For 27 years, the Maine Antiques Festival has been attracting dealers to sell and dealers, decorators and collectors to buy at the Union Fairgrounds in this small village about 20 miles inland from Camden. On August 8‱0, it was again the destination for about 250 antiques dealers with their collections of American antiques from the earliest colonial times to the early Twentieth Century. There were early Jacobean tables and stools offered by a Connecticut dealer; Civil War weapons, letters and maps from Scott Condello, a Pennsylvanian; primitive cupboards and tables from Richmond House of Ashford, Conn., just to name a few.
All these dealers assembled, for they knew there would be big crowds of summer visitors as well as local residents on the grounds to shop for the weekend. A New Orleans couple had a dining room ensemble shipped home; an Ohio minister arranged for an Indiana dealer to bring a Virginia walnut desk, circa 1830, to him as part of the sales agreement. Cast iron urns went to Long Island, brass candlesticks from the Queen Anne period went to North Carolina and some Oriental rugs found new floors to cover in Texas.
“When I started Maine Antiques Festival with a partner years ago, I knew it would be special and I still believe it is. The [exhibiting] dealers come here for their vacations to show and sell. In some cases, this is the only show they do or the only place in which they expose their inventory to an out-of-town clientele,” said Paul Davis in an interview earlier this year. He has been selling exhibit space to dealers all year long for most of his adult life, and he is as identified with the show as the site is. Most of the dealers this year returned because they have been at the fairgrounds on the second weekend of August for more years than they can remember.
Magoun Bros. Antiques of South Paris, Maine, has been selling strictly Maine antiques for many years †at shows in the Northeast and in many other parts of the country. Owner Jon Magoun has been able to collect those objects that throughout the rest of the country would seem just right for Maine, such as the old canoes, usually still in good working condition, a moose head or two and always a collection of furniture for the house in the backwoods. This year, he even had a stuffed moose, all 7 feet of the animal with a full rack of antlers.
Sporting antiques are very popular among the exhibitors at the show. Malchione’s Sporting Antiques, Chadds Ford, Penn., offered a collection of carved decoys, fishing gear and nautical items. William Gettes, a Barrington, N.H., dealer was selling decoys as well, and he also offered an assortment of home decorating accessories for the backwoods home, such as a couple deer heads, hunter’s trophy paintings, snow shoes and the stick furniture to accompany these artifacts. Scott Condello was offering a collection of early rifles and shotguns.
The show is not just about the rough and tumble antiques from early pioneers; there were the fine antiques and early American country style home furnishings as well. Virginia Renschen was offering a child’s crazy quilt in silk. Careful study of this Middletown, Conn., dealer’s offering showed a large pinwheel design adapted from the Star of Bethlehem in the blues and whites of the hand working.
Furniture was offered by many dealers in many styles. Kathy Consentino of Timber River Farm, Timber River, New Brunswick, Canada, was showing a collection of early painted and soft wood furniture. Canada was home for much painted furniture in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, which she is able to collect and sell at the shows she attends in the Northeastern United States.
From Franklin, N.H., Bruce Miller collects all kinds of small antiques; so many in fact it takes him more than a day to put them all out at this show, and packing up afterwards is just as much work. Some of his special things at Union included a collection of pin cushions from 100 to 200 years ago made in a variety of forms and colors. There was a wooden framed candle mold for making two dozen candles at a single pour and a large collection of early lighting devices fueled by fat, oil, wax or even straw.
Palissy-style majolica is what Robert Sheldon was centering in his display. It was a tropical lobster, the kind without the big claws, just lots of legs, in full size. This piece was probably Portuguese, he added, and priced at $595. Sheldon is from Sandy Hook, Conn., and has been exhibiting at Union every year since the start, with fine early furniture, usually American made, along with an assortment of early porcelain, silver and American glass, such as Sandwich and Pierpont.
Another dealer with good early American furniture is Marilyn Bierylo from Grantham, N.H. Trading with her son, Mark, she was offering a New Hampshire chest-on-chest and a New England highboy.
Nancy and Charles Thorpe, Windham, Conn., offered early painted furniture. Barbara and Harry Hepburn, trading as Hermitage Antiques of Harrison, Maine, sold a tall case clock Harry had restored, some furniture and even some early toys. Furniture from the Nineteenth Century in excellent finish was offered and sold by the Carrs of Gorham, Maine.
For just $595, one could be the owner of a high speed roller coaster, high speed for a 3- or 4-year-old, that is. It was for sale from Steele and Steele of Middletown, R.I., and dated to 108 years ago.
Lin’s Quilt Source was exhibiting for the last time in an outdoor show, as the business’s owners, Lin and Gil Stabbings, are planning to retire from antiques shows. Both have full time jobs, so the shows are very taxing, but the Maine Antiques Festival has been their favorite. “The food, the people and the sales have always been good, so next year we will just come to visit the show” Gil said.
Dates for next year will be Friday, August 7, through Sunday, August 9, and still at the same site. For information, 207-221-3108 or www.pauldavisshows.com .
