Patricia Ferrar, seated right, is Ten Mile Antiques, Attleboro, Mass.

Review & Onsite Photos by Madelia Hickman Ring

EAST FALMOUTH, MASS. — Visitors to the Cape Cod Antiques Dealers Association’s (CCADA) June 21 show were welcomed by nearly two dozen dealers, sunny skies, strong breezes…and darting cicadas that were part of the 17-year brood that emerged in Massachusetts in May and were expected to stay — eating the foliage and attracting mates with their singing — through June. The Cape Cod Fairgrounds — where the show took place — is ringed with trees they inhabited and their song was unmistakable: a high-pitched buzz that — this reporter learned when they looked it up — can be as loud as 90 decibels. Fortunately, with no indoor foliage, few ventured into the hangar-like building that housed the event, though their song provided an unusual soundtrack one does not find at most antiques shows.

After several weeks of rainy weekends, the show faced competition with the beach, but that’s a risk during any high-season time. By taking place on Saturday — traditionally the day when weekly rentals turn over — visitors whose week at the seashore was just wrapping up could attend as well as those for which it was just beginning.

The CCADA has had a spring show for nearly 50 years. Following a pandemic reset, it reopened in early July 2022 at the Sagamore Inn and Restaurant, where it stayed for two years. In 2024, the show moved to a less-expensive venue: the Clark-Haddan American Legion (Post 188) in Sandwich, Mass. After a third move in four years, and two weeks earlier than any of the three most recent previous editions, Carl Goveia, CCADA president, felt the new venue and time were right. “We’re planning to stay here for the foreseeable future,” he said.

The anticipated long-term home of the CCADA’s June show, at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds in East Falmouth.

Like many of the other dealers, Goveia, who is Nauset Antiques, reported brisk sales in the first two hours of the show, which opened to long lines. Among some of his recently-acquired pieces were a yellow-painted vinegar bucket, a large two-handled basket and a house for a squirrel with blue-painted louvers. He reported selling a ship’s stern sign and a Confederate Civil War-era sword he had taken to be appraised at The Antiques Roadshow when it taped in Boothbay, Maine, on June 18.

East Wareham, Mass., dealer, Ed Herman, accompanied Goveia to the Roadshow taping and was filmed having a pocket watch appraised; his crew at Whaling Days Antiques showed us the “behind the scenes” YouTube video. Among Herman’s sales were a “Land Ho” statue and a cranberry scoop. On the floor of his booth was a hooked rug by Claire Murray that depicted Cape Cod; signal flags were hung on his back wall.

“The morning was mobbed; we had a lot of people waiting in the sun. There were a lot of people in their 30s, as well as couples and families, and we were very pleased with the crowds,” CCADA recording secretary and past president, Charlene Dixon, showing alongside her husband, Ed, told Antiques and The Arts Weekly. “We did very well, selling two of our best pieces: an English sampler done in 1810 by an 11-year old girl, and a very unusual cast-iron whale garden fixture.”

Framed cranberry advertisements, an Uncle Sam whirligig, baskets, cobalt-decorated stoneware, firkins and a patriotic-decorated oval sign were on offer with Charlene and Ed Dixon, Eastham, Mass.

Marie Forjan is on the CCADA directory and membership committees; she also oversees the association’s website. Her Eastham, Mass., business — Marie’s Memories — specializes in antique and vintage jewelry, pottery and glass but she always brings textiles to her shows as well. One of her best sales was a locket with a woman’s face and diamonds across her neck.

William Nickerson, who had a good selection of records, nautical artwork and small pieces of furniture, as well as some books on antiques and the architecture of Cape Cod and Nantucket, noted that he had “a little bit of everything.” Paintings by Nickerson’s father — Reginald Eugene Nickerson (American, 1915-1999) — are always on hand, and he had paintings of the schooner America and a whaling scene.

David and Jane Thompson were happy to sell some of their larger items, including a model of a New Bedford (Mass.) fishing vessel. The South Dennis, Mass., dealers showed us a selection of hand-painted tin shore birds — known as “tinnies” — made in the late Nineteenth Century by Strater & Sohier of Boston, which they’d acquired from an old private collection.

One of these five painted tin shore birds was marked with an October 27, 1874, patent date. David Thompson Art & Antiques, South Dennis, Mass.

