The CCADA’s 53rd Annual Orleans Antiques Show took place under two large tents and around the perimeter of the front lawn of the Nauset Middle School. A total of 29 exhibitors were on hand, largely returning ones but also a handful of ones showing for the first time.
Review & Onsite Photos by Madelia Hickman Ring
ORLEANS, MASS. — The morning of Saturday, August 5, dawned cool and partly sunny for the 29 dealers who set up on the front lawn of Nauset Middle School. From 9 am to 3 pm, a few hundred visitors passed through the gate of the 53rd annual Summer Antiques Show in Orleans, conducted by the Cape Cod Antique Dealers Association (CCADA) and held to benefit the organization’s Cultural Enrichment Fund. Though there were some scattered light showers in the hour from 10-11 am, the show saw perfect weather conducive to great visitor traffic and sales.
Carl Goveia quipped, “It’s not a beach day, it’s a great day to shop!” The North Eastham, Mass., dealer, who recently took over running the show from Charlene Dixon and dubbed himself “the big cheese,” said in the first hour he’d sold a sign, a little table and some doorstops. After the show, Goveia said, “Overall the show was very successful for most dealers. I talked to almost everyone at the end of the day and the majority did as well if not better than last year. The crowd thinned down about 1 pm as it usually does these days. It got hot when the sun came out. Two new dealers did very well so I was glad to see that. No one, it seems, did poorly.
Jewelry, pottery and glass are standard fare with Marie Forjan, who was busy bagging a sale for a returning client when we passed through. Forjan, one of the directors of CCADA, said, “The day was wonderful! One dealer I spoke to told me it was by far the best show she has done this year! We had a lot of shoppers and I noticed quite a few young people. One of the dealers near me had a sweet, old set of toy wood worker tools (a tiny hammer, saw, screw drivers, etc.) in a wooden box. A young boy shopping with his father bought them. For me jewelry was my biggest seller, consistent all day, though pottery and glass also sold for me. The most unusual item I sold was a group of Castle Films 8mm cartoons from the 1930s-40s, not something I usually carry but I couldn’t pass them up when I saw them.”
Marie Forjan had a wonderful selection of vintage or antique beaded purses. Marie’s Memories, Eastham, Mass.
Though the show was largely fielded by returning dealers — some whom have been doing the show for more than 10 years — there were a few new exhibitors who were making their debut. One of these was Jeff Young, from Cataumet, Mass., who recently joined CCADA and who was participating in his first ever antiques show in Orleans. He has been buying and selling since 2011 and known members of the organization for years, seeing them at various antiques events throughout the Cape and they encouraged him to join. He has a presence on Instagram under the business name “Vintage & Young”; he was pleased to be there and said he was having a great show.
Orleans native Thomas Leek, Tom’s Curiosity Shop, was also doing the show for the first time. A selection of sheet music from the Civil War and a framed 1922 photograph of the Cape Cod steamship Dorothy Bradford were among the unusual and noteworthy standouts in his booth.
Vintage jewelry and art pottery were in good supply with new dealer Paula Deane, whose business, Cat’s Meow Antiques, is in Mashpee, Mass.
Tall trees at the north end of the field provide more than ample shade for a handful of dealers. Adjacent to the front gate, Day Herman, Whaling Days Antiques, was busy crocheting a baby blanket while visitors explored her offerings. Among some of the interesting things she’d brought from New Bedford, Mass., were Civil War-era grape shots, cast iron doorstops and a deacon’s bench laden with stoneware.
Nautical art at the show included a shadowbox and a painting of a ship in full sail by Edith Parsons. Whaling Days Antiques, New Bedford, Mass.
Next to Herman, Jim Buchanan had marked a few things sold within the first few minutes of the show, including a pine shelf with drawers, a pine cabinet and a painted plant stand. For those with money to spend, a driftwood lamp and three pieces of majolica — a compote, pitcher and plate — were also getting attention from shoppers.
Returning to Orleans after doing the show for the first time in 2022, Ted Biszko’s booth was crowded and featured a large unsigned needlework, a group of primitive landscapes signed “Katie,” a watercolor of fisherman in boats by Vladimir Pavlosky and a Peter Rabbit nursery set by Wedgwood. While we were in his booth, the Brimfield, Mass., dealer sold a few scrimshaw bookmarks from a collection he’d recently acquired, and a Worcester Royal Porcelain Company limited edition Mayflower Bowl.
Local Orleans dealers support the show and, this year, included five in total. One of them — William Nickerson — usually brings marine paintings, period furniture and vintage vinyl records and did not disappoint this year. As we passed through, he was busy discussing the merits of a slant-lid desk with a prospective buyer having already sold a caned and wicker chair, a pine bureau and a pine table with hinged top that converted into a settle with drawers.
