Rhinebeck Antiques Fair celebrated the start of its 34th year on May 29 and 30 with a show that continued to bring in impressive numbers of customers, with Saturday’s gate up 15 percent over a year ago, according to show promoter Bruce Garrett. “The crowds were back on Saturday, and Sunday was typical, right on the money,” said Garrett, whose formula for getting shoppers to return show after show is simple †Fill a pristine, convenient venue with exceptional antiques dealers and manage the event to a fair-thee-well. There were 184 dealers †a full house †in the four buildings that comprise the show at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, and the merchandise on offer was attractively presented to entice antiques lovers of all ages and interests.
The fun begins at any of the eight entrances among the four buildings, but a stop at American folk art specialist Victor Weinblatt, South Hadley, Mass., in Building A is highly recommended. With wonderfully oxidized orange-red letters exhorting visitors to “DANCE” and “DINE” †from a 1960s restaurant in Laconia, N.H., †Weinblatt’s booth set the requisite carnival atmosphere, and after the show, the dealer was happy to report that the event was the most upbeat of the Rhinebeck events he has done in the last two years.
“Major buyers were out in force, including designers and dealers from California, Oregon, the Midwest, Florida and Maine,” said Weinblatt. “Rhinebeck has a very loyal customer base, and they felt sufficiently confident to open up their checkbooks with some of the ‘good old days’ enthusiasm.”
Among Weinblatt’s sales were several trade signs, including Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner signs, a Sweet sign, a mid-Nineteenth Century Blacksmith sign, a Frankie and Johnnie ballad legend diorama and a large blue, white and mustard Ohio “Chickens For Sale” sign on tin with a robin’s-egg blue wooden frame.
Also leaving the building were a large carved and gilded mirror, several gear-form mirrors, a large copper finial, an early Twentieth Century racehorse game wheel, a Nineteenth Century mustard chimney cupboard, a double decker circa 1920s Midwestern industrial cart, an oversized free standing painted with curved sides children’s chalkboard, and, “as a result of an image in The Bee show section,” according to Weinblatt, a major Midwestern 4-foot-diameter sunburst and domino game wheel complete with its own traveling carnival crate. “Strong selling, coupled with the laid back ‘shows like they used to be’ unpretentious Rhinebeck atmosphere made for a true holiday weekend for both dealers and clients,” Weinblatt concluded.
Known for his collection of antique American game boards, Tim Chambers of Missouri Plain Folk, Sikeston, Mo., was also situated near an entrance, this one in Building B. One of his prize examples †depicted in his book The Art of the Game , 2001 †came out of a Georgia collection. With a checkerboard on the back, the tobacco brown Parcheesi two-sided game board was signed “E.B.S. XMAS 1900.” Apparently homemade as a Christmas gift and featuring a stylized central wreathlike motif of red and green, colors of the season, the game board was in the dealer’s hands for a second time, Chambers stating that he had recently bought it back.
“I’m pleased to say my efforts at the Rhinebeck Antiques Fair were most rewarding,” said Chambers, contacted after the show. “Our Saturday was one of the most active in recent years. The crowd was large and interest apparent. The result was a record number of sales for us. We had serious interest across the board. Sales included a wide variety of material from a wonderful Nineteenth Century country store rack to a pair of mid-Twentieth Century bar stools. Trade signs were popular, resulting in the sale of a half dozen or more. Game boards continue to be strong for us, with boards priced from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars among those sold. Come to think of it, Saturday flew buy. Until the very last hour of the day, there was little time when there wasn’t someone in our booth. We haven’t seen this kind of interest in the last few years. All signs seem to be indicating a turnaround in the business is underway.”
One of about 17 dealers who were new to the show, Susan Wechsler of Stanfordville, N.Y., mounted her South Road Antiques display in Building E, setting out such eye-pleasing items as a trio of soda fountain stools of cast iron with oak seats and brass foot rails, each in a bright primary color. The stools were stamped Acme Foundry, Philadelphia, and were circa 1920. It was Wechsler’s first time participating as a dealer, although she has attended the show and collected for years.
“I’m new to ‘dealing,’ having run my own business as a photo editor and book packager for many years, so had a bit of trepidation about the whole show experience,” she said, adding that she was grateful to other dealers who were helpful, offering advice and support. Wechsler said she did well in her first outing, selling some large items, including a store fixture for men’s shirts, a large shooting gallery target, a bunch of fence sections made from old tobacco staves and a group of Kentucky slatted, “picket fence” baskets. “My favorite item was a set of figural fence rails that were extraordinary,” she said.
