a Coats and Clark thread cabinet from a notions store, a tap table Rick said was from New Hampshire, and a very decorative Victorian-era easel and a collection of early quilts.
Cottage Treasures was offering more lively furniture, such as an early painted porch bench in bright green. The dealer, Paul Dorman from Long Valley, N.J., was also showing a pair of Asian room dividing screens, some early decorative iron fencing, and some wooden forms used to make the sand castings of iron machine tool parts originally but now “great as end tables,” he said.
Variety and affordability are often the key ingredients at the shows run by Vivien Cord and Ed McClure.
Blue Shutters Antiques, Montgomery, N.Y., was offering early Twentieth Century furniture and furnishings. Rick Fuller and Annette Coletti are business partners of Vermont-based Hand Picked. Their offerings were the very picture of a Vermont home, with early quilts as wall hangings behind primitive furniture and early household accessories.
Paula Sophoclides, Recollections Antiques from Pittsford, N.Y., had a Sheraton period deck top dresser as the centerpiece of her booth, and Sue Harmon, Cos Cob, Conn., was selling a William and Mary arm chair for $1,200.
Vivien, who has been running shows for more than 30 years, will have an antiques show on July 4 at Stevens Memorial United Methodist Church in South Salem, N.Y., and will feature 25 antique dealers at the 40th New Milford Village Fair Days July 27′8 in New Milford, Conn.
For information, www.cordshows.com or 914-273-4667, where either Ed or Vivien can assist. They return to Lasden on Labor Day on September 3.