Jewelry is one of Patricia Ferrara’s areas of interest and expertise and most of her U-shaped tables held flat cases with pieces of varying vintage and price. The few tables that didn’t have jewelry had ceramics, including a group of black Wedgwood basalt. Characterizing the morning as “good,” she said she sold both gold and silver.

Local dealer Regina McGrory sold a ship’s wheel, wood ammunition box, silver and jewelry, noting it had been “a very good morning.”

Sean and Amy Riley also sold gold jewelry and silver, in the form of a large Cartier bowl. The Forestdale, Mass., dealers found new homes for sculpture and door stops and were fielding inquiries on a distinctive Penobscot root club they’d found at a flea market in Sandwich. Canes, small paintings and boxes, a small desk-top clock in the form of a ship’s wheel and a traveling tea set in a fitted wicker basket, were among their other distinctive offerings.

With a name like “Barnacle Betty,” one would have been let down if Randi O’Meara didn’t have nautical antiques. Fortunately, she did not disappoint, bringing a ship’s figurehead in the form of a mermaid, ship paintings and weathervanes and porcelain decorated with marine life. Model ships, Roseville pottery and a pair of opera glasses were among her early sales.

Randi O’Meara offered this solid carved and painted wood ship’s figurehead that she said was from Italy, circa 1910. Barnacle Betty’s Antique & Art Emporium, West Dennis, Mass.

Don’t confuse Barnacle Betty Antique & Art Emporium with Barnacle Antiques, which is owned by Kerry and Ann Aylmer, in Yarmouth Port, Mass. The Aylmers said their morning had been “pretty good,” with “serious interest” in an 1878 Springfield trap door rifle. Deals they’d closed included for antique tin, glass bottles and Sandwich glass. Several antique and vintage Steiff bears, including a set of mother and cub bears that were in their original box.

“It’s been a fun show,” reported Brenda Foley, who said she’d sold several things, including a European enamel bread box, an English waste basket an oil on canvas painting of roses and a number of spools, hankies and jars.

Next to Foley, David Lamson had a sign advertising “Old & Rare Books” and he brought a good selection of volumes covering a range of topics, from decoys and dolls to glass, pottery and regional architectural and landscapes.

Though the bulk of the dealers in CCADA live on Cape Cod, the association welcomes those who live farther afield. One of these is Linda Brown, who came to the Cape from White River Junction, Vt. Among the sales she tallied were a folding stool, a bunch of quilt squares and silk mats, sterling silver and some pink Fenton hobnail glass. Small baskets, toleware, Toby jugs, pewter-mounted tankards, bentwood boxes, transfer-printed blue and white pottery and a copper ship weathervane were among her inventory that was getting attention from shoppers.

Levi Cottrell Gibbons, 8 years old, took a break from eating lunch to show us a PT boat model his grandfather, Jonathan A. Cottrell was selling; it was one of his favorite things in the booth. Blazer Antiques, Cedar Cove, Mass.

Jonathan A. Cottrell is also a mainland dealer, in Cedar Cove, Mass. He had a helper in his grandson, Levi Cottrell Gibbons, a lively 8-year-old who said he had sold a group of six or seven lead soldiers, probably a Civil War patrol, on horseback. One of Levi’s favorite items in the booth was a World War II-era PT boat model, but he also liked a portrait of Captain George Thomas Nichols that he said “cost a lot!”

“A lot of people are shopping for weddings and are looking for lace,” said Nancy Mayer, who is Vintage Lady Linens, in Milford, Conn. While she thought the show had been “a little quieter than in the past,” she still said she’d had a very good morning, tallying sales of nautical embroideries “to someone who bought a bunch,” a pair of cast-iron sailor-form bookends and other “odds and ends.”

Marion, Mass., dealer, Chris Donnelly, is Port Out Starboard Home (P.O.S.H. for short) and was doing the early summer show for the first time, following her first-ever show, which was the CCADA August 2024 event. She reported that she sold a Nineteenth Century ship’s diorama, a Whaler’s Inn sign, several Japanese fishing floats, doorstops and brass paperweights.

CCADA’s upcoming show, in Orleans, Mass., will take place at the Nauset Middle School on Saturday, August 2. For information, www.ccada.com.