Let's be an antique mall!

I'm the old tabby cat that watches you dispassionately as you peruse the Limoges.

I was going to be the cat!

I'm the stall that has nothing but non-valuable pop culture dross like life-size Marilyn Monroe standees and all-plastic reproductions of old neon diner clocks. Nothing in me is more than five years old.

The other market operators secretly look down on me.

I'm the still-functional 1932 NCR cash resister, which OP's closeted queen uses to ring up your purchase.

I'm shelves of floral American art pottery priced through the roof. No one will buy me anymore, yet the owner cannot bear to price me for less than she paid for me twenty years ago.

I’m the Herb Alpert albums in the vinyl section. OP the guy at my local antique mall always says that! And then they take forever taping down tags onto pieces of paper from the different vendors. If, God forbid, there’s a missing price, then you cool your heels for an hour waiting while they call all the phone numbers of the seller. Time doesn’t exist at the antique mall.

I'm the oldies station piped in over the loudspeakers. Currently I'm playing "I Guess the Lord Must be in New York City" by Harry Nilsson. I make the customers feel REALLY old!

I’m the “Entire Booth 20% Off” sign, made by the the weary seller after realizing that after ten years of selling, she’s made about $35.

I'm the shelf holding books that have nothing in common and turn out to be not terribly collectible.

A hardcover "Jaws" (fourth edition), an autographed volume of Rod McKuen poetry, an Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators mystery ...

I'm the milk glass.

I'm the ubiquitous potatoe ricer

I'm the "Victorian lady" Coca-Cola glasses.

I will never, ever be sold or collected again.

I’m the booth with all the Fiesta Ware. I used to be really popular.

Well, I was going to be something, but by the time I got to the bottom of all the responses, I was too sad for all that shit that will never be sold or collected, and for all the elder gays who still hold out hope that it will. I'm heading to the suicide threads.

I'm the booth of albums which are worth perhaps a quarter or fifty cents.

My booth owners, an old deplorable couple, price all my contents at eight dollars or above, and hiss at those who walk by uninterested in their overpriced copy of an old Dionne Warwick album that smells of mildew and cat pee.

I'm the hand written, extremely detailed return and policy.

It's as if they sit around dreaming of the day when someone tries to return something, and they get to point at me.

I’m the ancient crone who owns this mall. I charge each dealer $125 per month for their booth, and there are 100 booths in this dump. You do the math.

I'm the young gay man buying some crap, thinking, "Wow, this will be such a great investment for when I'm older, because I can just resell this stuff then and it will have appreciated by a hundred times what I'm paying for it now!" The overweight queen at the cash register thinks I'm adorable and tries to flirt with me.

I'm the old Woolworth's with a wooden floor that is the location for the store. I groan everytime some oldster waxes nostalgic about buying cheap crap here.

I'm the restroom, which hasn't been cleaned in a month or updated since 1986.

I also double as the break room for the fat queen at the register, who comes in here to text, smoke and check her Growlr account.

I'm comic books from the 80s like "The Flash" and "Wonder Woman" and "DC Comics Presents" that no one will ever, ever buy, even though each issue comes in a separate form-fitting plastic bag with acid free cardboard behind me.

I’m the carnival glass!

I can’t post pics to DL for some reason.

I have a confession to make. I go to antique stores all of the time, and I collect vintage photos of handsome young men. I name them and give them back stories. Rodney came home with me today. He's a traveling encyclopedia salesman from 1954 who has an adorable pompadour hairdo and an affinity for gin. He Carrie's his flask in his coat pocket. If you buy the entire set, you get a commemorative Mamie Eisenhower TV tray.

* carries. Ugh. Sorry!

I am the stall rented by a secret hoarder who feels better for releasing some of his secret stash to be sold. In reality he rarely sells anything and spends his ‘stock rotation’ visits buying up junk from other stall holders.

I'm the 19th century postcards whose writers never realized I'd be read by strangers.

I'm Rodney, the ghost that haunts the antique mall. I like walking around and showing bulge in my flat front slacks.

I'm "blue cornflower" Corning Ware priced at $79.95 just as if I weren't as common as dirt and there weren't zillions of me on eBay with asking prices starting at about 1/10th that.

I am an enormous pile of these. Clutch me to keep in touch.

I'm the ghost of Bob Berdella at Bob's Bazaar Bizarre

Google me.

I'm a pair of shorts once worn by Guy Madison.

I'm the old coke machine that still works and only takes nickels dimes and quarters. Each drink is 1.00

You are the guy who has stacks of stuff that is unpriced because you don't know the value or worth of anything, you are just a picker. I am the guy who knows your game who gives you 5 things to price but I don't tell you which one I really want because I don't want to be your truffle pig.

I'm the old closet smell permeating throughout. You get home and I'm still in your nostrils.

I'm the adorable vintage Rushton stuffed cow with rubber face and udder. Feel my udder, it's like real! A real bargain at only $149.99.

Do you have any tea cozies?

I am the locked showcase that has all the really expensive stuff that never sells because few people want to go to the trouble to find someone to unlock it. It always seems half the price tags are turned around so you can't even see the price.

I'm the Pink Depression glass that was all the rage a few years back. Now I sit and wait, and wait, for a new home.

I am the box of really old photos of people, the label on the box says "Instant Relatives"

I’m the excitement spreading from stall to stall as someone under 60 enters the mall. Perhaps the long-anticipated revival of interest in antiques among the young has finally begun!

Nope. Just looking for a bathroom.

I'm the one glass case holding antique and estate jewellery, most of which is costume and has been there for years. Unbeknownst to all the women who amble over and give it a casual once-over, buried amongst the cheap gold plated stuff, a couple of Bakelite bracelets, strands of colourful glass beads and large faux brooches from the 1940s, and at least half a dozen faux pearl necklaces that once adorned girlish twinsets . . . is one genuine Mikimoto necklace (it didn't come with a MM box or papers, so even the owner missed it) and one ring featuring a real yellow diamond that is so dirty and looks so much like a muddy peridot in this light, that the owner didn't even bother to test it or the setting - which is platinum, not silver like that fat pouf thinks.

I'm waiting for some sharpie to spot these two items, but it's been years and no one ever has. It's rather sad, really - they're wasting their lives in this stupid case.

I'm the vintage beaded handbags, smell the aroma of my ancient perfume. Oh, the scandals I witnessed, if only beads and satin could talk.

I'm a souvenir state spoon!

I'm the old vintage furs hung up in one corner, you know, with our tails clasped in our mouths and glass eyes . . . I know people think we're disgusting. Some day, we hope to make a comeback.

I'm the old vintage magazines dedicated to the royal family: "Our Queen", "Charles and Anne", "Margaret Grows Up", "Queen Elizabeth: the Nation's Grandmother!"

I'm four Cabbage Patch dolls. In the original package!

I'm a naughty ashtray.

I'm a mid-century starburst clock.

R12 I'm actually digging those!

I'm (also) a dirty brown hem on a housedress from the 1950's.

I’m the boxes of old magazines. Come find the issue from the week you were born!

I'm Illustrated London News number dedicated to the coronation. No, not 1953: 1937.

I'm the booth full of vintage Avon bottles and Jim Beam decanters that were given away at the end of an estate sale for $10 a truck load and will be there long after the owner passes on.

I'm the You break it, you buy it sign

I'm the authentic Renoir you all dream of finding and paying $35 for at some godforsaken small-town flea market, and you'll never find me! Never! !

R49 — Those "vintage" Co' Cola glasses you lkie at r12 were given away free with the purchase of a Coke® at some fast-food restaurant chain in the 1970s or '80s. I think it was either Burger King or Taco Bell, but I could be wrong about that. I still have 6 or 8 of them kicking around in a box somewhere.

I’m the surprisingly popular tearoom hidden in the very back full of elder gays and old ladies.

I'm the booth of rare, unusual and collectable books that rakes in about $2000 a month.

$650 sale yesterday for one item.

I’m the ever present stench in the air. You think you can identify my odor but you never will. Morbidly amused , you casually sniff items ( when no one is looking ) to try and find me. You cannot and never will. I will haunt you forever .

Elaine : “This pencil smells bad . Why do I keep smelling it?”

Im the little old lady who tried to take the 10 lb clock off the wall to look at it . Of course I havent got the strength to lift a feather so it ended up in a 100 pieces on the floor. I will swear to all and sundry I didnt touch it,though I was the only one back there and it was hung on a very sturdy hook wich is still there and quite intact . I refuse to take responsibility and fake a heart attack when the irate booth owner insists I make good (True story!) All of these are spot on ! I had a booth for years ,didnt make shit ! Usually just enough to cover the rent .

I’m the racks of old lady dresses, hats, furs and handbags. Who the hell buys me anyway?

I’m the taxidermy section where I feel every mix of emotion from intrigued to disgusted.

I'm the person that reads threads like this and prices my items low so other dealers will buy them to sell on ebay. Except for gold jewelry. I can double the value of the gold and sell almost every piece. And there really are still collectors out there and some are young too. I bought a great big bin of male dolls, GI Joe, Batman and all the rest that I have no idea what their names are. All macho with guns etc. I just need to find someone from the 90's/2000's that played with this stuff so I can ID it. .....But a lot of this stuff is true. The best part is I get to buy things I always wanted and couldn't afford at ridiculously low prices now. I would also never buy anything new because the old stuff is so much better and cheaper by a lot.

