The Scarborough show is well attended. The aisles filled quickly with shoppers and packaged purchases were spotted shortly after opening.
Review & Onsite Photos by Rick Russack
SCARBOROUGH, MAINE — “This is a very special show for me.” We were chatting with Rachel Gurley a few minutes before the Scarborough High School Antique & Vintage show opened on April 5 when she made that comment. When asked why, her reaction was quite emotional: “The first Scarborough show in 2016 was the first I ever planned and ran on my own. It was when Mom was really sick, and I didn’t want to tell her that I was doing it, but I finally had to just a few weeks before the show. Being Mom, she wanted a booth in the show and, of course, I gave her one. She had all her merchandise planned but she never got to do it; she died a week before the show. Sandi St Pierre, a friend and dealer from Cape Elizabeth, really helped me a great deal with getting this show started.” Nan Gurley was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2016. (If you’d like to know more about the matriarch of the Gurley family, see the remembrance article written by R. Scudder Smith, founding publisher of Antiques and The Arts Weekly, in the March 15, 2016, issue).
For those not familiar with Rachel and her brother Josh, a little background is in order. Their mother was Nan Gurley, a well-known dealer in Americana and a promoter of a number of shows in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England. So, the Gurley siblings literally grew up in the business. They not only learned about Americana but they also learned about the details of running shows, finding appropriate venues, signing up dealers, advertising, creating floor plans, setting up tables and all the other details that go into managing an antiques show. As teenagers, they were porters at their mother’s shows, helping dealers who needed assistance (including this writer). They learned well and this show — as well as the others they run — is deliberately planned to make participating as easy as possible for their dealers, whom both refer to as “family.”
This pond model and masted ship model belonged to Roger Williams, Wiscasset, Maine. He priced the fully rigged model at $375 but said, “obviously whoever made it wasn’t a sailor. The rigging is all wrong.”
This, the ninth edition of the show, had about 35 dealers and was held in the spacious lobby and gym of Scarborough high school. The nearby community is an affluent suburb of Portland, Maine, and residents take good care of their high school, where at least two athletic events were taking place at the same time as the show. There was plenty of room for everything. One good reason for collectors to visit this show is that many of the dealers are rarely, if ever, seen at shows outside the state, and much of the material comes directly from Maine homes. So “fresh” is an appropriate word and there was a wide assortment, ranging from special baseball bats to books about Maine, plenty of woodenware and primitives, Native American artifacts, multiple booths with jewelry, artwork, folk art, vintage photographs and ephemera, shed antlers and more.
For the many fans of true-crime stories, few rate more interest than the story of Lizzie Borden. In 1892, Borden’s well-to-do mother and father were murdered in the family home in New Bedford, Mass; Lizzie was arrested for the murders and tried in 1893. The evidence against her was overwhelming, yet the jury took less than an hour to acquit her. Birch Bay Antiques, Rangely, Maine, had a copy of the morning issue of the June 21, 1893, Boston Herald, the front page of which featured an illustrated article reporting the jury verdict and a reception following titled “Who Killed Mr and Mrs Borden.” There have been dozens of books, articles and movies about the story, most agreeing that Lizzie “got away with murder.” At the time, many believed that a woman of Lizzie’s pedigree and social class simply could not have committed a crime like this. Birch Bay priced the newspaper at $125.
The Boston Herald morning edition dated June 21, 1893, informed readers that Lizzie Borden had been acquitted of the murders of her father and mother. Birch Bay Antiques, Rangely, Maine, was asking $125 for it.
There were numerous other interesting items offered. One was a fancy early telephone that dated to 1892-95 and was a complete L.M. Ericsson skeletal desk phone, also known as an Eiffel Tower model. With a horizontal headset, it has been called the inspiration for all subsequent landline phones. The phone was designed to appeal to consumers, with some parts silver-plated, and the heavy iron frame was decorated with colorful decals. Vera Kaufman, Rochester, N.H., priced it $695. She also had a large sculptural group by Midcentury potter Jane Kaufman (1960-2016), who worked in Durham, N.H. In addition to pottery, Kaufman sometimes used embellished papier-mâché, and this was one of those pieces. It depicted a woman hanging her wash in front of a two-story house and was priced $895.
Local Scarborough dealer Glenn Brandon, offered a heavy two-piece beaded Lakota Sioux dress that was priced $1,000; he also had an assortment of security badges and a very heavy, very-well modeled iron sculpture of a lion at rest that came from a Hollis, Mass., collector. The lion sculpture was marked $250.
Jim LeFurgy and Judy Waner, East Winthrop, Maine, had a booth filled with Native American artifacts, but because Major League baseball season was about to begin, he proudly displayed an early Louisville Slugger baseball bat. The bat was in a style known as a “mushroom handle” due to the carved handle and he priced it $450. Although he does not usually display furniture, he had a large Midcentury Heywood-Wakefield cabinet that was priced $750 and sold.
The East Boothbay Trading Company, Boothbay, Maine, had this group of antler sheds. Prices ranged from $25 to $245.
Scarborough is a coastal town, so it was not surprising that nautical items would be offered. Roger Williams, Wiscasset, Maine, had a large circa 1888-90 pond model boat that did not have sails and had never been used. He also had a large model of a three-masted schooner, for which he was asking $375. Williams said that the person who made it was not a sailor. When asked how he could tell, he said, “look at it — the rigging is all wrong.” Who said antiques shows aren’t educational? Williams also had an unusual pair of crossed American flags in shadow boxes made entirely of very small seashells, which was priced $525. Marine paintings were also available.
Not often seen at antiques shows are antler sheds. The term refers to deer or moose antlers, that have been shed by the animals in the late winter or early spring; the term does not refer to antlers from animals shot by hunters. The East Boothbay Trading Company, Boothbay, Maine, had a selection of these, with the largest priced $245. Smaller, single antlers were priced from $25. Collectors comb through wooded areas looking for antlers and, on a recent segment on NH Chronicle, one collector was reported to have amassed about 10,000 examples.
After the show, the Gurleys commented on the size of the crowd. Rachel said, “We think of this as our hometown show. It supports the high school, and we don’t charge any admission to students. We gave out over 300 free passes locally because we want to get as many people as possible through the door.”
The next show on the Gurley circuit is the Dover Antique Show & Vintage Market in Dover, N.H., on May 10. For information, 207-396-4255 or www.gurleyantiqueshows.com.
