Antiques show hits the ground running today, extends through Sunday
Published 12:00 am Friday, November 8, 2019
A Friedrich Heyn carousel horse carved in Germany about 1898 is one of the many items at the show. Jon C. Lakey/Salisbury Post
West End Plaza was abuzz Thursday with activity as antiques dealers from across the Southeast set up their wares for the 66th Rowan Museum Antiques Show. Jon C. Lakey/Salisbury Post
Dell Thompson checks a Stickley table that she and her husband brought from Morehead City for the antique show. Jon C. Lakey/Salisbury Post
Nell and Don Thompson unload items from their van for the antiques show. Jon C. Lakey/Salisbury Post
John and Susan Wright, from Snow Leopard Antiques in Garner, set up their booth for the antiques show. Jon C. Lakey/Salisbury Post
SALISBURY —Susan Curran Wright will tell you the Edwardians and Victorians had a utensil for every food, and she has examples of many of them on display at this year’s Rowan Museum antiques show, which starts today.
Wright can show you a chipped beef fork, a buckwheat server, an olive spoon, a berry spoon — “and that’s an ice spoon,” she said Thursday while she and husband John set up their Snow Leopard Antiques booth.
The Wrights, who are vendors from Garner, sell much more than utensils. Susan was preparing to unpack doll furniture from the Reynolds family, and they also deal in items such as Victorian linens, laces, textile, pillows, christening dresses and bonnets.
Their booth is among the many set up by regional and local antiques dealers at the antiques show, which is in its 66th year and the longest-running antiques show in North Carolina.
The show opens at 10 a.m. today at the West End Plaza Event Center (the former JC Penney store at the Salisbury Mall) and goes until 5 p.m.
Saturday hours are the same, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday the show runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
General admission is $7, with proceeds benefiting the Rowan Museum and support of its historic properties.
West End Plaza is at 1935 Jake Alexander Blvd. W.
Back on the utensils, Susan Curran Wright picked up unusually shaped ice cream spoons and forks that once belonged to the Baker family, owners of the Friendly’s Ice Cream chain.
“People think that’s a fruit spoon, because of the shape,” Wright said.
The show is known as a place to find things special and rare, according to organizers. It also has a reputation for food at the Lockert Cafe, named for longtime volunteer Barbara Lockert.
The cafe will be open each day of the show from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and offer assorted homemade sandwiches, vegetable beef soup, desserts and beverages.
Volunteers such as Lockert drive the show.
“They’re lovely,” Wright said of Rowan Museum’s hospitality. “They’re just so kind to us, patient and helpful — and they feed us.
“They sell the most wonderful food.”
Shoppers also likely to find estate jewelry and accessories; vintage furs and clothing; fine linens and lace; 18th- and 19th-century furniture; European and Asian art and antiques; pottery; rugs; glassware; paintings; books; and collectibles.
On-site glass and crystal restoration is available, along with porcelain repair. There also are on-site appraisals for 19th- and early 20th-century paintings.
Go to www.rowanmuseumantiquesshow.com for more information.
For the first time this year, Kaye Brown Hirst will be selling Christmas linens from the 1950s and 1960s, along with vintage ornaments and blankets. Hirst is former executive director of Rowan Museum.
Tickets were sold for “Downton Abbey”-theme tea parties that will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Thursday was moving-in day for all the venders and organizations with information tables.
“It’s harder than it used to be,” Wright said of the unloading, unpacking and setting up. “Forty years ago, it was zip, zip, zip.”
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263.