A double-sided “Brotherhood” drum found in New York State and emblazoned with “Brotherhood Orchestra Jazz Melody,” circa 1910′0, could be had at Newsom & Berdan, Thomasville, Penn. Dealers Betty Berdan and Michael Newsom also brought a cow weathervane in good old paint (complete with a crumpled horn) that had come out of Pennsylvania just over the New Jersey line. A “Cider House” sign found in New Hampshire would make good addition to a library or study, and an assortment of stoneware, including a sweet little 1-gallon jug marked “Fanny,” was displayed.
Less folky and rustic are the items found in Lisa Gaffney’s Terra Mare Antiques. The Sharon, Conn., dealer specializes in ceramics, art pottery and decorative arts with natural themes. On one shelf she showed an Amphora Sunflower vase, circa 1910, next to a late 1800s French frog toothpick holder and an iridescent French plate from the 1900s depicting a frog and a radiant sunset.
“I had a good show,” said Gaffney. “I didn’t find many new customers, but now that I’ve done the Rhinebeck shows for two years I have customers coming specifically to buy. I think people do less impulse buying in this economy, they buy something they need or have a place in mind for, or have thought about. Often customers look on my website before coming to the show so they have an idea of what they want to see in person.”
Historical Staffordshire specialists Bill, Teresa and David Kurau brought a large collection of it to the show, with many Hudson River area views. Along with this they stocked the booth with Currier & Ives lithographs and showcases full of rare Liverpool pitchers, mocha ware, spatterware, early American glass and lots more. “We sold a little bit of everything at Rhinebeck,” said Bill Kurau after the show. “Everything from Historical Staffordshire with local Hudson River views to an 1841 linen-backed map of the United States and territories, several Currier & Ives lithographs, some early glass and even a large Steiff German shepherd. As always, Rhinebeck is an eclectic show and you never know what surprise will turn up there.”
Classical furniture and fine art with a Hudson Valley interest were the focus at Jenkinstown Antiques, where New Paltz, N.Y., dealer Sanford Levy showed an imposing New York Sheraton sideboard, circa 1805, with original period brass, gallery and lion’s head pulls. A sweet floral still life by Julia McEntee Dillon (1834‱919) a Kingston, N.Y., artist who Levy wrote about in a 2005 catalog accompanying an exhibition of her work at the Friends of Historic Kingston, hung in the booth. This work, an oil on canvas, circa 1910, was not included in that catalog.
Above the sideboard was a large (30 by 40 inches) oil on canvas by Hal Robinson (1875‱933). Titled “Bartleman’s Florist Making a Delivery to 5 Elm Rock Road, ” the painting was in a Newcomb Macklin frame and came with the complete history of the house and florist depicted. Levy said he was heartened by the good crowd at Rhinebeck, with “people looking for all kinds of things.” He sold well, including paintings, china, stoneware, glass and “even some furniture,” such as a maple chest of drawers.
New York City dealer Aarne Anton’s American Primitive collection is always fascinating, ranging from the reclaimed innards of pre-$3-per-gallon gasoline pumps to early whirligigs and folk art sculptures. For this show, his centerpiece was a folky rectangle of linoleum that had probably been used in a boys’ room in the 1940s, the entire surface comprising a map of the United States with illustrated points of interest and a pictorial transportation border. He also assembled an eye-catching wall of game boards and kids’ games, including a graphically arresting coin toss game. He, too, cited good attendance and sales at the show.
“We have noted greater interest and activity in the antiques market this year, which was also the case at Rhinebeck, which draws many collectors from the New York metropolitan area,” he said. “I sold the large map of the United States floor covering. Other sales included game boards, a large arcade target and other figural and animal cast iron. Several sculptural utilitarian objects also found buyers, including a corn grinder and early iron tools.”
Other undiscovered treasures abounded on the show floor †a diminutive pair of cast iron bench seats in white paint and a scraped corner cupboard with nine lights at William Lohrman Antiques, New Paltz, N.Y.; a first edition view of West Point from Philipstown by W.J. Bennett, 1831, at Maile Allen, Poughquag, N.Y.; a pair of period early Nineteenth Century classic barrel-form chairs in mahogany at Old Village Antiques, Avon, Conn.; and ship’s portrait of “Mallory Lines SS Nueces New York to Texas” by Antonio Jacobsen at Louis J. Dianni, Fishkill, N.Y.
Collectors will get another chance to shop Rhinebeck †but only for one day †when “Summer Magic” is presented on July 24. The full two-day show returns Columbus Day weekend (October 9‱0). For information, 845-876-1989 or www.rhinebeckantiquesfair.com .
