SPENCER — It was sort of by accident that Delmer Wise decided to finally go into business for himself.
Last June, while running a route as a carrier for the Charlotte Observer, Wise collided with another car that pulled in front of him as it was leaving the Draftex Inc. USAplant on Heilig Road.
“He just couldn’t wait,” Wise remembered.
Wise suffered a broken nose. To make matters worse, his appendix later ruptured, forcing him to have two surgeries.
But, as the cliche goes, there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or, in his case, a pocketful of green at the end of his broken nose.
“I got a little bit of a settlement,” he said modestly. It may have been a little bit, but it was just enough for him to seriously pursue the hobby he’d been “piddling with” for the past 20 years.
Wise shopped auctions, yard sales, “this, that and the other,” for the used furniture and antiques with which he would fill his very own shop.
He envisioned the store being located on East Franklin, off Long Street, in Salisbury, opening to the public the first day of November.
“But the City of Salisbury wouldn’t give me my privilege license because the fire marshal said there were too many hazards and violations in that building,” Wise recalled. They told him he wouldn’t be able to move in until all the violations had been corrected.
“I told that lady, ‘I’ve got all my money tied up (in the merchandise).’ ”
So the Spencer native took his wares back home to a rental house at 400 N. Salisbury Ave. He was only 10 days late opening the doors to Wise Choice Used Furniture and Consignments.
The first full week of business was good, Wise said. He’s already sold a couch, bedroom suite, daybed, pottery and some lamps.
“We try to have a little something for everybody,”he said. “A lot of (shops) basically want to carry old, antique furniture and I’m trying to be here for the middle (class) … . A lot of people can’t afford new, a lot of people can’t afford antiques. And although used furniture was my main goal when I opened, as I started to get more I figured it would be a lot better (to offer more) than to just focus on one area. And my (merchandise) is very well priced.”
A six-piece formal dining room set sells for as little as $165, and a four-piece bedroom suit for $175.
Most of the big furniture — dining room and bedroom sets, hutches, couches, recliners, televisio ns —are downstairs. Scattered about are a few antique and contemporary paintings (some by local artist Jean Brown), pottery and novelty items like a Styrofoam “Jimmy P. Nut”
from the Jimmy Carter’s 1977 campaign and original aluminum lunch boxes from the 1970s. One features The Dukes of Hazzard and is priced at $26.
“I found one on (Internet auction site) e-bay the other day for $900-plus dollars.”
Wise also sells on consignment. Sandy Lance of China Grove has the “cookie jar room”
where she sells — you guessed it — cookie jars and pottery. Another dealer features candles and lamps — two of which, both antique and in excellent condition, no one knows anything about except that their estimated value runs in the thousands.
Carolyn Price and her husband, of Richfield, rent a room upstairs where they feature their hand-made items: hobby horses, painted gourds, children’s chairs, wheelbarrows and even an original hand-painted kerosene heater. And display cases hold gold and silver antique jewelry and costume jewelry.
Three rooms are still available for rent, but Wise doesn’t worry about filling them. He said his own dealer has so much merchandise coming in every day that he has to constantly move it out and, more than happily, Wise takes it into his shop.
There is still so much for Wise to learn about the antiques business. He said he has a nearly exhaustive collection of reference books he consults when a question comes up.
But he still has not been able to find the information he’s looking for concerning an original antique portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
The picture of “The Nation’s Martyr”behind the register is a well-maintained likeness of one of American history’s most famous emancipators, with his deep-set staring eyes and detailed creases. Wise said it’s his favorite piece in the shop.
“I was told on my opening day that it could possibly be worth $2,000,” Wise said. “I had a very low price on it and a man came in and said, ‘Please take that price off of it.’ He could have bought it and not said a word to me about it.”
Wise estimates the portrait, still in its original frame, was done between 1865 and 1869. He’s not sure if it’s a charcoal drawing. That and so many more questions about the piece are left to be answered.
“But Idon’t know who to contact,” he lamented. He’s made several calls already and is trying to find an expert to question about the portrait.
It seems like a lot of trouble for some picture he bought from another antiques shop.
“They didn’t know what they had,” Wise said.
But he does. And he’s still hunting for an appraiser, “someone who really knows what they’re talking about.”
In the meantime, Wise and his wife, Della, who helps him during her days off from Dillard’s, will continue to absorb as much knowledge as they can so that Wise Choice will continue to grow.
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