Bill Nickerson is the son of Reginald Eugene Nickerson (American, 1915-1999), whose nautical works have long been appreciated both on the Cape and off. He brought two works to the show — “Golden Hope,” to the left of the slant-lid desk, and to its right, an untitled New England whaling scene. William Nickerson Antiques, Orleans, Mass.
Charles Wibel, who has a shop in The Gallery at Post Office Square in Orleans, had an exposed booth on the perimeter of the show. Among tables laden with framed work, including sepia prints of New York City and folk art portraits, he had an important group of three silhouettes of members of the Talmadge Family that had been done by master silhouette artist Auguste Edouart (French American, 1789-1861). Wibel had acquired them “not long ago” from a woman in Wellfleet, Mass., who had descended in the family; he said another silhouette from the same family group was in the collection of the Smithsonian.
Fellow Orleans dealer Carolyn Thompson is a stalwart long-time exhibitor, and her booth had a good variety of things, from decoys and doorstops to chocolate molds and vintage postcards.
Jackie Nuccio, occupying one corner of the second large tent, was one of a few dealers to bring Chinese export antiques, most notably a Nineteenth Century Chinese pigskin hope chest and some porcelain. She was delighted to show off a 1957 Vinal Haven school landscape signed “M. Morong.”
“You got here too late…I sold all my best stuff already!” teased Pat Anderson. The Cummaquid, Mass., dealer noted sales of a lift-top chest, a Sandwich glass lamp, a spiderleg table from the Davis family, an Ironstone platter and a set of 10 early American pattern glass goblets, as well as — to the same buyer — all six buoys she’d brought. Still on offer and still desirable were two of Peter Peltz’s carved birds.
Though she had already sold several of her “best” pieces within the first hour of the show, Pat Anderson pointed out two bird carvings by Peter Peltz, including the chickadee, shown to the left, and the gull under a glass dome. Among Peltz’s collectors includes former First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Cummaquid Farm Antiques, Cummaquid, Mass.
Michele Kittila specializes in Bakelite-handled kitchen implements, among many other things, and had brought several examples to the show, including a copy of Barbara Mauzy’s Bakelite in the Kitchen, a 2001 Schiffer publication. A wooden tray that accompanied her selection was marked “sold.”
Across the aisle from Kittila, Patricia Ferrara was busy manning no fewer than eight flat cases of estate and vintage jewelry in addition to one table of smalls that included Japanese satsuma pottery, Wedgwood and a pair of Dresden porcelain chickens.
The only dealers in the show from Connecticut are Nancy and Gene Meyer, from Milford. Their first sale of the day was a vintage seashell-form tea set by Hull, in the Ebb Tide pattern, circa 1940s, that had been featured in pre-event advertising in the August 4 issue of Antiques and The Arts Weekly. A dedicated reader spotted the photo and made a beeline for their booth. Among other early sales tallied were nautical themed linens — dishtowels, tablecloths and napkin sets — and some circa 1940 pillows.
Similarly, the only vendor from Vermont was Linda Brown, Cargill Collection, hailing from White River Junction, who said the first couple of hours had been good. After showing off a set of vintage Sabbath Day Lake seed jars that she’d acquired from a friend in Enfield, N.H., she sold several small decorative boxes to a group of three women who were having a fun outing at the show.
It was not clear if this set of Sabbathday Lake Shaker seeds were full but the cans were dated 1977 so presumably the seeds were probably still good. Cargill Collection, White River Junction, Vt.
Returning for the second time, from Tiverton, R.I., Sheila Gediman of Stone Bridge Antiques, had several sets for people looking to outfit a sideboard or china cabinet: a 25-piece set of Homer Laughlin Riviera pottery, a 24-piece English silverplated fish service and a flatware set by Holmes & Edwards in the Danish Princess pattern.
Gary Jennings’ tabletops were laden with a wide variety of things, including a vintage saxophone, postcards, stereo cards, molding planes, sports trading cards and daguerreotypes. A more unusual offering was a pair of nozzles for firehoses the Rehoboth dealer had on prominent display.
Jennings’ neighbor, both at the show and also from Rehoboth, was New England Seasons, who had a penchant for books on the American illustrator and author, Tasha Tudor. In addition to her children’s books, Tudor wrote books on cooking and gardening, and these were among some of the varied offerings.
The CCADA’s next show will be the Third Annual Antiques at the Academy Antiques Show & Sale at the Cape Cod Academy in Osterville, Mass., on August 26. For information, www.ccada.com.
