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Annapolis, Maryland

Historic Annapolis Antiques Show Introduces New Promoter

by Robert Kyle

Unusually comfortable weather this particular winter weekend was a welcome harbinger for Robert James, who, with the Historic Annapolis Antiques Show, officially assumed ownership of Armacost Antiques Shows. Balmy temperatures on January 12-14 (past shows had been traditionally tainted with ice and snow) helped increase the gate and made traveling easier for buyer and seller.

The steady attendance sent spirits and optimism soaring among dealers, but aisles clogged with curious browsers don't always equate to actual exchanges of currency for goods. At the end there were as many smiles and cheers as gloom and tears.

With the nature of the business these days becoming more serendipitous than strategic, dealers who happened to have the right merchandise for the right person at the right price were successful at this show. Yet an adjacent booth loaded with perfectly lovely items might be ignored by consumers and collectors. The unpredictability is enough to drive a dealer crazy or out of the business altogether or both.

"On a ten-point scale, dealers rated this show's success a six, which gives us room for improvement," new promoter Bob James said afterward. "Dealers reported to me that the aisles enjoyed a steady buzz, and the most frequently received show comment from clients wandering the aisles was 'beautiful show!'"

Despite the milder temperatures and lack of snow and ice, the good attendance still was not great. "The gate reached one thousand two hundred fifty-four, slightly outpacing last year's," James said. "That's an acceptable traffic density equivalent to forty clients per dealer."

Ironically, a show two months earlier and 30 miles away drew a nearly identical number of people, 1269. It was not an exhibition of antiques but of firearms. The two-day gun show, managed by the Eastern Shore Arms Collectors across the Chesapeake Bay in Easton, Maryland, is a regular fixture of the annual fall waterfowl festival. A completely different kind of event with its own brand of unique customer, the gun show had the same attendance. An interpretation? No matter whether your merchandise is copper weathervanes or collectible Winchesters, there are only so many people who will come to your show.

Items selling at the Historic Annapolis show were a good mix. "According to a post-show survey, dealers sold furniture, carpets, paintings, etchings, silver, pottery, porcelain, jewelry, brass accessories, books, and maps," the promoter said. A chief complaint, however, and one heard at many shows, is the declining interest in good furniture.

Zane Moss, a New York City dealer new to this show, did not sell as expected. Bob James said Moss told him, "The people we spoke to were truly interested in antiques, but we want to see a better level of collector." James said, "He may have best summed up most dealers' assessment of the crowd."

"For the amount of people, sales weren't as they should be," Moss told this reporter. "The crowd was great, but there should have been more sales, in general, for everyone. I did OK but would have liked to have done better. The people were here; they were just not spending. I know of two, three, or four dealers who have not had a sale at all," he said late in the show on its last day. His sales included furniture, Staffordshire, and picture frames.

"We're slithering out with our shirts," quipped Patricia Drake Keady of Drake Field Antiques, Longmeadow, Massachusetts. "We love being here. It's a beautiful show, and there are some wonderful dealers, but we're disappointed because we're furniture dealers, and we did not sell any furniture. We were here last year, and we did not sell any furniture. We came this year, masochists that we are. We think the management is wonderful; we really like them very much…he is very pleasant, as is his wife."

Keady said she does sell furniture at Armacost shows in Alexandria and Hunt Valley. "I'm disappointed in the buying," she said. "We get the feeling in many cases they don't know what they're looking at." She said she sold smalls and fireplace hearth equipment.

"No clock people came," said Patricia Barger, a Fairfield, Connecticut, dealer, who with her husband, Keith, specializes in tall-case clocks. "The show was very good last year—just different this year." The Thursday night preview, she said, "was very slow." Regarding the weekend, "I've never seen a Saturday as deadly as this one, but there was a pretty good crowd on Sunday."

A flock of foreboding buzzards signaled Keith Barger that the show might be off for them. Upon arrival at the armory, it was buzzards verses the Bargers. Dozens of the large black raptors were roosting on a nearby communications tower. "I said, 'Uh oh, that's not a good sign. We haven't got the door open yet, and they are gathering outside.' In all the traveling around the country I've done, I've never seen buzzards roost like that. I counted a hundred up there."