Every single one of these replies is spot on! I worked at an 18,000 sq ft antique mall a couple of years ago and lasted 6 weeks. (I was in-between jobs and have always loved antiques, so I thought it might be a fun change of pace. I had actually shopped at this store intermittently before working there.) From Day 1, it was an absolute shit show. My first day, we all showed up and the store had been robbed. Some guy broke one of the plate glass front doors around 4AM and dragged a Rubbermaid trash can through the whole store, filling it up with knock-off purses, record albums, Lladros, etc. By the end of my first week, I'd made several new friends (which meant ridiculously steep cash discounts from those dealers), and a few enemies (ladies who had worked there for years and resented any newcomer or any new ideas). Over the course of six weeks, I essentially furnished my whole condo in the fashion I like (granny chic). One of the old ladies I worked with had been getting increasingly irritated that I was having issues opening the hundreds of glass cases in the store; it was a complicated system of lockboxes storing the key rings themselves, and I quite frankly was more interested in my discounts at that point than fiddling with hundreds of sets of keys. She cursed me out in front of the customer I was waiting on, and I refused to engage with her, which made her even more mad. I waited until my lunch break and then just didn't come back. My boss texted me and I told her it was by far the most unprofessional place I had ever worked. All that being said, I wouldn't take it back for the world. Besides all the furnishings for my condo, I have enough stories to write a book about. My additions to the thread would be as follows:

-I'm the chronically drunk dealer who drinks vodka out of a Gatorade bottle. Everyone knows and has tried to get me to go to AA. (She's the one I miss the most, ironically.) -I'm the dealer with early onset dementia who accidentally takes my glass case keys home with me. At lunch, running errands, you name it. (She's my second favourite one.) -I'm the racist dealer who has a slight case of Tourrettes. Anyone who is not white is a shoplifter in my book. (My least favourite.) -I'm the older, gay art dealer who is aloof to everyone, except the new, young gay employee. I suddenly takes an interest in the young man and follows him to the bathroom, around the store, etc. The young man ends up buying a $2500 painting from me for $750. (Still somewhat of a favourite, as he's roommates with the above alcoholic dealer.) -I'm the severely obese, incompetent store manager who hasn't had a vacation in seven years. I can talk about the British Royal Family for hours on end. (She went on a week-long vacation to Martha's Vineyard in the short time I was working there, and the store fell even more apart than when she was there, which was saying a lot.) -I'm the monthly rent on the booths: $250/month in the main store, and $200 in the annex. The annex's A/C barely works, nor do the security cameras in that part of the store. But the dealers don't know that and don't need to know. -I'm the dealers sitting out front of the store smoking, trading stories of perusing Goodwill stores and estate sales for inventory to mark up. (This, in turn, caused me to begin doing the same!)

We are the "rare antique dolls from the 1800's" with high price tags. In truth, some trailer park granny purchased us from K-Mart, circa 1990's.

I'm the smell of old things.

I am the Shiny Brite ornament box.

I look good, but I will either be filled with

(a) lower quality Shiny Brites and/or mismatched pieces, priced way higher than current market value in the hopes that some rube will buy me, or

(b) Non-Shiny Brite bulbs, also in the hope that some rube will see the name and spend their money.

I'm the Welcome mat for R66 's future.

I am the LP "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' Whipped Cream & Other Delights."

I am in every goddamn antique mall in the United States.

r11=Dan Quayle

r23 Oddly enough, Carrie Fisher named and gave backstories to paintings of ugly children. There was also a potential flask involved.

I’m the Princess Diana memorabilia that my owner thinks is worth a small fortune... I can’t bare to tell him everyone has the same shit at home

I’m a mud man

I'm curious if sellers don't realize we look the item up online for price comparisons.

I'm the dealer in the back corner that you can tell has some shady shit that's not on display, like lynching postcards and vintage mammy-themed kitchenware — if not actual guns and Nazi memorabilia.

I'm the mid-century bar ware and I'm fabulous!

I'm the awesome vintage jewelry that looks so fab on the old ladies. You notice the gems and not the wrinkles!

I'm the kind older lady who takes the time to show all the beautiful jewelry and accessories to a broke ignorant teenage girl even though I know she can't afford to buy any of it

I’m the creeku floor beneath your feet... shhhhh bitch

I'm the late 70s issues of Mandate and Honcho, wedged between some old cooking magazines and a stack of People and Afternoon TV back issues.

"I’m the racks of old lady dresses, hats, furs and handbags. Who the hell buys me anyway?"

College age girls (art students, mostly) who want to look hip and cool by wearing old clothes.

I’m an old metal sign for Chesterfield cigarettes. I will cause a former smoker to take up the habit again.

I'm the wooden spice rack

I'm the old pissy queen swishing around the place during my lunch break.

I'm the stall full of "country cute" stuff--you know: lots of gingham, ersatz "exposed wood" that's really laminated, that kind of shit.

Gay men run in horror from me.

[quote] I'm the old pissy queen swishing around the place during my lunch break.

Who still uses the words "groovy" and "outta sight!" to make the young bucks think she's cool!

[quote]I'm the stall full of "country cute" stuff--you know: lots of gingham, ersatz "exposed wood" that's really laminated, that kind of shit.

And I'm the creepy lifesize "Time Out" doll that you're supposed to put in a corner of your "country cute" den.

That [bold]IS[/bold] creepy, r87. She looks like she's waiting to be taken from behind.

I HATE those things, R87.

[quote]I can’t bare to tell him

Oh, dear.

I'm the vintage Bayer Aspirin travel size tin, or other analgesic container the doll freaks favour to keep their illicit pills in. We're a "niche market", yet we sell well!

I am this vase. By law, I must be in every antique mall.

I'm the group of four Trump-supporting vendors bitching about young people these days buying everything ”off the internet,” loudly enough for customers to hear, wondering why their marked-up, shrink-wrapped Big Lots merchandise hasn't sold year after year.

I'm the cashiers, who are really just vendors with 30 minutes of training on the register. They've never worked retail before and don't know how to behave around customers. They make every transaction as slow and unpleasant as possible.

I'm the elderly, overall-wearing vendor who tries (and fails) to spit his chewing tobacco into the toilet every Thursday morning.

I'm the aging, rustic furniture maven with three booths full of live-edge tables and wicker furniture. I'm not really smiling, I had a facelift in the 90s. And even though I've met you several times, I always think you're someone else. I'm too busy and important to remember your name or get to know you at all.

I'm the customer who wants to see the white sword in the glass case. I don't know anything about these things, but my idiot son wants one for Christmas. I waste no time pulling it out of the sheath. Because there is never any security here, and the cameras don't really work, what would stop me from using it to lop off this vendor’s head?

I'm the item that is too large to fit inside a pocket or handbag but mysteriously goes missing. I've been stolen by another vendor.

I'm the owner who is so out of touch with his vendors, he continues to invoice them even after they've moved out of their booths.

I'm the total lack of ventilation.

I’m the haunted objects section

I’m the “collectible” undergarments located in booth 69- which my owner wickedly selected. My booth is painted jungle red, with black trim and Dollar Tree fur and leopard roping on every table. I include brands like Playboy, Hustler, Faded Glory, Fat and Fabulous, and a knock off brand of Victoria’s Secret. Before you ask, those are not stains, rips, and teeth marks, they are wonderful, “vintage markings” that authenticate each piece’s history. Crotch less and men’s sizes up to XXXL also available.

I'm antique furniture of age and quality, and you've come to the wrong place looking for me. I am not to be found here.

You will, however, find one prominently placed vendor with a whole corner of the joint, the equivalent of six booths. My "gallery" is decorated in the taste of a president of an historical society in a (very) small town in Missouri: machine made oriental rugs and a pile of Kazakh saddle bags with florid pinks and searing purples against rust and orange.

I'm a large armoire labeled "American Classical Style 'Empire' RARE! Top quality's $4275." I am one of those things and worth $400 on a good day, less 15% discount. In fact I am a booth where every single item is imaginatively up-labeled and misidentified. All very, very rare except it isn't.

The "Aesthetic Movement attrib. Herter Brothers, NYC, 1870s center table, $6200 'firm' [in red over a crossed out $8350]" was made by machines in a Grand Rapids or Cincinnati or Louisville furniture factory of no account in the early 1890s, a bastardized, retarditaire version of a center table of the early 1880s, probably from one of the Newark, NJ factories in a style that Herter Bros. never employed. I am worth $450, tops.

I'm a shoe polish brown mahogany gothic revival chair made in a Midwest factory that specialized in low end but flashy church furniture. My owner has labeled me as "ATTN Designers! English Gothic Revival, finest quality, R-A-R-E , Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, 1830s (see Houses of Parliament/Palaces of Westminster, London) $3250." You couldn't sell me in New Orleans where they have a taste for this stuff for $125; I am awful old thing, but not very old, only ca.1900, crude and chunky, shit brown and carrying the stench of old Methodists.

I am the most amusing booth in this smelly dump, but for all the wrong reasons.

