Matt King at the 29th Annual Cape Cod Glass Show, September 17-18, 2016. Jackie Sideli photo for Antiques and The Arts Weekly.
Submitted by the Family
MARSHFIELD, MASS. — Matthew Joseph King of Marshfield passed away suddenly and from natural causes on August 14, 2024, at the age of 64.
Matt was born in Weymouth, Mass., on July 11, 1960. His parents were Leo, a special education teacher, and Faith King. He grew up in the tightly-knit community of Scituate’s West End, and attended Scituate High School, where he excelled in both academics and wrestling. After high school he attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and where he met his future wife, Joanne. Soon after, they moved to Marshfield where they raised their two children, Kevin and Sara.
Matt was eternally devoted to his children and cherished the time he spent with them. He was passionate about antiques, wrestling and music. He truly loved nature and all animals, especially his dogs, Tory and Niko. He was a volunteer wrestling coach for Scituate High School for more than a decade. He was also the Marshfield youth wrestling coach for many years. He significantly impacted countless lives during his time as a coach.
Early in his career, he worked for Clean Harbors in Norwell, Mass., and moved furniture for Burkhardt Brothers in Scituate.
Matt was well known and respected in the antiques world as well. His peers remember him as a knowledgeable historian who loved to share his knowledge with the community. He was cared about by so many. To know Matt was to love Matt.
In 2012, Matt’s sister-in-law, Maureen Stanton, published Killer Stuff and Tons of Money, An Insiders Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting, which was based on Matt, who was identified in the book by the pseudonym, “Curt Avery.”
He was predeceased by his parents Leo and Faith King and his sister, Judy King. He is survived by his son Kevin King, of Greenwich, Conn., and daughter, Sara King, in Hanover, Mass., as well as his two sisters, Elizabeth King Hatch and Mary King and many other beloved family members.
Visiting hours took place on Thursday, August 22, at the MacDonald Funeral Home, at 1755 Ocean Street in Marshfield. The Funeral Mass was celebrated on Friday, August 23, in St Christine Parish Church, also in Marshfield.
Matthew Joseph King (1960-2024) In Memoriam
Compiled by Madelia Hickman Ring
From left, Eric Correia, Jeff Noordsy, Gene McCain, Matt King and Robert Girouard. Photo courtesy of the King family.
I moved to the West End of Scituate, Mass., in the late 1970s and met Matt. We used to dig for bottles together a lot. We’d go to bottle shows in Saratoga, N.Y.; York, Penn., or Brimfield, Mass., and share booth space. We might sleep in a tent or in the car or under tarps.
One time, we were digging for bottles behind a row of houses in Kingston, Mass.; the police came and asked us what we were doing. They were very aggressive and kept asking us, “Do you know whose house that is?” Matt tried to de-escalate the situation and asked if it was the chief of police’s house. The officers informed us it was the house of Henry Meinholz, Jr, who had killed a neighborhood girl and buried her body in the basement. The police followed us out of town that day.
Matt was faithful and fair but competitive. I remember once we went to an auction near Cape Cod that had a rare Stoddard New Hampshire glass house medicine bottle and it was selling while we were at Brimfield. I left a $1,000 absentee bid on the bottle and we both went back to Brimfield and set up. The next day, I found out that Matt left Brimfield, drove 100 miles to bid live and won the bottle. He was that determined.
When he would go to shows, he would never stay in his booth, he was always out looking. One time I got an early New England bottle from the table next to us because he was off looking around the show.
We played fair and stayed friends. He met and embraced all my friends and my fiancé, it was great.
He started out bottle digging and for the first 20 years, that was all he did. Then he worked for auctions and gradually expanded what he knew. He was always asking questions and handling things. In his later years, he kind of faded away from bottles because he saw the beauty in everything that was out there, all of it. He wasn’t afraid to experiment and usually did well.
I’ll really miss him.
Carl Pratt
Sandwich, Mass.
I’ve been selling to and buying from Matt since I was 16 years old. I first met him at the Brimfield shows and was always struck by his passion for the material. I’m pretty sure that every show I’ve ever set up at that he was also at, he purchased something from me and I bought from him as well.
