The 13th Annual Historic East Berlin Antiques Show opened to a large and enthusiastic crowd for an early buying preview on Thursday evening, May 20, and continued through Saturday evening. The show, conducted over the same weekend as the Greater York Antiques Show, was attended by large crowds that reportedly bought well throughout the weekend.
A small show with only 29 dealers, it fills the local Community Center †making it the liveliest place in town. The show rambles throughout this facility, utilizing a moderate-sized meeting room, two former classrooms and a large general purpose room with an accompanying stage. Handsome, with a slant toward Americana, especially Pennsylvanian in nature, the show is also well-rounded with jewelry, ceramics and textiles.
Show manager Gretchen Davis commented that the show “went very well. There was excellent attendance and excellent buying.” The manager remarked that the gate was up on opening night from previous years, and that buying was so good that one dealer “had to go home and restock before the show opened on Friday.”
Davis reported a “positive reaction” from both exhibitors and shoppers, many of whom remarked on the “good, fair prices” at the show, something the manager felt “triggered sales.”
Marvin and Barbara Eliot, Pottles and Pannikins, Windsor, Conn., greeted buyers as they made their way toward the entrance to the display area on the stage. With a large assortment of hearth-associated objects, the couple offered early wrought iron forks, tongs, peels, candleholders and Betty lamps. Filling out the booth was a colorful Pennsylvania coverlet in mustard, blue, red and white; a one-drawer stand with a worn grey painted surface; and a nice early rocker with sausage turnings.
Ellen Katona and Bob Lutz, Greenwich, N.J., were set up in the adjacent booth, where a pleasing blanket chest with two lower dower-style drawers was shown. With good pumpkin coloration, the bracket-base chest was attracting attention, as was a grain painted wall cupboard that sported a sold tag moments after the show opened.
Kentucky dealer Lynne Dingas offered a varied assortment of merchandise ranging from a life-sized carved wooden head of an African American boy to a folky toy tin locomotive and tender in original paint. Halloween items, an unusual sugar box with a lower drawer for the cutter in old green paint, and two theorems depicting baskets of fruit, one on velvet and the other a watercolor on paper, were also seen in the stand.
A country Hepplewhite desk with flaring French feet was among a large selection of furniture offered at hometown dealer Wannemacher’s American Antiques. A post office unit, complete with a grate for the postmaster to conduct business and windows over the boxes, was offered, as was a pierced tin pie safe and a shopkeeper’s secretary desk.
A booth full of Pennsylvania smalls was featured at Tex Johnson Antiques, Adamstown, Penn. Stick spatter, chestnut flasks, mocha and a wide selection of redware was included in the mix.
Several quilts of local origin were seen at the show, including a large appliqué quilt with a large colorful star as the central motif in the booth of LCS Antiques, Washington Crossing, Penn.; a red and white snowflake pattern at Mulberry Antiques, Blawnox, Penn.; an attractive example with baskets of flowers at Homespun Antiques, Mentor, Ohio; and two quilts with large appliquéd eagles were in the stand of The Passes, Mechanicsburg, Penn.
The show is a benefit for the East Berlin Historical Preservation Society, the owners of five buildings in town, including a firehouse that it hopes to convert into a museum. For information, 717-259-9480 or www.ebhpspa.org .