Oh, and, I may or may not be a money laundering front for my family business: cocaine.

Drugs and illegal arms are always at the outskirts.

I am the dirty 1960s McCoy Potbelly Stove Cookie Jar. Even when the the Cookie Jar market was hopping twenty years ago nobody wanted me. My price label of $65 is very yellowed.

I am the "Rare" McCoy Mammy cookie jar in the locked glass case which has all its paint washed off. I have a log hairline crack. I am $125.

I'm the Fat Lava. Every piece of me was purchased for less than £20 and mostly less than £10. Now I am priced £200 - 600. There are 2 buyers each in 4 cities in the world - so 8 buyers globally - who are willing to shell out £400 for a Fat Lava floor vase. Everyone of me has several thousand surviving examples forgotten in some old groovy aunties home - so the £10 sources are inexhaustible.

I'm the Princess phone that gets snapped before I'm even priced. I'm popular here!

I'm the "Everything £1" cabinet. I hold mostly antique table runners, antimacassars, and doilies, some embroidered others old lace, almost all of which are yellowed with age and/or have stains on them that even brake fluid won't get out, as well as one-off pieces of Royal Albert's beloved Old Country Roses, Staffordshire, Royal Doulton, and Wedgewood, most with a chip or two.

Full disclosure: I'm fond of Old Country Roses, and have actually picked up some better pieces this way, including a mint condition OCR music box that doubles as a trinket holder as the top comes off to reveal the compartment, the music still plays, marked 1963, before it started being made in China.

I am thousands of pieces of Hall's Autumn Leaf design. It's not an illusion, I really am everywhere you turn.

And I always will be. Wherever you shop for antiques, I will be waiting for you.

I am forever.

When you least suspect it.

I'll be there!

I'm the occasional framed, hand-tinted late 19th century prints of hunt scenes or picnics by the Serpentine that are actually worth collecting, and you're unlikely to find them anywhere else except garage sales.

For those of you visiting the Washington, DC in America, a half hour drive brings you to Fredericksburg, VA, whose center of town is one huge antique mall - about two-three blocks in every direction. It's a paradise for junk lovers.

This thread is filling me with nostalgia for the ability to walk once more over those creaking floors, feeling my pulse pick up as I open the door and that stupid ancient little bell over the door rings, and I see all the unknown junk piled up everywhere, because an antique mall is like the Lottery: hope spring eternal, you really never know how it'll go unless you take the plunge.

Western New York is great for antique malls. The mall in Salamanca is enormous. The entire area suffered economic suffocation so long ago that your dollar will go far there.

Visited St. Louis last year and discovered the grocery store we always shopped at when I was young has become an antique mall. Place was huge and exactly as described in this thread. I made a circuit and realized there was absolutely nothing of interest. Most of it was cheap crap but there were also some way overpriced paintings and furniture pieces that were never, ever going to be sold. I know the resale market is huge now but the vast majority of these items are going to sit there, gathering dust, until Armageddon.

I'm the Hudson's Warren Street, one of the few if not only cracked out trashy "antiquing" towns that WILL have the Venini appliques you need yesterday for a new money client in San Francisco, and a town which will also charge you a pretty penny for said appliques.

I'm the Portobello Road flea market. Forty years ago you could pick up some interesting stuff at far less than you would at, say, Grays in Bond Street. But not any more. Like the Bermondsey and Covent Garden markets, the prices are so high now you may as well head to Grays, and the riff raff atmosphere is gone - the dealers always got to these places at dawn and picked off the good stuff but even they're paying more for less. And forget the Brighton Lanes.

I used to be fun.

I am my partner's parents' home, and every item listed here is in numbers (save the rare paintings and jewels), collected and lovingly stacked in the basement (floor to ceiling, but neat, and garage. They will never sell or reorganize, and I will have a dumpster outside 3 days after the last ones' funeral.

Je suis Les Puces de Saint-Ouen.

I'm the old Willy Guhl planters in Eternit at that puces. I'm way overpriced and if the local health inspector finds me in your garden you'll be asked to dispose of me as dangerous asbestos. Furthermore, I can be purchased anew from Eternit in the safe, better material.

I’m the elegant “Forever Rain” hanging light, with a beautiful Italian statue in the middle, surrounded by strings, where a weird waxy mixture that looks like water perpetually slowly slides down each string. These always capture everyone’s attention but will never sell. And for the wise gay men who wander past, we’ll chuckle that straight people ever bought those monstrosities.

I'm the random passerby who stops in to kill a few minutes. I'm immediately grateful to have paid someone to disburse the belongings in my late grandmother's house.

[R106] I've spent lots of time in that mall! The last time in there I bought a tiny oil can. Becks , down the street, is the fancy antique store. They have the fine eighteenth century furniture, but the mall is more fun. They have some great polyester seventies pantsuits in there, in case you are curious about the fashions of yesteryear! Another one of my favorite places is in Manasses . You have to get out of the city for the good deals.

I’m the antiques shop located in a red barn on the outskirts of Cooperstown, NY that has so much inventory of 1800s furniture you know the local volunteer fire company will be overwhelmed if the place ever catches fire.

Until then, you wander through its warren of four floors wondering how on earth someone accumulated so many mint pieces of Eastlake and marveling at the barn rafters where, if there are 10, there are 1,000 farmstyle wooden chairs hung from pegs.

I'm the complete set of every National Geographic magazine printed that cause people to gasp but sadly, I just takeup room and will never sell.

I'm am the service for 16 including hostess pieces like the large vegetable bowl, wood handled salad servers and butter dish in several ugly patterns of Pfaltzgraff. Because I am virtually indestructible, every piece ever made is still in existence.

I also just start at1980 at closer look.

My God the comments here are so spot on. I love it!

I'm the dealer who digs through their junk anytime some celebrity or event is in the news. Trump is president? Art Of The Deal book priced at $150.

New Star Wars movie? Old action figures for $50 each.

New super hero movie? Toys and comic books for $35 each.

Celebrity has died? Magazine covers for $45 a piece.

None of these items will sell.

I'm the seller who uses this booth to store crap I can't get rid of on ebay.

I'm empty bottles of crappy mass market perfumes, and furthermore, I'm grimy. "For collectors." The thought there might still be one single slave wage worker in all of the Western World, in her late 50s, collecting empty bottles of forgettable 80s scents, is soul-crushing.

I'm vintage IKEA and I'm design thalidomide.

Im the hand colored illustrations from Godey's Lady's Book ,and no antique store is complete without 100s of me . Im in every other booth in every store across the nation .Im worth about $1.00 but am always way overpriced .

I'm 4 shallow frayed dusty cardboard boxes of random chandelier crystals. I do not contain the one you are looking for. Some poor soul will buy a few of my "Austrian lead crystals" for a crafting project which will result in something with zero of the charm of a kid's macaroni mirror.

I’m the ghost of Sol Weinberg, who built this building on the town square in this bumfucke town in 1922 to house my eponymous department store. We were one of 2 Jewish families in town. The Kaplans owner the appliance store. We sold everything clothes, housewares, sporting goods toys, mattresses, etc. Our best years ended in the recession of 1958. My son’s widow closed the place in 1982 and sold the building for next to nothing. All my grandsons are doctors.

We are 1976 Bicentennial merchandise and we are all hideous.

I’m the financially pressed retired couple who browse while attempting to engage stall holders in a discussion about the English mass produced ceramics they accumulated, at peak prices, in the 1990s. The collection afills their home and they had hoped it would supplement their income in their later years. Dealers try to find different ways of telling them kindly that at auction such tray lots go for single figures and minus costs they would be better off donating it to charity. Or taking it out and smashing every piece before trashing it, as I overheard a pair of elders not so kindly being told.

^ fills

I'm a vintage Coleman. I'm in good shape and I don't smell, so I won't last long in this dump.

I'm the dealer who only sells watches. I like to loudly tell people that I've been collection watches for 40 years.

I have a 1970s hand wind Timex for $250, a beat up 1980s Omega quartz watch for $550 and an old wrist watch for $150 which I describe as gold plated and needing a new battery.

Turns out that old wrist watch is a private label Patek Philippe model 96 worth thousands. The hand wind movement is just dirty so won't run. I will be bought by a giddy collector who maintains his poker face while paying.

I'm the vintage Coca-Cola anything, bitches! You know you want me!

You laugh R133 but when I had my booth Coca Cola merchandise was a sure seller !

I'm the vintage pornography booth. My dealer proudly says I am art, but I'm really not.

Included among my treasures are Betty-Paige brown envelope porn from 30s and 40s, but none of hers. Vast quantities of Playboy - not one is a famous cover. Lots of kitchy mid-century knickknacks, very few have the Playboy logo on them. Early 20th century photos of "nudes." A few no sale items for display - a full bunny costume, some over-the-top Weimar memorabilia and life-sized cutout of Dita Von Teese.

I am VERY BUSY. My dealer says we'll relocate, but the high schools and office parks nearby makes this dump a good location.

I'm the totally inappropriate blackamoors comprising the base of a beautiful old table that the dealer wont acknowledge.

We are the 783 assorted cordial RARE crystal stemware glasses currently on display in just the back half of the mall. Our sum asking price totals over 6000 USD.

