Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, March 2015 23-C
- SHOW -
Radnor, Pennsylvania
The Main Line Antiques Show
by Lita Solis-Cohen
The Main Line Antiques
Show is a neighborhood
show, a survivor of the
old-fashioned show that used
to fill church social halls every
weekend and raise money for
local charities. For the last nine
years Main Line, which is a
notch up from those old-fash-
ioned shows, has benefited Sur-
rey Services for Seniors. The
work Surrey does helps seniors
live a full life while remaining in
their homes. The antiques show
is Surrey’s major fund-raiser,
and local businesses support it,
as do a long list of patrons. Two
Main Line women, Anne Ham-
ilton and Betty Moran, and their
committee make it happen.
For the last four years Nicho-
las Vandekar, a local real estate
agent with Long and Foster in
Devon, Pennsylvania, has been
the show’s volunteer manager.
He sells houses and then encour-
ages the buyers to furnish them
with antiques. “Once the house
is full, I encourage them to buy a
bigger house and more antiques,”
he said with a grin.
With the help of his brother
Paul Vandekar, a dealer in
ceramics, woollies, and various
decorations, Nick Vandekar put
together an impressive list of
dealers. These included James
Kilvington of Dover, Delaware;
W.M. Schwind, Jr. of Yarmouth,
Maine; Michael Leslie of Port ’N
Starboard, Falmouth,
Maine; Hanes and
Ruskin, Old Lyme,
Connecticut; and
Michael Corbett of
Kenilworth, Illinois,
as well as local deal-
ers Christopher Rebollo of North
Wales; Lori Cohen of Arader
Galleries, Philadelphia; Schwarz
Gallery, Philadelphia; Stevens
Antiques, Frazer; and Ruth Van
Tassel of Malvern, among oth-
ers. The show filled the gymna-
sium at Cabrini College, Rad-
nor, Pennsylvania. There was a
well-attended preview party on
Friday, November 14, 2014, and
a decent gate on Saturday and
Sunday.
Business was done and not
just by the five jewelry dealers.
Hollie Powers Holt of Wayne,
Pennsylvania, said she sold a
lot of maps and prints, most of
them unframed and reasonable.
“The buyers knew it would cost
more to frame them than they
paid,” she said. “They seemed
to love property maps from the
1880s to the 1920s.” These maps
are not only decorative but they
show who owned the properties
and give the names
of the neighbors in a
bygone time.
Dealers said there
were some new
and younger clients
at this show. Sev-
eral dealers who had shown at
the Delaware Antiques Show
the week before brought many
things they had shown there, but
they were fresh to most of those
who came to this show. Main
Liners like to shop in their own
neighborhood, and most of them
did not drive to Delaware. The
people who support the charity
support this show and buy. Local
dealers said they had follow-up
business.
Sheila Ferguson, a private
dealer from Chestnut Hill, Penn-
sylvania, said she sold a lot of
Victorian Staffordshire figures.
“I have done this show for years
and have a Main Line follow-
ing,” she said. “I sold every dog
I brought, and some of them I
have had for a long time.” Mar-
vin Baer from Ridgewood, New
Jersey, who sells Japanese Sat-
suma, Imari, and Sumida, has
been doing various shows in this
area for years and lets his cus-
tomers know he will be in town.
That is how business is done
these days.
“We had a great show,” said
Lee Hanes of Old Lyme, Con-
necticut. “We sold three pieces
of furniture: a Queen Anne
table, a walnut Boston lowboy,
and a four-drawer cherry chest.
We also sold a woollie with an
American ship on it, an English
portrait of a child in a yellow
dress, an English creamware
compote, and a carved Chinese
altar box, and one of the best
fireplace fenders I’ve ever had.
It was like a ‘before recession’
show.”
MichaelCorbettofKenilworth,
Illinois, who calls his business
the Federalist Antiques, said he
sold a pair of chairs, a hooked
rug, early Chinese export por-
celain, a wooden and brass peat
bucket, some Chinese lacquer
tables, a Chinese lacquer sewing
box, a tortoiseshell snuff box,
and some Chinese snuff bottles
he had mounted as pendants.
Nick Vandekar said some
dealers said it was their best
show, and some said it was their
worst. “That is the way shows
are these days.”
Paintings dealers said they
sold paintings. A dealer in
20th-century furniture made
some sales, but others said they
did not make expenses. This
show suffers from the end-of-
season syndrome, and the dates
need to be changed.
Nick Vandekar said the pro-
moters not only need to change
the date so it is not so close to the
Delaware show, but they need to
find another venue. He thinks
Columbus Day weekend will
be the new date and is looking
at three possible venues. It isn’t
good when a show has to move
dates and venues every year,
which had been the case with
this show. Stay tuned.
For more information, go to
.
com).
“It was like
a ‘before
recession’
show.”
W.M. Schwind, Jr. of Yar-
mouth, Maine, asked $3200
for this Libbey Glass Amber-
ina vase made in 1917. “The
New England Glass Com-
pany reestablished itself as
Libbey in Toledo, Ohio, in
1880 and revived Amberina
during World War One,” said
Schwind. “This vase has an
Art Deco quality about it.”
This tip-top table, made in Nantucket, of maple
and birch, 1815-30, with an old red finish, a three-
piece top, turned pedestal with an urn, and spider
legs with reeded edges, was 29" high x 27¼" wide
x 17" deep. It was $3800 from W.M. Schwind, Jr.
He said it was pictured by Charles H. Carpenter,
Jr. and Mary Grace Carpenter in their book The
Decorative Arts and Crafts of Nantucket.
Paul Vandekar of
Earle D. Vandekar of
Knightsbridge, Mary-
knoll, New York, offered a
selection of Piero Forna-
setti plates and trays. This
is one of eight fish plates.
Vandekar asked $7500 for
all eight.
Monroe Coldren of West Chester, Pennsylvania, offered this
French gate lock with a three-bolt locking mechanism, 1700-
50, for $2650.
This Conestoga wagon hardware
in the form of a snake was $950
from Monroe Coldren.
This pair of Moravian hinges, 1780-
90, 17" x 5", was $1800 from Monroe
Coldren. Hollie Powers Holt of Wayne, Pennsylvania, offered this
amaryllis print from A Seletion of Hexandrian Plants, the
rare 1831 work by Priscilla Susan Bury, engraved and hand
colored by Robert Havell, who did Audubon’s elephant folio
of The Birds of America. Framed, it was $5500. ☞