The second weekend of each month, all year round, Scott Antique Market comes alive with more than 2,400 dealers inside two enormous buildings and several hundred more outside on the parking lots offering their inventories. At the Atlanta Expo Centers, the North and South buildings, on Jonesboro Road at Interstate 285, on April 9‱2 there was a sellout of exhibit space in spite of it being Easter weekend.
The show has a following of dealers from throughout the eastern half of the United States, in part because Don Scott, founder and owner, has been active as a dealer, show promoter and, in years past, an auctioneer in Ohio. It was through this past work that he connected with many Northern and Midwestern dealers, giving his show the variety of antiques and decorator collections they are known to offer. Naturally, it has become the primary selling venue for many Southern dealers as well.
The most recent collection of dealers had some substitutions due to the Easter weekend and some gains from dealers who stopped to do the show on their way home from the Round Top, Texas, shows.
Mostly Majolica is a collection, just as the name implies †colorful pottery from the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries that has become very popular again. Proprietor Caren Monetta of Alpharetta, Ga., had several hundred examples of the novel dishes and accessories, including nut dishes, pitchers, mugs and some pieces that were simply for display.
Buying most of her stock in England, Terry Lightmas usually sells well. Her collection included a good supply of middle Nineteenth Century furniture †rococo or Jacobean revival styles †that was popular in England at that time, and a variety of small antiques. Across the aisle, Terry Clark was offering valuable Nineteenth Century European tabletop accessories in the Continental style, including gilt and ebony candlesticks, porcelain candlesticks, Austrian crystal and various pieces of fine art. Both of these dealers are from Atlanta and are regulars to the show.
Woody and Nancy Straub are from Umatilla, Fla., and had just finished exhibiting at the Texas shows. They were traveling home to restock and exhibit, as they do every month. This time their collection had a look that it may have been acquired while in Texas: a vintage cowboy outfit, including leather chaps and an embroidered leather vest, several leather covered furniture pieces, including a chair and a small blanket chest and several Western scene paintings.
Scott maintains their show is the largest show of its kind in the country. There is probably no dispute of that claim, and it is also a source for many different types of shopping. There are specialties for decorators, including lamps made from all manner of things offered by several dealers; i.e., Chinese tea tins and porcelain ginger jars. Keith’s Antiques and Uniques from New Philadelphia, Ohio, had a large area in the back of the South Building where he was offering more than 100 pairs of fireplace andirons and early lighting fixtures converted from gas to electric.
Textiles come in almost every variety. Ruchelle Davis, Rome, Ga., a dealer trading as Town and Country, offered table linens. There were several dealers of early quilts and coverlets and even some offering upholstery materials by the bolt.
At least four early American hunt boards could have been found, those long-legged, flat-topped servers usually from the South. Among them was one at Alabama dealer Jim Pyburn’s, which he said was from Georgia, in southern yellow pine priced at $4,500. Larry Lewis of Big Creek Antiques, Clay City, Ky., sold his, which was from his home state in walnut.
Assorted small antiques from England were the primary inventory of many dealers.
Black Sheep Antiques, Madison, N.C., shops in England as often as the owners can get away. John Forrester is an Englishman living most of the year in Florida, but he shops for barometers in his native land †they are the majority of his collection.
Peter Nee, Middleburg, Va., came from a Washington, D.C., family that was in the furniture business. His collection is a mixture of American, English and Continental parlor furniture and accessories. In contrast, his neighbor on the show floor, Anna’s Antiques of Beaufort, S.C., was offering fine early New England furniture.
Sporting goods from earlier times were available, too. B.J. Pawlaczyk comes down most months from his home in Augres, Mich., with vintage boats, fishing tackle and even early outboard motors. If you want some store signs advertising the gear, he has that as well.
Scott Antique Market is unique, with its nearly 3,000 spaces filled 12 times each year. Dealer rents are low, and admission is only $5, so the crowds are very good. Furthermore, with that many exhibiting dealers, they contribute to a big part of the buying as well.
For information, www.scottantiquemarket.com or 740-569-4112.