I'm the booth that will go unchecked or cleaned for months. My owner died and no one knows.

I'm the clean bathroom marked "Employees Only."

We're yellowed alabaster lamps. Even the dealers don't seem to know we can easily be stripped and glow snowy white again and therefore have a slim chance of interesting young people who hate things that seem old.

I’m the coven of old school antique dealers clearly populating this thread.

[quote] disburse the belongings

It's DISPERSE, dearie.

The post at R128 reminds me that so much of what I've seen is midcentury advertising pieces or empty bottles, etc. in far greater numbers than anyone would ever demand.

Various restaurants may have decorated with that sort of shit, but it is never "vintage" when they do it, because they buy reproductions.

r140

Please lamps shouldn't talk. The yellowing is your patina! No it's not nicotine from Mom's chain smoking.

I'm the arrogant prick of a dealer who likes to belittle anyone who dares approach me about my items or something they have that they'd like to sell. I hate my job because I can no longer rip off people like I did before the internet came along. The days of buying art pieces for pennies and selling them for hundreds have long passed. I treat everyone like shit, especially that guy who wants to ask me about an old fountain pen. I tell him "It is what it is, don't ask stupid questions." Little do I realize he was going to point that out my old Montblanc fountain pen which I priced at $250 is a 1950s celluloid 149 with a telescoping piston worth about $3000. He'll buy the pen and I'll later ridicule him for wasting my time and gloat about buying the pen for $50 at a yard sale.

I am Death. I arrived when the elder gay seller who helped load the chiffarobe in a truck bed collapsed in the parking lot of a sudden heart attack.

I am a Deplorable, and I have chased more than one customer away with my stupidity

We are a total of 4,750 dollars in midcentury currency secreted in hiding places in the merch, so well even the eldergays have not uncovered us

I'm the sign informing customers that outside foods or drinks are not permitted in the store. The front desk however looks like a buffet and the employees are gorging themselves.

The DL antique mall....I can envision it. Esp for all of us who are out of a job. Let’s sell our shit.

I’m the sudden allergic reaction people get entering the building from the mold and dust.

We're the dealers with stalls on the first floor, and we are clearly superior to those on the second floor. Because there has to be a class system, even within a building full of junk nobody wants.

I am the many pieces of poorly executed recent vintage painting that will never sell at $300 a piece and will never be marked down to $30, where they belong.

I'm the several old copies of Nancy Drews in hardback that catch your attention. You're not sure why and you pick me up but at at the last minute decide you really don't want me.

I’m Art Deco and mid century furniture painted bold colors à la 2012. I feel like I’ve been raped, and the color coordinated display doesn’t help either. It’s the cleanest display in the mall, but I still feel dirty.

The gal who painted me comes in to check on me, and she’s wearing a vintage style dress with cherries printed on it. Her next stop is Disneyland for “Dapper Days”.

I'm the can of Billy Beer that, first, catches your eye, then immediately devalues everything else in this booth.

I'm the Conway Twitty Commemorative Airplane Bank, and I can be yours for $35.

I'm the white, ceramic "angel" votive candleholder, and I look just like a miniature toilet. Four years from now, I will end up on the "free" shelf in the break room and get scooped up by a vulture vendor within the hour.

[quote]I'm a vintage Coleman. I'm in good shape and I don't smell, so I won't last long in this dump.

I'm a vintage Coleman, too. But seeing as how I'm dead, I'm not in good shape and I do smell.

[quote]I'm the totally inappropriate blackamoors comprising the base of a beautiful old table that the dealer wont acknowledge.

I'm listening ...

I'm one of the bloody razor blades used by DLers who read this thread and "just couldn't take it anymore...not one more minute!"

Im the locker where you must put your purse or backpacks in before you can shop

I am the booth filled with old political goodies....that Nixon /Agnew button and oh, I also sell MEGA hats because daddy and I love the man!

I'm the woman crouching down an going through a box of silverplated flatware. I feel as though the staff think I am stealing but I'm not. I'm just looking for the good patterns to sell on Ebay. I want to take a look at the silver in the locked case, but I know it will be overpriced and then I'll feel guilty for wasting the key woman's time.

My husband doesn't like places like this but I'm still thin so he puts up with it. He later tells me that that antique mall had one of the cleanest public bathrooms he's ever pooped in. In a few years we'll have children. Boy will the kids HATE antique malls!

I'm the faded old carpet on the floor of the back room, and one day, looking down, someone realises that I'm actually an old Isfahan in not too bad shape and just need specialist cleaning and restoration . . . the question is, how to get me out of the place for $150. . .

I’m Betty Boop, patron saint of redneck ladies.

R163, Make Ecuador Great Again?

I’m the booth with all the "repurposed" junk. Marvel at my wooden ladders made into towel racks and book shelves, tractor seats made into bar stools, chamber pots made into plant pots, and don’t miss the display of typewriter keys made into quirky jewelry!

I'm the compete set of McDonalds Batman Forever glasses for the bargain price of $50 in the booth under the knock off big eye Keane sad dog and cat prints.

For those of you perplexed by "fat lava" upthread, here's a pic. I've seen them before, didn't know they were called fat lava. Yep, the glaze looks like lava.

I'm the mid-century mirror-framed Turner flamingo print.

We're the colors brown and beige.

I’m the diecast car dealer. I have everything from vintage 1960s Matchbox cars in the original box (in a locked case) to beat up Hot Wheels racers. I’ve been touched by many little kids' snotty fingers.

I’m a Magnavox stereo console tuned to the “oldies” station. The gen X frau looking thru a stack of Southern Living magazines from 1987, realizing that the Duran Duran song is older than these magazines, and shit from her jr high days is now in an antique store, decides it’s now “wine o’ clock”

obviously everyone here has been in the antique malls. So what was the best buy you ever got in one?

I'm a 1982 Sony Betamax SL-2000 portable VCR bought from an estate sale. I come with set of cassettes that's marked as being a "complete Charlie's Angels series, 1975-1981". I am in excellent condition, but unfortunately, I can't be used for a demonstration because I'm too rare.

That's just as well, because this way the buyer won't realize that two thirds of the tapes marked "Charlie's Angels" were accidentally overwritten by Linda and Jim when they bought a Beta camcorder in 1983 and got into making home sex tapes.

I'm the Princess Diana Beanie Baby in the corner at your local antique mall. You see me and gasp because you can't believe you found me here. You've heard about how rare and valuable I am, but really, I go for between five and 30 bucks in any respectable seller's eBay store. There are four more of me to be found in this antique mall alone.

Found an interesting glass lamp at one stall r175. Left it at the desk to keep browsing, then by chance found another similar at the back ‘bargain’ section of a further stall. Negotiated $90 for the two. Got them home and after lifting years of greasy grime they emerged as a perfect matching pair. Research produced a result: Paulo Venini for Venini Murano Mushroom lamps.

What's an "antique mall"?

I've never heard of this.

An antique mall is a flea market housed in the sorry shell of a bankrupt department store.

[quote]obviously everyone here has been in the antique malls. So what was the best buy you ever got in one?

Not a goddamned thing. I've bought from auctions since I was in elementary school, and from antique shops and antique shows from before I was in college. And I have bought a handful of small insignificant things from antique malls (and paid what little they were worth) but I learned ages ago are a complete waste of waste of time for me. I'll only go if it's to accompany a friend.

It's either "vintage" shit, sad old shit, any and all of the shit described above, or badly chosen, badly identified, or badly refinished, third- and worse rate goods at second-rate prices for anything of quality.

For all the reasons above, there's just no point in them for me.

The closest thing to an antique mall that I've liked have been the rate good collective shop, decidedly more upscale, emphasizing furniture and paintings and with almost nothing under $250 or so.

Well la-dee-dah, R181. Excuse me while I play the grand piano.

[quote] What's an "antique mall"? I've never heard of this.

LMGTFY.

I do better at thrift stores.

Best buy there would be a box of scripts from classic 50s-70s television from a character actor. Bought for $250 - broken up and sold over six months for $7500 on eBay.

I am these items that I have actually seen in antique malls

a huge George Wallace for President sign

a display case full of old wooden dildos

a booth that only sells Christmas decorations it is one of the largest booths in the antique mall, I don't see how they survive

a booth set up like and old school room, no prices on any of the merchandise and nothing ever seems to leave or be moved in this booth, I can't believe this person pays $250/month to display this stuff it has been there for years.

I have gotten some decent artwork, but that's because I wasn't looking for hidden Renoirs. I collect hand-tinted old prints in original frames, and have gotten some nice ones at these places.

I also purchased a large and very striking country scene done in pen in its original Victorian frame - the frame alone would run about $500 today and the thing cost me $95 40 years ago, and it was in perfect condition. I've had people try to buy it off me when they visit, but I refuse to sell. I got it on a visit to New England at one of those very same antique barns we've been mocking. It cost me more to ship it back to England than I paid for it. I strongly suspect it's worth a good deal more, but haven't had it appraised. It's the first thing I would rush to save in a fire.

