The smallest show in Round Top, Shelby Antiques Show at Harmonie Hall, was a stunning success for the exhibiting dealers †and for the shoppers who found great collections of small antiques. Among the oldest shows of Round Top Antiques Week, this event changed hands last year when it was bought by one of its dealers, Charlie Roth from Marietta, Ga. He has vowed to rebuild the twice-yearly show to a new glory.
Opening Monday morning, March 28 (and running through April 2), at 10 am, the show had a large audience for the collections offered. Jan Staudinger, daughter of Jean Warman, became so busy as the doors opened she could only write sales tickets for the first hour or so, with sales of small antiques. Her mother has not been able to be at the show, but her collection is so large that there will be several more years for this Wichita Falls, Texas, dealer and daughter to exhibit and sell. Among the early transactions were a half dozen Victorian scenters, those small glass and silver vials that were used for perfume or smelling salts, small silver objects and jewelry and Nineteenth Century dishes.
Country Club Antiques, Bartlesville, Okla., has been at the show since nearly the beginning, too many years ago for Josephine Loya to count. Her collection, featuring a wide variety of small antiques from the Nineteenth Century, was selling quickly to the early visitors Monday morning.
Jewelry was the primary ingredient in the inventory offered by New Smyrna Beach, Fla., dealer Mark Maxwell of Estate Liquidators. His prized piece was a necklace, pin and earrings set dated 1868 from the city of Lunt, Austria. Made from a silver base, it was filled with emeralds, garnets and seed pearls and was for sale at less than the appraised value of $28,000. Victoria’s House, St Petersburg, Fla., focused on estate jewelry and early English earthenware and porcelain.
The show’s former co-owner, Sarah Sang, was showing early quilts and Nineteenth Century furnishings. And the new owner, Charlie Roth, was selling from hic inventory of English earthenware and fine art.
Tiffany and other art glass lamps from the turn of the Twentieth Century were offered by The Hockmans of Joplin, Mo. Their collection at this show was about a dozen table and floor lamps from several of the L.C. Tiffany competitors.
The next Shelby Antiques Show will be Monday, September 26, through Saturday, October 1. Roth said in a postshow interview there will be about 30 dealers in the fall as he continues his rebuilding effort. For more information, 678-640-2529.