One of my favorite signs that I bought from him was at the Wells, Maine, show, a pointing hand sign that says, “To the Auction.” My daughter was five years old at the time and walking through the show with me. We got to Matt’s booth and bought the sign. When I was paying up, she leaned over and said out loud, “Dad, this stuff is a bunch of junk!” Matt and I both laughed like hell. I will miss him.
Josh Steenburgh
Undated photo courtesy Jeff Noordsy.
When Holly and I first started attending bottle shows in the early 90s, we met Matt and began what would be a 30-year friendship. At that time, Matt was selling some of his New England utility bottle collection and Holly made our first major purchases from him. Matt not only explained the history of the objects to us but also provided us with important lessons on how to distinguish good from better from best. Most importantly, he also allowed us to pay him over time — I think our first purchase cost us $65 and, as I recall, we paid him $25 down, sent another $20 in a month and paid the balance at the next bottle show a month after that. Matt was always willing to work with folks and share his knowledge, particularly if you were a new collector. Over the 30 years of our friendship, we watched him mentor young people time and time again and that is, to my mind, a very important part of his legacy.
As our tastes evolved, Matt provided us early lessons about redware, stoneware and Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century furniture. He was well versed in a variety of categories and a fixture at bottle and antique shows across the Northeast. Holly and I referred to Matt as “the hardest working guy in the antiques business” and we greatly admired his drive and determination. Matt worked Brimfield as hard as anyone I know of and he was a welcome sight, whether he was set up and selling or prowling the fields with his ready smile. Over the years, he uncovered some fantastic objects, utilizing both his keen eye and hard earned knowledge from being in “the trenches.” Some of Matt’s most memorable exploits are recorded in a book written by his sister-in-law, titled Killer Stuff and Tons of Money.
Holly and I did a tremendous amount of business (both buying and selling) with Matt over the years and we never once had a disagreement or a disappointment. Some of my fondest memories are of Matt and I meeting in the parking lot of the Flying Pig during the Covid years. I would bring several folding tables and Matt would bring 50 to 100 great bottles from his collection for me to consider. We purchased some fabulous bottles during that time and we have kept many of them for our personal collection. Matt loved those meetings as much as I and we shared many laughs in what was otherwise a pretty difficult and lonely time for many of us. I will never forget the day that Matt had laid out a group of material on the tables, stepped back, spread his arms and asked (like Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, in the movie Gladiator) … “Are you not entertained????” I certainly was and it became a running joke between the two of us every time we saw each other. There will never be anyone quite like Matt King and that’s a loss for all of us. He was a great man, a great friend and a great dealer of the highest principles.
Jeff Noordsy
Cornwall, Vt.
Undated photo courtesy Jeff Noordsy.
To the family and friends of Matt King, whose passing left us all deeply saddened.
I met Matt at the Brimfield Antiques Markets decades ago, and from that first meeting always looked forward to our next.
Matt was a skilled antiques dealer whose knowledge of several fields made visiting his booth at one of the many shows he exhibited in, a treasure hunt all its’ own.
I recall with great pleasure one of the shows I was exhibiting in, Matt stopped by to see what offerings I had brought. He quickly inquired about an Eighteenth Century religious triptych in magnificent condition and color, which I would never have figured Matt would be interested in. But, after a short conversation, Matt’s knowledge and intuition came to light and he cheerfully said, “I’ll take it!”
What makes this little episode so special is that Matt’s “eye” was not only known for his specialty in American stoneware, early iron, lighting devices, folk art and wonderful smalls, but he was a true “picker” of material culture who maintained his humble personality and deep respect for the antiques business he so loved and the people who found Matt a true treasure.
The last time I saw Matt was during Antiques in New Hampshire, at Peter Mavris’ show, where he was set up. Though he was using a cane, he never stopped for a minute to greet and assist customers and write up a sales slip. It is in that memory how I choose to remember Matt, doing his thing.
With heartfelt condolences,
Frank Gaglio
Barn Star Productions
Undated photo courtesy Kris Casucci.
