The Short Sweet Swap
March 6th, 2016
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
For a dozen years, Nan Gurley’s short and sweet Sunday shows at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, have been a meeting place for New England dealers and collectors. From September to April on one Sunday a month from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., some serious business is done. It is a tabletop show where those passionate about Americana trade with each other during setup, and knowledgeable collectors make a path to the show’s door.
Tom Joseph of Limington, Maine, asked $1400 for this dark blue-painted shelf.
This grass-roots show harks back to the good old days. It is a survivor from the past when going to an antiques show for an hour or two was a weekly treasure hunt filled with discoveries priced to buy. There are not many of these short and sweet swap shows left. Robert Conrad runs one in New Oxford, Pennsylvania, twice a year where buyers and dealers all converge at 8 a.m. and stay until 5 p.m. Nan Gurley’s Sunday shows are held seven times a year including New Year’s Day. They are the model; general admission is $8 or $7.50 with a card.
“I have sold as much as $8500 in four hours at this show,” said dealer Paul DeCoste of West Newbury, Massachusetts. “And buying is very good,” he said.
A regular at this show, Stephen Corrigan of Stephen-Douglas, Walpole, New Hampshire, concurred. “I generally sell about $5000 worth and buy more,” said Corrigan as he lifted up the skirt of his table and said, “I bought all this so far.”
This carving board carved with flowers was $95, and the knife was $38 from Natalie Warner of Springfield, Massachusetts. The stone fruit pieces were $25 each.
This Rockingham glazed ale pitcher with a hound handle, probably made in Ohio, was $375 from Hilary and Paulette Nolan of Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Samuel Herrup of Sheffield, Massachusetts, set up for the first time. “I’ve heard some great things have turned up here, but not all the time. I thought it was a lot of fun,” he said. “I bought as much as I sold.”
The success of the show is because there are so many good dealers in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts who make this show a part of their schedule when they are not doing three- and four-day shows elsewhere. Forty-five or 50 dealers set up at this event every time. It is an impressive list of dealers that includes some from the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association show in August, the York and Chester County shows in Pennsylvania, and the Delaware and Philadelphia shows in between, all alongside the local dealers who supply them. (Now you know their sources!) Well-known dealers not showing were among the shoppers.
Sharon Platt asked $495 for this 18th-century New England child’s chair with original red surface, sausage turnings, and a linsey-woolsey chair pad.
Samuel Herrup of Sheffield, Massachusetts, offered this Coptic textile fragment for $475. “This is the first time I’ve done this show,” he said.
They found a broad range of things on March 6: a Coptic textile, a dozen 18th-century bone buttons, a good theorem, a selection of barn lanterns, a miniature china cabinet filled with dishes made of peach pits, candlestands, and brass candlesticks. There were weathervanes in the form of a ship and a snake, gardening tools, and painted sleds.
But this edition was bittersweet. Nan Gurley, its founder and the spirit behind it, was not there. She was in hospice at the end of her long fight with cancer. “She’s OK. Her spirits are good,” said her daughter Rachel Gurley, who ran the show with her brother Josh and Nan’s husband, Peter Mavris. “Mom had a good life, she didn’t want for anything, and she never said no to anything.”
This Illinois sled with spectacular red, white, blue, and gold paint was $850 from Ken and Robin Pike of Nashua, New Hampshire.
Nan Gurley died the next day, on March 7, but not before she heard that the show was a success. She left it in good hands; her children had a great mentor.
Rachel follows in her mother’s footsteps; she runs a group shop in Scarborough, Maine, and with Sandi St. Pierre she ran the Scarborough High School Vintage and Antiques Marketplace on Saturday, April 2, to benefit the school’s Model United Nations club. It was held the day before the last Sunday show of the season at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth on April 3.
From more information or to contact Rachel Gurley, go to (www.gurleyantiquesgallery.com).
Peter Mavris, Nan Gurley’s husband, and Rachel Gurley, Nan’s daughter, ran the show with help from Josh Gurley, Nan’s son. Rachel runs a multi-dealer shop in Scarborough, Maine, about five miles south of Portland. She wanted $145 for the sculptural sweater form behind her.
Josh Gurley, Nan Gurley’s son (shown), his sister Rachel, and stepfather, Peter Mavris will keep running these four-hour Sunday shows in Portsmouth.
Originally published in the May 2016 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2016 Maine Antique Digest