If you aren't looking for Renoirs that have been painted over by Leroy Neiman, you can occasionally find some lovely original work to hang. I have two beautiful watercolours by someone named Elizabeth Miller that no one need be ashamed to hang. I got each one for under $100 whilst living in New Mexico. I never heard of her, but the work is lovely. I don't care that it isn't Renoir.

Except for the hand-tinted 19th century prints , I try to hang original art when possible. If you look about enough, you can find it.

And then, of course, as noted upthread, the occasional lapse into buying a bit of Old Country Roses - my favourite being the music box.

^*Obviously, my post above was in response to the question about what had been my best buys in antique malls . . .

I'm the Lorna Doones from the Lorna Doone thread that get eaten by the prissy, fat fairy who rings you up and opens the display cases.

[quote] So what was the best buy you ever got in one?

I mostly look don't buy much as I am not a hoarder and only buy things I need but I found an very ornate oak chair with arm rests that perfect matches my oak desk, it looked brand new for $30.

[quote]So what was the best buy you ever got in one?

An original Marilyn Golden Dreams calendar for blow job by the owner of Booth 43 at Mitzi's Mall o'Stuff. Exit 56 off the Jersey Turnpike.

I’m the Beanie Babies that somebody hoarded twenty-five years ago, because they thought they would be able to retire from the money they made from selling me.

I’m the backlit, hanging, 1971 Peter Max 7Up sign that sold for $700 in Elgin, Illinois. Jealous, bitches?

I'm four shelves of VHS tapes. No one has looked at me in 15 years.

One of my best buys at an antique mall ( but im with R181 ,they are generally a waste of time) was a set of 4 silver chinese scroll weights . They were $24 for the set,and I sold them for $1200. That was the exception though .

I'm all the junk you're trying to sell me and all the treasures I want you to buy from me.

I'm the colorful tin toys.

I'm the dealer trying to elicit appraisals from you hoping that I have something valuable. After hearing what you tell me I'll ignore your valuations and price everything at 20 times their actual value.

I'm the new employee who looks more like a meth dealer than a retail employee. I only applied for this job to steal small valuable items from the dealers. When I finally get caught I'll be quietly fired so the dealers don't turn on management and demand they use their insurance to reimburse us for the stolen items.

i’m the framed architectural elevation of le Cathédrale de Notre Dame i now wish i had bought 20 years ago.

i’m also the 6’ high beautifully carved pump organ with a $2400 price tag and an ineffectual “please do not play” sign.

I'm the stack of piano rolls that haven't been touched in decades

I'm the framed autographs of Presidents, and the occasional Muhammad Ali.

Well R178 that's uncanny because I found a pair of those as well15 years ago in an antique warehouse in small-town Austria.

[quote] Except for the hand-tinted 19th century prints , I try to hang original art when possible.

Mary!

I would love that, r171.

My best deal is from an antique mall that has since gone out of business. They used to keep a lot of furniture in bad condition in an outdoor covered patio.

It’s a French Provincial solid cherry three door dresser. I paid $30. It was covered in a hideous battered pecan finish and the top veneer was warped, but I needed a dresser cheap so I took it home and stripped it.

The warped veneer got glued down and sat under some phone books and clock weights for about a month in the kitchen. One of the legs had been repaired with spliced walnut at the factory, because it was under the original finish. I refinished it with a light coat of red mahogany which turned it to an aged dark golden pine color, and it has darker highlights from a second coat of dark stain that got wiped on and rubbed off. It’s been my nightstand for years. It’s small enough and so lightweight and easy to carry it’s been through a few houses. It’s imperfect and full of character.

I found out years later that lady who ran that antique mall was crazy and a crook. If the booth owners were one day late on the rent she would confiscate their entire stock and sell it. One of them went on yelp and told the whole story. There was something in the fine print of the contract that said she could do that so there was no recourse.

That place was later torn down and they built something else there.

My grandparents bought all kinds of really nice antiques at an antique mall in Alexandria, Virginia called Thieves Market. It burned down about five years ago, but they had some good things if you knew what to look for. They bought their antiques back in the sixties and seventies, prior to the age of beanie babies and Avon decanters.

I'm the Soul Asylum album whose name and cover is a knockoff of the Herb Alpert album that R69 points out is in every antique mall.

I'm my 20 year old self who scored a lot of dick out of antique malls back in the day before smart phones and the internet. They were good places to cruise and who knows what else. You might find the love of your life. Or maybe just some hot sex. If you like the hunt and the chase, antique malls can be great fun. I scored a lot of 'older' guys of 40 years or so. Once I scored two who were coupled. We had a great time at their place afterwards. Oh, yes.

[quote]It's the first thing I would rush to save in a fire.

Thanks a lot, pal.

I’m the smell of cinnamon that tells you this shithole has gone “primitive”. The Chinese repros are the most valuable items here.

I’m also the mall owner’s child and I have substance abuse issues. I shortchange customers and pocket dealer cash sales, but it’s always a mystery!

I am the woman who picks up the blue ceramic calico cat and hugs it to her chest. She will not put the cat down as she walks the store. Then, after 20 minutes of this weird behavior, she puts me down and leaves the store, buying nothing.

Other women insist on touching something, just touching it.

A dealer pal says they do these things because they want the item to be a part of them, but are unable to purchase the item. Sounds reasonable to me.

I got a (real) lounge chair in good condition for $50 and I regularly get some China for a few bucks. There are definitely nice things to find if you take your time to browse

I got a (real) lounge chair in good condition for $50 and I regularly get some China for a few bucks. There are definitely nice things to find if you take your time to browse

Leather lounge chair I meant

I am the booth filled with mostly imitation/repro junk made in China. You know the stuff: cast iron repro door stops, cast iron banks, gaudy paintings of dogs, repro advertising glassware. There are some pieces of truly worthless, seriously ugly wood furniture, usually art deco dressers, in poor condition to give the booth some aged merchandise. Occasionally, some of that shit furniture is painted. It all looks like it came from a dump.

There is one place where the entire shop is filled with this. And people love the place. Why?

I'm the battered mannequin wearing sunglasses and a feather boa.

The booth owner has named me Maxine or Twiggy or some vague attempt at camp, and says 20 times a day to passersby, "I see you've met Maxine."

r215 again. Let's not forget the repro Roseville pottery. Lots of that. Also, the metal roosters and fake, very fake, looking Goth windows all of which are imported. I think they are made in Mexico, not 100% sure.

I'm the DLer who casually browses antique malls, flea markets, and junk shops for Pixieware. He hasn't found anything yet, which is probably for the best.

I’m the spumed strawberry Shortcake wallpaper curling under the bathroom sink.

There is no vent, but the door is louvred. Yeah, that’s a green glade jello dick. It covers the smell of those rats we poisoned.

I'm all the old shit nobody wants anymore.

R218, I've never seen Pixieware before. I love it!

I'm the woman eyeball deep in boxes that were previously hidden under tables, cramming stock into every inch of horizontal surface I can create. There are about 15 large signs all over my both that read, "Everything 60% off." I see you walking near and I offer, "By the way, everything here is 60% off today." I will spend the weekend hovering, repeating the same line.

On Monday all of this shit will be pitched into the dumpster in the rear parking lot. If it's not going to do me any good even at 60% off, then none of these bitches are going to benefit from it either. My lease is up and I'm officially done with the this shit.

Holt-Howard Pixieware is great stuff - exported from Japan in the very late '50s to '61 or so. It's seldom cheap anywhere. The little jars for jelly, mayonnaise etc. had pottery spoons attached to the lid which were referred to as "Spoofy Spoons" . The jars for olives had little metal forks inside. There are oil and vinegar cruets and liquor decanters as well. Whoever designed them was a campy Mid-Century-Moderne genius.

I"m the knock-off Hubley cast iron Boston Terrier and I am more widely found in antique malls than any of the other crap in this thread, except for unwanted Life Magazines.

To poster upthread: I have been to Thieves Market whilst visiting the DC area (the friend lived in Alexandria and it was he who took us to Fredericksburg) and picked up there a very pretty garnet ring for my niece, a January baby. As with so much else in these places, it was pushed into the back of a tall glass cabinet behind other trinkets like thimbles and spoons (what is the thing with thimbles, does anyone know?!), not even in a box, filthy, I got it for $35, turned out to be 14CT (we're not used to 14KCT in Britain, the standard is either 18CT or 9CT), had it cleaned up by a local jeweller, my niece was thrilled.

Garnets aren't terribly valuable, but in any retail place, it would have been about $200.

I am the guffaws from the gay men passing by the pitiful inventory marketed by clueless straight people.

Yes, this photo was taken in an Antique Mall.

I am the YouTube video of people-mostly residents of Flyoverstan- will post endless videos of themselves hunting for, ahem, treasures.

[quote] I am the guffaws from the gay men passing by the pitiful inventory marketed by clueless straight people.

[quote]Yes, this photo was taken in an Antique Mall.

In fairness, the bottles are probably bought by people who want them for craft or other projects. If you need one or two bottles for something, then $1 is the appropriate price. No one sees those bottles and thinks they are buying a precious antique.

R228 seems to have missed the point.

And lots of folks reading this thread probably have a small fortune languishing in their night stands.

[quote] [R228] seems to have missed the point.

