The Greater York Antiques Show
May 2nd, 2014
|
Raccoon Creek Antiques, Oley, Pennsylvania, asked $32,000 for this Quaker single-door cupboard in red paint and $16,500 for the cats and dogs hooked rug.
Taking up the entire foyer, the stand of Greg K. Kramer & Co., Robesonia, Pennsylvania, was filled with furniture, paintings, folk art, and ceramics of all kinds.
James Grievo of Stockton, New Jersey, asked $9500 for this small Berks County, Pennsylvania, blanket chest with sponged decoration. From left: the Crolius, Manhattan, jug was priced at $1950 (it sold); the Worcester, Massachusetts, jug, $950; and the Jones, Greensboro, Pennsylvania, jar, $325.
David Horst of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, asked $4200 for the Mantzville Hotel sign. An unframed German fraktur ($650) is propped up on a 27-drawer painted cabinet ($490) that is on an Ephrata farm table ($1650). The painted blanket chest with green sponged drawers, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, was $5500.
Jewett-Berdan, Newcastle, Maine, asked $12,500 for the Vermont painted blanket chest with two drawers. The Indian basket on it was $1450, and the watermelon still life, $3200.
Bill Kelly offered this 9' long x 38" wide New York state farm table with a four-board top. It can seat 12 and was priced at $4900.
The 43" x 39" x 19" paint-decorated New York state blanket chest with original painted surface ($1750) and the English Windsor chair ($395) were offered by Gene and Nancy Pratt of Pratt’s Antiques, Victor, New York.
Joseph Lodge of Lederach, Pennsylvania, offered slipware plates. The one on the left was $1295; the one on the right, $950. |
York, Pennsylvania
The rebirth of the Greater York Antiques Show at the York, Pennsylvania, fairgrounds is a phenomenon worth watching. The new owners, Bob Bockius, David Strickler, and Charles Whitney, who have grown up in a business supplying display cases for antiques shows, seem to be doing a lot of things right.
“We were lucky that Donna Burk was ready to sell during the recession,” Bob Bockius said on the phone after the third show since Mitchell Displays bought the Burk shows 18 months ago. “We bought before the economy recovered. Our first show had just thirty-five dealers, our second one had eighty, and there were eighty-five in this May [2 and 3] show,” he said.
Is it true that he had a waiting list of 15 dealers who wanted to get into this show? “More,” replied Bockius.
The three partners still run Mitchell Displays, supplying cases to shows and auctioneers as they have done for 25 years. Hanging around shows after delivering the cases, they observed how shows are run. For this show, not only did they deliver the cases, they also built new walls, which they can reuse, that are sturdy enough to support heavy objects. They upped the rent, to the dismay of some dealers. A 20' x 12' booth is $1400, which included wallpaper, electric outlets, and fascia board, while a smaller stand, 16' x 20', was $1250. Several dealers shared stands.
Bravo to their show program, which included a dealer list and show map with the names of businesses and booth numbers on one side and names, phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail addresses on the other! Jim Burk never did that; the dealer’s name and the town were all you got.
The new owners kept the Burk tradition of a two-day setup when dealers shop each other’s merchandise on Wednesday and Thursday. “There was a real excitement. People rushed around to see what would come out of the boxes. There was a buzz,” is the way Bockius put it. “There was a great sense of camaraderie. Younger dealers helped older ones with setup; we were all there to lend a hand, as we always were. We all started as porters in our 20s,” he added.
The partners were thrilled to see more than 300 in line for the 10 a.m. opening on Friday morning. The first person in line was Karen Beekman, a collector/dealer from Michigan, and the second was a California dealer who said, “Don’t use my name.”
As for the exhibiting dealers, there was a large contingent from Pennsylvania, and a good number of dealers seldom seen in the Middle Atlantic states came from New England, the South, the Midwest, and Canada. They brought some remarkable things that would stop any art lovers in their tracks anywhere.
The reclining leopard hooked rug at Gene Rappaport’s stand resembled a folk painting by Morris Hirshfield, and the show offered several other first-rate hooked rugs. The pottery bust of Edgar Allan Poe exhibited by David Good should be either at the Edgar Allan Poe house or in a folk art museum. There was good pottery of every sort—early salt-glazed, creamware, tin-glazed redware, yellowware, mochaware, spatterware, Gaudy Dutch, transferware—and some of it seemed to be selling. A.J. Warren of Wilton, Connecticut, seemed to be selling briskly, as was Dennis and Dad Antiques. There was some first-rate cast and hand-wrought iron, plenty of woodenware, some of it turned and painted, and some colorful grain-painted furniture.
There were good chairs from all periods. Jim Kilvington’s Pennsylvania ladder-backs, which he had shown at the Philadelphia Antiques Show, were top of the line. A number of the York dealers had exhibited at the Philadelphia show the week before. In addition to Kilvington, Kelly Kinzle, Stephen Still, Jeff Bridgman, and Greg Kramer drove their trucks right to York after having packed out in Philadelphia, so they had brought a few of the same things because they were on the truck with their stock for York.
There was a real rush when the show opened at 10 a.m. The aisles were crowded, and it seemed like old times, but late Friday afternoon was a quieter time, and Saturday’s attendance was disappointing. The weather was too nice; Saturday was one of the first nice days to get out in the garden, so only the die-hards came to the show and did some buying. Plus, competition from shows in Ohio and Indiana may have kept some people from driving to York.
Selling was good for some and disappointing for others. The large number of dealers offered a lot of competition. Those who did not sell well said they bought well, and some said they made sales after the show when customers reconsidered.
Bockius said the Greater York show is just beginning its reinvention. He sees the economy improving and hopes that new legislation will help young people refinance their college loans and be able to buy houses, furnish them, and discover antiques.
“We raised the booth rent so we could do more advertising,” said Bockius. “The market now dictates a two-day show. I hope one day we will need three days again.” In the meantime, Bockius said their aim is make the Greater York show a not-to-be-missed event.
The partners have also worked on two Michigan shows they bought recently: Michigan Modernism and the Southfield Pavilion Antiques Exposition. They had put together one Modernism show in Southfield in April and are putting together two Southfield Pavilion shows for next season. “We are hoping to build our show business slowly; we are looking for a slow, steady growth. We want to make our shows accessible to everybody, with a broad mix of dealers, the full gamut. From Handel to Willie Nelson is my music analogy,” said Bockius.
The pictures and captions show only a fraction of the broad range of material that was available at this big York show.
The next Greater York Antiques Show will be held October 31 and November 1. For more information, contact Mitchell Displays at (856) 686-9000; Web site (www.greateryorkantiqueshows.com).
Originally published in the August 2014 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2014 Maine Antique Digest
