I didn't expect to be around last weekend to do any shows, but an abscessed tooth changed those plans, so I ended up in Amherst, NH, on the Village Green at the annual fall show organized there by the Amherst Historical Society. It was a picture perfect late summer day in a picture perfect New England village. This is a small show, about 40 dealers bringing good solid but affordable antiques. It's a show I've done before, so I knew what to expect, but if it's a show that's not on your radar, you really ought to add it to your list. It's always held on about the same weekend each September, and although it's not exactly a well-kept secret, it's not one of those heavily advertised (and therefore overpriced) shows.
For sellers and buyers both, it's a good opportunity.
Speaking of buying, I had managed to come up with a few tasty little things while dealing with that tooth problem...
Something that I otherwise wouldn't have even considered is this chain link ashtray stand.
It's got the age all right, probably 1930-40s, but what got my attention was that this is not simple log chain links welded together. It was made from flat, conveyor chain, the kind that you would have found on horse-drawn farm equipment-- hay loaders, manure spreaders, anything that was powered by its wheels as the horses drew it along. Once small tractors were firmly established on the small side-hill farms of New England, these implements were consigned to the back row of the field, behind the barn, and this little stand is a great example of adapting for reuse. I hope nobody smokes any more, but it's a perfect size for holding business cards, which is exactly what I had it doing last Saturday in Amherst.
I had also found a small number of tin cookie cutters since I last posted. My favorite was a horse.
It appealed to someone else, too, because it found a new home Saturday, on its first time out.
The real prize of the last few days of the never-ending antiques hunt, however, is a small Shaker Fancy Box. Only 4-3/8 inches long, and lined with silk (which distinguishes it from a pantry box), this little oval fingered box was probably made in the Canterbury, NH, community, likely "for the world" but its unusual feature is its Cherry top.
I don't know where my next show will be. I had planned to be in Lebanon, CT, this coming weekend, but the work that I had to postpone now has to be done, so I'll not be available for that Saturday show. (You should still go!) On the old schedule I hadn't expected to be available for any of the southern Vermont shows on the first weekend of October, and I don't know yet whether I will be or not, but none of those shows are the kind you can expect to be able to squeeze into, so if I am not otherwise engaged, I may just have to be content to set up a "yard show" of my own at the house on in the village of Jamaica, close to the heart of the southern Vermont action. If so, I'll have signs all along on Routes 11 and 30 and 100, and post on Craigslist and all that good stuff. The Alice Peck Day show in Lebanon, NH, is coming up in November, and that's another one that I'll be there for if I can be, but I won't know for a while, and then it will simply be a matter of whether or not Lee has a space available.
So even though things are up in the air at the moment... See you at the shows!