What is the point? It doesn't seem very complicated. No one is under any illusions that brown bottles are anything but trash.

We used to go to Camelot in Bennington VT (recently closed). I would swear all of the posters here were talking about this place. It was in an old enormous barn. We have purchased some neat things there over the last 10 years or so - probably visit 2X/year. I love and use daily my refrigerator dishes from the 30's - 50's, a large collection I've built over the years from there. The mens room actually stunk from 10 feet away, there were mushrooms growing on the floor - I refused to ever use it, but having a bladder the size of a walnut, I would check it every time anyway hoping someone cleaned it, but they never did. I love antique malls, if only to bring back memories seeing all of the things my mom had, or toys I played with as a kid. We love Brimmfield, and will miss it this year. Neat thread, very funny and entertaining - like the old DL!

What are those darling kitschy cats called? I want the whole row!! @R218

r178 I too found this lamp in Central Fl at a goodwill...this is before the old bats that worked there checked every piece of dreck they got on eBay to see its supposed value

They're fucking poppers bottles, r230.

It obvious R230 never got a piece of dick in his life .

I'm the Show Queen who goes through a box of old Playbills and squeals with delight at finding the Bette Davis "Miss Moffat" and Ann Miller "Mame" Playbills at the bottom of the stack. I know that they were probably hidden there by another Show Queen who is going to come back later to get them only to find them gone.

I'm the pure trash that didn't sell at yard sales that has been packed into a booth and tagged with antique store prices.

R237, they make bank. Disgustingly pudgy, but they make money.

[quote]They're fucking poppers bottles, [R230].

Thank you for explaining what the bottles are. I had no idea myself. It reminds me of the time my barber asked me why I was wearing a cockring as a bracelet. I genuinely had no idea what it was. I guess there are some accoutrements of gracious gay living that I'm just not aware of.

As an antique dealer’s daughter I am loving this thread! R231 this will be the first year my Dad won’t have a booth at Brimfield since the epic bus trip of 1976 kept him away. He still misses old man Gordon who always gave him a great spot, so sad about the family all suing each other after he died.

I am the antique dealer’s five year old daughter. I follow you around the booth to make sure you aren’t putting anything in your pocket. I have been told you are a known thief and pickpocket. I will earn a quarter for eight hours work.

They are not popper bottles. They are apothecary bottles. Poppers come in them. As do other things. Especially decades ago.

Now I'm on the hunt for Pixieware. Just googled it and it's pricey!

Save the cats for me! @R242

I just looked up the sold Pixieware listings on eBay, r242. You're right!

I'm the dealer with four booths in the same place. I come in daily and move things around from booth to booth. I ask the manager if I have any sales and she politely says no. I put on a big smile and say "There's always tomorrow!". This is the only thing keeping me from killing myself.

[R240] One of my roommates in college was the daughter of a Pennsylvania Dutch antique dealer. We were the only people on campus with pickle barrels as side tables.

BRIMFIELD!!!

I once worked with a woman who was raised in an antique shop. Seriously. Her parents were avid collectors, traveled in the NE each summer, and lived in an old country home with the antique shop downstairs and living quarters upstairs. They were educators and the place was only open spring through fall on weekends. I didn't know this about her until after her parents were gone and they had an estate sale. The house stayed in the family. She is an exceptional woman, growing up among ghosts didn't do her any harm. In addition to the ghost that come with antiques, the place across the lane is reputed to be haunted.

R232 Bodega-cat, according to my research they're called "Cozy Kittens" (singular "Cozy Kitty," apparently).

I wish I never mentioned Pixiware, now I have more competition! Well, I wish you all luck in our journeys through antique malls, thrift stores, junk shops, flea markets, and second hand stores in our search for these rare and (actually collectible) whimsical Mid-Century collectibles! A victory for one of us shall be a victory for all.

Were these feline critters made for the American market only? I’ve never seen them in Europe.

R249, you won't have to compete with me for that crap. You have my word!

Your tricks will run away screaming when they see all that kitsch in your apartment.

I'm a historian, not an antiques expert but I imagine a lot of this mass-produced cutesy ceramic stuff was marketed to American GIs in the 40s and 50s who were stationed in Japan. Many hundreds of thousands were stationed there so the souvenir market was really big. You see a lot of it all over the US. I've thought about collecting some of it myself but I don't really want to haul junk around with me for the rest of my life.

R249 I'll be happy to compete with you for Pixieware.

There's too much ATMOSPHERE in this thread for me!

What about Kreiss ladies?

Or Kreiss poodles?

R250 and R251 I'm not proud of my affection for Pixieware. Again, it's probably a blessing that I haven't seen one on sale around me. I've been enchanted by them ever since discovering them on DL and I'm *not* a dish queen! Help me!

Wish I could afford to collect Vernon Fantasia...

Speaking of Vernon Kilns, I used to collect their state souvenir travel plates. It’s fun to see what the tourist attractions were on the really old ones. This Los Angeles plate has the Hollywood Bowl, City Hall, Griffith Park Planetarium, Union Station and an old mission. Pre-Disneyland I guess.

I’m the hand written receipt. The store keeps the carbon copy.

I'm the sign that reads "Free Idiot Test - $5."

[quote]R61 I’m the racks of old lady dresses, hats, furs and handbags. Who the hell buys me anyway?

Girls who like swing dancing.

The Pixieware and state souvenir travel plates and all that horrible "whimsical" eramic crap are why I hate antique malls with their stacks of stinky Life magazines and hanging lamps made from Mason jars and tied with bits of gingham from the Hobby Lobby and country kitsch and that favorite of old queens whose cupboards groan with piles of gay-colored China, Fiestaware because they remember prices from the 1980s and can't stop buying all the "bargain treasures they uncover."

I like Brimfield and the fairs at Newark, Ardingley, Peterborough; antique shops with proper antiques (not from WWII or the Brady Bunch years); the markets in Paris, in Madrid, in Brussels, anywhere that has genuinely old things that don't look like they fell out of a dumpster behind a thrift shop.

R260 and Grauman's Chinese Theatre!

R264 well smell you! Fortunately I know the lay of the land from "antique" to thrift and puce on both continents. Of course you can find "real" antiques in any international city but you'll pay. Including USA. And all the countries you mention have weekend thrift markets and cruddy thrift stores filled with the same mix of ages and qualities of product - usually mass market produced for the working and middle classes - of past decades. And for weekend puces - 70% of stall are crap and yes there are occasional good dealers and occasional treasures - but they know their prices for the most part. Sheesh!

Of course there's dreck everywhere you go, R266, the world's worst old shit can as easily be found in the world's best cities as in some rural outpost. For me, antique malls are a 99% guaranteed waste of time. Antique malls are amusement parks to paw over old tat and laugh and smirk at bad design, at bad prices, to recollect the smell of someone's granny's kitchen that a Starburst or a McCoy china bowl evokes, but for me I won't find anything I want at any price.

It's a myth that some roadside antique mall contains the same goods as you would find at the Olympia Fair only at different prices; there's no intersect in what they offer. The difference in price isn't because of the venues, it's because of the goods; the stuff for sale is very different in age and/or quality. The stuff found at one place simply is not found at the other. And yes the big outdoor markets, even the selective ones have their share of junk, but at least there is the potential of something old and of quality there.

Antique malls sell nostalgia and an afternoon of laughing with your friends about ridiculous shit you don't want to own. I'm convinced most of their sales are to other dealers who, in time, tire of the stuff and put it in their antique mall at another location. It's endless recycling of kitschy nostalgia with a very few antiques of dubious quality tossed in the mix; for some people that's "treasure," but for others no.

r267 = Captain Obvious with a stinky pussy.

I'm the employee who's also an "expert" appraiser. After speaking with me about a particular subject you will realize quickly that I don't know shit about anything. However the dealers love me because I always over value their garage sale crap. It also means I get to see stuff before it gets priced and displayed and I can snatch it up before anyone else. I've got a decent little scam going here so don't fuck it up for me!

R266, depends on where you live. I used to live in SF and even thrift shops in outlying areas had Victorian and Edwardian antiques and there were good quality antiques everywhere.

I moved to Las Vegas and the antique market is shit. Most of it’s very aggressively kitschy mid-century modern at best. Lots of 1970s tacky avocado green and harvest gold crap. Once in a while you get lucky and find something from the Edwardian era or early 1900’s. But there are entire categories of antiques here that I could not get one single piece.

I’m sure if you live back East, where the houses are more than a hundred years old, there’s high quality antiques everywhere. But it’s my experience that most antique shops are selling goods about as old as the local housing.

In the last 5-10 years the supply of quality 19th and 20th C (pre WWII) massive furniture has exploded. No young people want it. Even the dealers don't buy it because they can't sell it. - France, Switzerland, Germany

Good time to buy a 19th C massive Fauxteaux, you can fill it for a song.

I'm the light years of patience it requires to indulge middle-aged couples who wander in with humble, serious expressions. With one glance I know exactly what they're going to do next. "Excuse me, are you the owner?" Here we go.

But I pretend not to know because I'm long past the point of annoyance, anger, frustration, bargain and finally acceptance of the dumb ritual that unfolds next. One I have to act out ten thousand times a day. It's part of my job. No, my life.

