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Maine Antique Digest, April 2015 3-B
- FEATURE -
P
rimitives have always been sort of the poor relations of
the country antiques world. They were what you bought to
give your home a country look, if you couldn’t afford top-
of-the-line paint-decorated furniture and “serious” folk art. But
that’s no longer the case, according to upstate New York dealer
Cindy Johnson, who, with 15 years in the antiques trade, has
gradually become a full-fledged primitives dealer.
Johnson is the proprietor of Dater House Antiques, a few
miles east of Troy in the hamlet of Eagle Mills. During the past
year, she has edited out of her inventory just about anything that
wasn’t primitive. The result: “Last year was the best year I’ve
ever had, and this year’s taking off like a skyrocket,” she said.
“There’s a movement,” Johnson said. She fondly refers to it as
“the grungy brown move-
ment.” “The rougher and
more primitive a piece is
that I can find, the faster
I sell it,” she explained.
“Anything out of a barn,
I can’t keep it.” Recently
she posted “a trough with a hole in the bottom” on her Facebook
page and instantly was deluged with e-mails, texts, and phone
calls while she was doing her grocery shopping.
The movement even has its own Martha Stewart figure in the
person of Jill Peterson, as well as its own bible,
A Simple Life,
the magazine that Peterson publishes and edits. Johnson said,
“Jill Peterson has pumped new life into the country primitives
market. When Jill puts in something like old clothes or scrub
boxes, people will call you looking for them. The next issue is
going to have something about bee boxes. I’ve had them in the
past, but I don’t have any now. I wish did. In a few months peo-
ple will be looking for bee boxes.”
The primitives market even has something of its own show
circuit, including venues that aren’t always on the show calen-
dars of many “standard” country dealers. First among them is
the Days of the Pioneer show, run by Peterson at the Museum of
Appalachia in Norris, near Knoxville, Tennessee.
Some other shows that appeal to the primitives crowd include
the Offerings show, now held at Onondaga Community College
in Syracuse, New York; the From the Farmhouse show in Elk-
ton, Maryland; Pure and Simple in Kokomo, Indiana; the Home-
spun Christmas show in Lancaster, Ohio; andAGathering on the
Prairie in Arthur, Illinois.
One gets the impression that this style becomes more popular
as you move away from the Northeast into places such as Indi-
ana, Kentucky, and Missouri, where a 19th-century pioneer aes-
thetic may have a more visceral appeal than New England-style
rooms filled with Hadley chests and Chapin highboys.
Johnson said that she finds the style especially popular with
middle-aged folks. “I’m forty-five, and people my age are sick
of buying junk. When their kids were young they bought cheap
stuff, and now that’s fallen apart.” It also doesn’t hurt that prim-
itives still tend to be relatively inexpensive. The vast majority
of Johnson’s inventory is well under $1000 and she has lots of
things for less than $100. She even has a $20-and-under page on
her Web site.
Johnson said age, condition, and origin are generally less
important in the primitives market than they are in the more
traditional Americana market. “More often than not it’s a look
they want,” she said of her customers. The style is essentially
the most recent iteration of the back-to-the-land, simple-living
country movement that developed during the 1960s and ’70s and
which evolved into the
Country Living
/Martha Stewart vogue of
the ’80s and ’90s. The current “movement” tends to be rougher,
more rustic, more monochromatic, and not as cutesy as the
Country Living
style.
Some dealers even mix new folk art with older material. Older
is still better, but it’s not an absolute requirement. “It doesn’t
have to be a certain age, although we’ll reject something that’s
not old enough,” Johnson said.
It also doesn’t have to be American. “American is still more
coveted,” Johnson said, but “we can’t be that strict because it’s
too hard to find just American.” She noted that “a lot of early
wood comes out of the Middle East,” adding that buyers are
“paying high prices for non-American things.” Nor is it import-
ant that a piece be as close to pristine or “untouched” as possible.
In fact, old make-do repairs are likely to help a piece, not hurt it.
At first glance, Johnson’s approach to the business looks like
something of a 1950s idyll. “I knew that when I had a family
I wanted to stay home with the kids,” she said. She has. Her
shop includes the summer kitchen—complete with original
smoke-blackened beams—attached to the center hall Federal
home that she and her husband, Scott, bought and restored
on Route 2, the main road between Troy and Williamstown,
Massachusetts.
She said, “We bought the house in 1997; my daughter was born
in ‘98; and I opened the shop when she was eleven months old.
I’ve never had my shop without children.” Her daughter, Eliza, is
now 16 and her son, Will, is 13.
Yet, as most readers of this publication know only too well,
you’re not likely to make it in the antiques business these days
as a homemaker who tends a cozy shop by the side of the road.
That’s why that type of shop—which once was ubiquitous
throughout the Northeast—has largely disappeared. And, in fact,
In the Trade
Cindy Johnson, Dater House Antiques, Troy, New York
by Frank Donegan
Dater House Antiques is on Route 2 a few miles east of Troy, New York.
Cindy Johnson.
The state historic site sign in front of Johnson’s shop and
house.
Entrance to Johnson’s shop in the summer kitchen
behind her house.
Johnson’s crowded, atmospheric shop is just one of
several avenues she uses to operate in today’s antiques
market.
Also, she noted that her business wouldn’t be what
it is without the close participation of her younger sis-
ter, Leann Breer. The sisters maintain separate inven-
tories—and separate Facebook pages—but otherwise
they do almost everything else that relates to the busi-
ness together. Leann lives nearby, so she can also cover
the shop. (Leann, who has two young boys, was not
present when we visited on the heels of one of Febru-
ary’s big snowstorms.)
The sisters do a lot more than spell each other at the
shop. They exhibit together at eight to ten shows a year.
Most of the shows are relatively local, but their calen-
dar includes the Days of the Pioneer, From the Farm-
house, and Offerings shows. “With all our kids, trips
to Maryland, Tennessee, and Syracuse are about all we
can handle,” Johnson said.
Then there are those Facebook pages. “I do a lot of
business on Facebook,” Johnson said. “I shipped three
packages this morning.” She always posts pictures of
her booth on Facebook at the end of a show. “People see
stuff, and we sell after the show.” She also is involved
in two Facebook groups built around antiques. One is
SOLD! ON COUNTRY; the other, Antique Dealers
& Customers. The former, she explained, includes 25
dealers who post ten items to auction once a month. “It
already has three thousand members,” Johnson said. Of
the second group, she said, “I put stuff on and have no
trouble selling.” In fact, she added, “I find more peo-
ple seeing my stuff in the groups than on my Facebook
page.”
Dater House Antiques also has a Web site, which
Johnson handles herself. Given all the Facebook activ-
ity she engages in, one is prompted to ask whether she
even needs a Web site. She explained that, although her
Web site may not appear to be as busy, “You can sell a
lot at once on the Web site. I don’t think social media
will replace the Web site.” By way of example, she
noted that she recently was contacted by a Maryland
dealer who “dissected” her site item by item. The result
was a closet full of items waiting to be shipped to him.
Johnson and her sister also run estate sales. “We have
a following,” she said. They do about six a year. She
not only runs the on-site sale but also has a team of
auctioneers, flea market sellers, metal recyclers, odd-
lot buyers, and trash haulers that she can call on so
that she can have a house broom clean within a week
after the sale. “We don’t do glorified garage sales.”
she said. Cindy oversees the operation; Leann handles
Mortars with pestles: left, $195; right, $169.
“They’re always good sellers,” Johnson said.
A box of bowls. The bowls are $69 each; the box, in
early blue paint, is $79.
She fondly refers
to it as “the
grungy brown
movement.”