My husband knew him since they were both teenagers on the south shore picking 40 years ago! I met him when I did the first Brimfield North show in 2021, during Covid when we couldn’t do shows in Mass. He was so supportive of our N.H., show, he never missed a show. Always had the same spot and was very generous with his knowledge to all of the new vendors around him. One funny thought was his car was always in disarray, which made me chuckle every time. I’m laughing now as I remember him pulling in. He really was a great guy. It’s really just a shame.
Klia Ververidis Crisafulli
When I first accompanied Matt to a flea market, I had no idea that he had transformed himself into a knowledgeable antiques dealer. But over the eight years I spent intermittently traveling with him to get a glimpse inside that world — to auctions, flea markets, museums, antiques shows — I saw the respect that he’d earned from his peers, which was because of the expertise he’d developed from years and years of hard work, from studying obscure historical documents, auction catalogs, and books and from the miles and miles of “field work,” just looking at and handling objects, talking to people, going to museums.
What drove this incredible decades-long effort was a deep love and passion for the objects, the history they tell and the stories they keep. Toward the end of my time with him, as I wrote in Killer Stuff, I asked him if he was still having fun selling antiques, and part of his answer was this: “It’s not about the money. If I wanted money, I’d become a banker. It’s not about the passion of the hit. It’s the passion for the things, the love of the objects.”
I will be forever grateful to Matt, a.k.a. “Curt Avery,” for letting me into his world, for being such a smart, witty, fun guide, and for the generosity of taking the time to teach me — he’s a teacher at heart — so that I could share with readers his passion for historical objects and the story of an antiques’ dealer’s life. Matt was as rare a treasure himself as the unique and beautiful objects he loved, collected, and traded.
Maureen Stanton
Undated photo of Matt King and Justin Thomas. Kris Casucci photo.
I’ve known Matt about 15 years; he did our Tailgates, he was a dealer at Flying Pig and also at our Walker Homestead shows.
He was one of the hardest-working dealers I’ve ever known. At Brimfield, he would do field after field; it’s a heck of a lot of work. He could put more things in a vehicle than anyone I know; he could come in a little car, set up a nice booth and have more things than anyone else. He worked really hard at it, even when his body wasn’t working really well.
He was very proud of his kids and talked about them all the time; they meant an awful lot to him.
One of the first pieces of redware I bought for my personal collection was one I got from him and I’m really glad I had the opportunity to know him. It’s funny: wherever I go, I think I see him.
He was very modest; I don’t think he realized how many people he affected. He was really special and he’ll really be missed.
Kris Casucci
Undated photo courtesy Kris Casucci.
Matt first impressed me back in 1989 with his pursuit of glass. As the years passed, I realized he had accumulated a wide and vast knowledge of many categories of antiques. Matt was a great antiques dealer. Antiques, art and artifacts were a perpetual quest. Perhaps his greatest passion was for collecting Pilgrim century furniture from the South Shore of Massachusetts. Matt King was a unique individual who will be sorely missed by those involved in the field of antiques. He will always be remembered as a true enthusiast and antiquarian.
Norman Heckler, Jr
It’s another pillar down in the business because Matt was that steady of a player in the game. For him, it was always about the stuff. He was always willing to share his knowledge, that was his thing. He really appreciated the rarity of things and was like a kid in a candy store about this stuff. He was just always there and always interested, no matter the object. Events are just different without him there. You could always count on him. You could set up next to him at a show and he would buy something from you every day, even if you didn’t have something new. I remember I bought an antique a few years ago that Matt wanted. I wanted to hold on to it for a while but he would ask me about it every time he saw me. He really had the wherewithal to pursue things, particularly things from the Northshore of Massachusetts, which was his area. In a business where there’s no licensing and no vetting, your reputation is everything. Matt had a very good one.
Ian McKelvey
Matt King with a favorite thing — a carved deer lamp — he discovered on the South Shore of Massachusetts and brought to the 44th Vermont Antiques Dealers’ Association show, September 29-30, 2016. Rick Russack photo for Antiques and The Arts Weekly.