"Well, my mother passed away a few years ago." They always begin. "We have a basement full of her old furniture and things. I was down there the other day and I said to my husband Frank, 'You know, I'll bet we could sell some of these treasures!' We hate to part with it all, but…"

On and on…

In all my decades I've never once heard an interesting, short, to the point, or even unique story (kind of like this one! but indulge me...) about how someone's dead relative had spent a lifetime collecting things, coupled with what their lives were like and how their lifetime's possessions are just sitting in a basement waiting to be loved again.

The truth: 99.9% of the time (not an exaggeration!) the things people have in their basements that they're referring to are, quite literally… garbage. No one would ever want to buy them, not in a trillion years. I'm basing that figure on cold, hard, long life experience in my business.

People seem stunned and even angry that I don't want to close the store, hop in my truck and follow them several towns over, to then gleefully creep into their basement with a spelunker's hat on and dollar signs in my eyes while I ohh-and-ahh at a magical world of priceless treasures, and then hand over thousands of dollars in cash to them (kept in my pocket at all times!) as my assistants load the entire basement's contents into my truck and drive off into the sunset.

I've stopped telling people they have to bring photos, because people of this caliber have no idea how to use an iPad or a smart phone (they tell me repeatedly, proudly), or apparently even a camera. So they come in instead with teary-eyed speeches and swelled hearts. Sure their spider-webby pit of family poor-looms contain treasures that, according to Antiques Roadshow, may possibly be worth a million dollars

('No, no Frank… aunt Linda had great taste and was an amazing person, I have a really good feeling about this. Let me do the talking.')

Oh, I know there are instances of actual goldmines being discovered in basements of items collected by dead relatives a half century ago. But the chances of finding that ONE are just too vast and far apart for my inventory-overcrowded little business to try to land (last week my lone sale was a $5 postcard).

Tired of being yelled at, told I was a fool for passing up on "millions," and even once having a figurine from the counter thrown at me (yes), I've instead concocted the perfect conversational points to diffuse their interest in me and let them know they would probably best to take their offer to another place (where the owner will do the exact thing to them). Pulling the wool over their eyes and having them leave me alone is best, even if it's a blackhearted lie. A lie wrapped in a con and coated in a patina (natch!) of yellow hope. One day, this businesses and that lie will fall like the house of cards it is. I started telling myself that in 1974 and still do.

I went to the nearest outdoor swap meet almost every weekend. The last time I went was March 7th. I knew I shouldn't have gone even then, but I knew it would be the last time in who knows how long. I got this Bauer creamer for $1.00.

I went to a garage sale last summer. A woman was selling off her late mother's 'treasures.' Mom had bought a lot of glass and ceramic doodads, probably at garage sales. On a book case were 12 different white soup tureens. One can be handy to have. 12 of them is absurd.

I took one to the front and asked the seller the price of the soup tureen. "$8 for one. $5 for 12." That says it all about this stuff, unless you are dealing in very select items.

R272, we’re the kids of Sainted Mother who died of cancer, in a house fire, or from an unmentionable tragedy.

Storage fees have eaten up anything of value but we happen to have her very valuable collection of Nazi or Pickaninny memorabilia and we need to crush the soul of some bitch who is just trying to get through the day.

Friends had a small antique store in upstate New York. Time and again, I saw that as many people came in wanting to sell their dead mother's china and flatware as there were customers looking to buy. Every time I stopped by their shop, a middle aged man or woman would come in, "Do you buy?"

NO!

r272, you mean you don't offer free appraisal services with no obligation on the seller's part?

There are two shops in my town that offer donated furniture and household goods for the benefit of a particular charity. The one that has reasonable prices has high turnover and fresh merchandise all the time. The other still has the same stock from five years ago, when I first visited.

Catholic Charities used to be one of my go to stores here in my city. Always able to dig up some treasure dirt cheap. Then about 3 years ago they hired this manager bitch who checks every last item online , putting the last sold price on it before putting it on the floor. Never mind that was from 2007. I still stop in there on occasion because I got friendly with a couple of the ladies over the years,but theyve all told me sales are down like 75% and theyve been barely hanging on for years. The same stuff has been sitting there for years now,with nary a budge on prices. Pity,I pulled some great stuff over the years.

I love you R272.

R272 Well written and bittersweet. I enjoyed reading it.

I'm the full-page ad torn from a magazine that ephemera collectors would have loved to buy and read, if only the dealer hadn't cut me out, slipped me into a grimy plastic envelope, and marked me "$10."

I was executor for my Dad's estate (my mother already was dead) and my sister's. My brother and his wife had lost money in an investment that had gone sour (I found out later) and acted like there was gold hidden away in my Dad's stuff. There wasn't---I was just past the point of broke grad student and knew nothing but methodically asked around and talked to people who were collectors of various things, a book dealer I knew and some yard/garage sale regulars from the neighborhood. There were a few surprises--the value of toy-in-box stuff which was just taking off and oddities like car manuals had more value than I thought, but really there wasn't much there. When I settled my sister's estate, china and crystal was still sell-able but I'd learned from my experience with my Dad that nothing else was and except for the furniture (good middle of the road stuff) and the collectables, everything went to charity or relatives

As bad as shiplap, subway tile and “Live Laugh Love” wall “art” can be, at least Today’s Frau isn’t decorating with those frightening ceramic Kreiss poodles & belles. Jesus.

I'm the ceramic Poodle Barometer!

I often go unnoticed because a shopper has to be older than dirt to know what I am and what I can do!

I'm the first-class acutal antique STORE a half mile up the road featuring the real stuff, and I don't get half the traffic that shithole does.

I'm the lady head vases from the 1960s. Aren't I divine?

Yes, r286.

Wow. Jackie Kennedy. That's true kitsch.

And if that isn't kitschy enough, r288...

I'm speechless.

May I present: JFK salt and pepper shakers where the salt comes out of holes in his head.

r291....

R289 That's amazing.

My favorite is the JFK Eternal Flame cigarette lighter. Sorry I don't have a picture of it, but it actually exists.

I am the crafts that sneak in, mixed in with the so-called antiques. These crafts will include, but are not limited to, cinnamon scented candles and hand-painted imitations of the signs that say "The most important things in life are not things" and similar. Lately, home-made soap is appearing. Before, it used to potpourri sold in large, Victorian porcelain bowls, often with Edwardian spoons or ladles to scoop out the potpourri. These do nothing to help sell the old crap..I mean treasures. The antiques in question are often in a style referred to as primitive country. This is crap like rusty buckets, old, beaten up brooms, weathered sifters, and battered, weathered old chairs. I have even seen damaged old zinc buckets and watering cans sold in these booths. Eventually, this vendor will be gone. It won't be long before another dealer tries this stunt.

I am the sign that says "Your husband just called and said to buy anything you want" that all the ladies giggle about.

I am the Westmoreland milk glass. No one wants me, especially the hob nail pattern. The Harvest Grape pattern is especially ugly. Did anyone ever want milk glass? Why does it exist?

I am the collector plates someone paid way too much money for originally.

[quote]I go to antique stores all of the time, and I collect vintage photos of handsome young men. I name them and give them back stories.

R23 More backstories, please!

[quote]R297 Did anyone ever want milk glass? Why does it exist?

If it’s very plain, milk glass can be pretty. I have bowls and small coffee mugs of it I use all the time.

Elegance is refusal.

Would you ever mix commemorative plates in with a setting of transferware? That could be interesting.

My mouth fell open at the Jackie Kennedy vase.

I'm the 1980's and 1990's Barbie dolls still in their boxes. We're not very expensive because I guess a lot of people died and now their collections are everywhere. Sometimes MeKiki's daughter begs and pleads enough and MeKiki buys her one. Daughter takes us out of our boxes immediately and we're added to the enormous piles of dolls around their small house.

I'm MeKiki. Last year I told my husband that we I really wanted to go antiquing in New England because lots of opioid addicts probably steal silverware from their elderly parents hoping to pawn it. Then they find out a lot of the stuff isn't sterling and throw it on the pawn shop counters, and it makes its way to flea markets at $1 a piece. At least that's my fantasy. Now we can't go to any flea markets though.

I also like milk glass.

I also make huge mistakes. Today I sold a costume jewelry (fashion jewelry) piece from the 1990's online. It was probably worth between $100 and $200 but I sold it for much, much less. I didn't research it and it sold immediately. MeDummi.

[quote]...my barber asked me why I was wearing a cockring as a bracelet. I genuinely had no idea what it was.

Had a good laugh, R239. Thanks.

I'm a Westmoreland hobnail "ivy bowl". I pretty much have zero utility (ivy bowl? rose bowl?) other than I am a heavy, dangerous and effective murder weapon. I am fabulous on upright pianos. Keep me handy to deal with rough trade. 12 dollars.

I'm the woman who comes in and says, "Can you do any better on the price?" As I walk out, I say the place's prices are too high.

I'm jadeite Fire-King. I'm STILL big. It's the other Fire-King pieces that got small.

R13 Is Fiestaware radioactive? It's not just an urban myth!

I'm the sin bin. If a dealer has something that isn't an actual antique or is not permitted to be in a booth I will end up here. And my owner will have a shit fit, threaten to leave the mall, demand to speak to the owners but of course nothing will come of this because where else are they going to sell all their crap?

