After a rather informal checking of watches, the doors to the Historic East Berlin Antiques Show opened promptly at 5 pm to the largest preview gate in the show’s 12-year history. And by 5:20, the ladies who had been busy taking tickets were busy counting the money and dividing the total out by $12 per head to get an accurate attendance count. One lady came up with 93, but was persuaded to add on two more visitors who came just as the final tally was about to be announced.
“We are thrilled with the number of people who came out for our preview,” show manager Gretchen Davis said. “Every cent counts when you have five buildings to keep open and maintain.” The properties of the East Berlin Historical Preservation Society include a schoolhouse, stone mill, log house, fire hall, and Redmen Hall, a structure that has seen use as a cigar store, a school and lastly the headquarters of the Redmen.
It is difficult to find a piece of refinished furniture or a fancy this or that at this show, as it has become a haven for real country things, old paint, some fabrics and a scattering of paintings. And it works, to the extent that the popularity of this show has created a waiting list of 40 dealers looking for an opening.
Ivy Hill Primitives of Langhorne, one of the 14 dealers in the show hailing from Pennsylvania, offered a late Nineteenth Century apothecary in old paint with 48 small drawers, and a collection of small kitchen items, including two hand carved wooden bowls, approximately 1½ inches in diameter, two cutting boards, two tin graters and two wooden spoons. They were shown neatly in an early glass box, not included with the lot.
One large booth was shared by the Nosey Crow, Dover, Penn., and Linda Spowart, Girard, Ohio, showing a very nice Nineteenth Century one-board scrubbed top with breadboard ends sawbuck table, red painted base, and measuring 52½ by 22 by 27 inches. A three-compartment grain bin with slanted top, old red surface was from Denver, Penn., and had a 1926 Pennsylvania metal license plate covering a mouse hole in the back.
Smalls abounded in the booth of Margaret Schenck Antiques, Harrisburg, Penn., including a selection of redware molds, wooden chopping bowls, treen plates and several tin candle molds. A child’s decorated plank seat highchair was from Lancaster County, Penn., circa 1860.
A two-tier chandelier in iron, with four candleholders on each tier, hung in the booth of Carol Schulman of Chester Township, Penn., and a nice Chippendale wood-carved candle box with red over the original graining was shown. Keystone Antiques of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, had two early shutters in old blue paint standing at the back of the booth, and a double student’s lamp with rope-turned font was lit to show off what appeared to be the original green shades.
Across from the entrance to the multipurpose room, Ellen Katona and Bob Lutz of Greenwich, N.J., were in their usual spot with a New England four-drawer graduated chest, grain painted and dating circa 1820, and a blue-painted rocking horse. Doorstops, a staple of these dealers, included an Old Salty, covered wagon, dwarf and male Amish figure.
Pottles and Pannikins of Windsor, one of two Connecticut dealers in the show, had a small-size settle bench in pine with shaped arms and raised panel back, oak, and measuring 44 inches wide and 41 inches high. A pegged construction cradle dated from the Nineteenth Century, Southern pine, had finials at each corner, and a two-tier wire plant stand, painted black, measured 36 inches wide.
An Eighteenth Century stretcher base harvest table with scrubbed top, original bittersweet painted base, Pennsylvania origin, was in the booth of Hart’s Country Antiques of New Oxford, Penn. Three large wooden bowls, red surfaces, were displayed in an early dry sink, and on the window sill was a selection of black bottle dolls.
Lion and the Lamb, one of the three East Berlin dealers in the show, offered a tavern table with scrubbed two-board top, circa 1800, with a treen inkwell in old yellow paint, mid-Nineteenth Century, displayed on the surface. A dovetail bucket bench in walnut, early Nineteenth Century, was among the furniture in the display.
There did not seem to be a shortage of tavern tables in the show as another one was offered from the booth of New Oxford, Penn., dealers Reilly and Jenks. This rare New England Windsor form was in pine and ash, dated circa 1780, and was from Connecticut. Mounted on the wall was a colorful set of six Amish seat pads, round with yellow stars on a green ground.
Homespun Antiques, Mentor, Ohio, showed a Vermont desk on frame in the original red stain, a lift top with storage drawer. Blue Dog Antiques, Staffordshire Springs, Conn., had a long, narrow room to fill and it was close to overflowing with a great variety of country things. Redware mugs, all manner of wooden bowls and objects, and cast iron tools were shown, along with the largest item in the booth, an early drying rack, about 6 feet long, New England origin, that was possibly used for apples.
Following the Thursday evening preview, the show was open on Friday from 1 to 7 pm and on Saturday, 9 am to 3 pm. The Friday hours were set to work with the opening of the Greater York Antiques Show at 11 am, just 12 miles down the road. “Our show was built as a friendly show, and people pick up on that. They like coming here and we see the same people year after year,” Gretchen Davis said, “and we look forward to seeing them again in the spring of 2010.”