Patricia said what saved the show-and perhaps her husband from the buzzards-was the sale of a good Hartford, Connecticut, secretary desk to one of their regular clock and furniture customers.

Another dealer making the long drive home to New England with a nearly full truck was Neil Greco of Birchknoll Antiques, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. "It could have been better," he said. "I'm a little dissatisfied. It was down from previous years." He sold smalls but no furniture or artwork. "It's the nature of the business these days. It's either good or nothing. There doesn't seem to be a happy medium. That will drive you crazy. It does drive me crazy!"

Quimper specialist Joan Datesman is from Annapolis and has always counted on her strong local following to facilitate good sales. Not this time.

Todd Sigety of Washington Square Antiques, Alexandria, Virginia, had these observations. "Over all, the crowds were excellent. For most of the day today [Sunday] and yesterday we were steady. There were good numbers. But I was kind of disappointed in that there should have been more sales generated, given the size of the crowd.

"I did OK, not great. I sold a set of six Baltimore fancy chairs, a little work stand, some Sheffield candelabra, and miscellaneous smalls. I would have liked to have sold one nice piece of wood, but overall I'm happy with the show. Expectations were higher because of the number of people coming through. Bob James and Ann have done a nice job and will do a nice job with the show. I think a lot of dealers look forward to working with them."

"I did almost all of it today," Jerry Brill of Newport News, Virginia, said late Sunday. In addition to a Chippendale games table, he and wife Judy sold a set of four late 18th-century square-back Chippendale plank-bottom walnut chairs, which had been deaccessioned from Colonial Williamsburg. The set, priced at $4400, could have been made in Virginia or England, he said.

"We had a great show," said Helen Meserve of Running Battle Antiques, Newagen, Maine. "I've had better shows here because we sold a Welsh dresser, which is always the best thing to sell." Although the one they brought went back on the truck, many items

didn't. "We sold three pieces of furniture, nice paintings, and a bunch of smalls," Meserve said. "It's the first time in a long time I sold a lot of little pearlware dishes. Things like that haven't been selling so much lately."

And the new promoter? "I think Bob did a really good job of getting very good publicity for the show. We had good editorial coverage as well as paid advertising. He did some targeted mailing. We had a lot of people to the show. I would say most of them were extremely interested, but not all of them were buying...We did sell to a couple of new customers, young ones."

"What sold? Everything!" Richard Vandall of American Decorative Arts, Canaan, New Hampshire, was elated. "I've had one of my best shows. I sold five Mission chairs and two Mission benches. I sold Shaker, a ton of Shaker smalls, a ton of pottery, and two major eagles.

"We have a new promoter. It was a disaster when we started. It was a terrible preview; the food was lousy; the crowd was nothing. It was just a dead issue. But I sold a wonderful eagle on a pedestal at the preview. Saturday and Sunday were excellent. It's always been a good show for me. I've done it for twenty years, and I've never passed up on this one."

Vandall did not, however, renew his space at two other Armacost shows, Hunt Valley and Alexandria. "I found it was getting too much for me," Vandall said. "People get old. I graduate to seventy-two now. After a while you get tired." His son, Wayne Adams, now runs the business.

Vandall said in order to supply his customers with affordable Mission furniture, he has made an arrangement with carpenters in China to provide him inventory. It gives his clients an option of buying the look without paying the price of the original.

Dealers in smalls reported good sales. Show regular Mary Jane Barr of Frederick, Maryland, said her receipts matched previous years. Among her offerings were miniature paintings, ivory and porcelain boxes, early scent bottles, and majolica.

"It's been wonderful, great!" said Sue Ewald of Poolesville, Maryland, who sold jewelry and accessories. Despite numerous sales, it still wasn't one of her best outings at this venue. "We've done better in the past. I think it's a little off. The warm weather didn't help. We're used to sliding in here on some ice. But business has been down all over. It'll come around; it always does. I've been in it for forty-six years. I've seen it go through good spells and bad spells before. It always comes back with a very strong antique market. I'm waiting for it to come back."

For more information on future shows, call (202) 537-1169 or visit (www.armacostantiquesshows.com).