I inherited a milkware piece--a fruit bowl that I periodically use. I'd never go looking for it, but it's a memory of our dinette table as a kid.

I'm the loud lady who spends her Sunday afternoons looking around with no intention of ever buying anything and commenting for everyone to hear that her mother had the exact same bowl, the exact same figurine, the exact same cup & saucer. They threw everything in the bin as soon as the mother died years ago...

We're the elderly couple who likes to visit the mall with our walkers during the busiest hours and take up as much space as possible while engaging anyone we see in idle conversation and asking the employees to open booths so we can look at things we have no intention of buying just so we can have someone to talk to.

R311 THIS ^^^^^ ! When I was a booth owner Id literally run the other way if I saw elderly people looking in my booth ! Bless their hearts,but if they caught you you were good for 20 mins !

I’m the Time Life ‘Old West’ book collection.

Did anyone ever read more than 2 paragraphs out of any of my books?

I'm the old guy who likes to lecture the young employees on everything I look at and chastise them for not being more interested in antiques.

I'm the exasperated queen pretending he doesn't understand what R309 means by "milkware". I'm sorry you're looking for a milk bottle sir?

I’m the cigarette smoke that would offend someone if we had customers. The owner smokes, so we dealers also smoke.

I used to do telephone solicitation for those one summer, r313. We were pushing those and the WW II series.

Hey R313 - I'm Volume 6. I'm so mean, I once shot a man for snoring!!

[quote]Had a good laugh, [R239]. Thanks.

My pleasure. A trick—err, "gentleman caller"—accidentally left it behind one evening. I'd heard of cockrings but had never actually seen one, so when I saw it lying on the bathroom counter I assumed it was a trendy leather bracelet with snaps to accommodate one's wrist size. I wore it on and off for weeks before my barber called it to my attention. To compound my faux pas, as a police officer I issue lots of tickets, and I wonder who else might have noticed my fashion statement as I was writing them up. I can guarantee that none of my co-workers knew what it was, or I never would have heard the end of it.

I'm the 30-40 something year old upper middle class female dealer with a booth full of shabby chic junk. I call myself a business owner even though my husband/meal ticket makes the real money and this is really just a pet project. I won't last more than two months before being replaced by a nearly identical woman.

I'm the elderly widow whose husband left me a fortune. I use my multiple booths as a tax dodge by pricing everything at ridiculous prices and then taking a depreciation come tax time. My entire antique business is just a way to avoid paying my fair share come tax time.

r321 That makes no sense. You don't "take a depreciation" on something you're selling. Depreciation is for capital assets you use in your business. Inventory is "cost of goods sold." You can never write off more than you paid for it.

r319 would you start a thread so we can ask you questions about what it's like being a police officer?

R322 prove the bills of sale that Mable & Martha wrote each other for $2,700.00 Hummels are fake...

R324 OK, but that's not "depreciation."

Bitches gonna sissy fight about depreciation, and I’m here for it.

Let’s be basis!

R325 shut up, little Miss Bitch! Before I get my Latino Husbear involved... he’s on Parole!

Why is it I don't remember ever coming across Ruba Rombic?

That's cool, R329. I haven't seen that before.

I'm the mid-century ashtrays.

To due for and go to poodle heaven.

I'm Roberta. I live on a fixed income but can definitely afford to pay my bills. I live just a few blocks away from the antiques mall. Colonel Bill helps me unload and load my "antiques" from my classic Mercedes. My booth at the mall is not as jam-packed as some of the other vendors. But my pieces are quality. I never adjust my prices and people suspect that I never actually make a sale.

I'm the dealer who brags about the many times I've ripped people off buying items for far less than they're actually worth. One day I will be duped into buying a fake painting and I will go ballistic when I find out.

I'm the vintage salt and pepper shakers.

I am ... Mrs. Norman Maine.

I'm the 50 year old queen who recently married my 75 year old wealthy husband. I have a booth at a couple of antique malls stocked with a bunch of garage sale crap that is grossly overpriced. I rarely sell anything. Little does my doting husband know but for about 10 years now I've been milking him for every penny I can buying this junk and inflating the prices to make him believe that's what I really paid. Little does he know about my secret investment account which I opened when I realized that I'd only be getting 20% of his estate when he died. I've given him 20 years of my life and I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch his family get the bulk of what should be mine!

R337 I’m confused about this pricing scheme.

He buys cheap crap then tells his husband--who's paying for everything--that it's more expensive. Then he pockets the difference.

R299, this week's purchase is a young man who is obviously a bus driver. He is seated at the wheel of a bus and smiling down at whoever is taking the photo. This guy has shaggy hair and has a long face and big-ish nose like Adrian Brody.

I named him Billy. It is 1972, and this is Billy's first day as a bus driver. His parents took the photo before he departed for his first route. After having been in community college for six years, the 24-year-old Billy has finally found gainful employment, and all he has to show for his schooling is being 10 credit hours short of an Associate's in Greek Mythology. Billy's folks don't know that sometimes he turns tricks downtown. This bus driver gig is only the second time in his life he will come home smelling like pee after earning a quick buck, so it's comfortable territory.

I'm the elderly dealer who called the owner to ask if I've had any sales. When reminded of the mall closure over the Covid-19 lock down I reply, "What lock down?"

I love this thread. So accurate in its outlook. So many antique “malls” are attempts to appeal to people of a certain age to recapture their youth through visual stimulation. “Look, honey! They have ‘Twister!’ Remember when we did that at the party in your parents’ basement!”

By and large, what’s in these places is mostly junk. Personally, I like Art Deco, though over the years the availability of it has dwindled considerably. I was once told by a mall worker that Deco was more likely to appeal to men, as opposed to the majority of other items, mostly appealing to women.

I found a number of Deco items when I lived in the San Diego area, both in antique places and at the weekly local outdoor flea market. I presume a lot was brought by people moving there, ending up in estate sales of one sort or another. Prices varied, but in many cases I could bargain, since the general population didn’t seem to be interested enough to pay for it. (I once even found a signed(!) b&w 8x10 photo of Noel Coward, for about $8! The seller didn’t know who he was. Actually, most people don’t.)

Curiously, Palm Springs, where I used to visit fairly regularly, really has nothing of interest in their antique and consignment stores. It’s all mostly blocky stuff from the 70’s and 80’s. And, though you’d think L.A. would have a lot, not true. (There was a great period furniture place on Melrose, Boo Radley, that used to have a ton of great Deco pieces, but, the last time I looked in, all they had was Mid-Century Modern, which is now much more trendy.)

There is a weekly flea market in a multi-level parking garage in Pasadena, which used to have all kinds of real period stuff. Still does,I guess. Or did. Oh well...

I'm the dealer who spends my mornings driving around neighbourhoods on garbage collection days looking for anything that I can grab and stick in my booth. I'll bring in a garbage bag and leave it behind to check it when I have time. When people start complaining about a bad smell in my booth, I will be fined by the manager when she opens the bag and discovers it's full of dog shit. I'll be angry when I realize that I threw away a bag of clothes and not the bag of dog shit.

I'm the undiagnosed mental health issues that most of these dealers have.

[quote]Curiously, Palm Springs, where I used to visit fairly regularly, really has nothing of interest in their antique and consignment stores.

Scooped up by the numerous queens who own a store in PS, or decorators from Los Angeles.

I'm the dealer who goes the extra mile and color coordinates...

I’m the SILENCE... as there’s usually only 1 or 2 customers in the store at a time.

This thread is well on its way to DL classic status! Still, none of the posts can top the one in the OP. Every time I open this thread I read it and chuckle.

[quote]I'm the undiagnosed mental health issues that most of these dealers have.

I'm the diagnosed mental health issues that remaining dealers have.

Hi! I'm Mabes. I'm the dealer featured this month at Antiques Galore. Everything in my stall is 20% off!

Welcome to my home. Here I sit in my cozy kitchen surrounded by my treasures. Cup of tea, dear?

Hey, I'm Derek. I thought I was supposed to be featured this month. Mabes stuff is crap. You've promised me before and my house is better than hers, too. Assholes.

Greetings! Welcome! I am Edward and this is MY home. You can see that I have far superior taste than what's found in that tacky cheapskate mall "Antiques Galore."

Come to my shop anytime. "A Checkered Past Antiques" on High Street. Only the finest pieces, none of that chalk-painted crap. Hours are Tuesday - Thursday, 11am to 2pm. When I'm not in the shop I'm off collecting or enjoying martinis served in exquisite Waterford crystal with my elegant and erudite friends .

I'm the brown furniture that nobody has wanted for 30 years. I'm mahogany bitches! Everything must go!

I’m the lead paint chips tracked throughout the mall because Magritte thinks this is her Fucking salvage barn and the cow has been dragging shitty storm windows all day.

I'm the hand written sign asking customers to, "Please don't touch!".

Thank you for the article R353.

I'm the snippy spinster who specializes in old letters and post cards who hasn't noticed that that letter from Stockholm to St. Louis has a Treskilling Yellow stamp stuck on it, worth around $2 million. I'm hoping to see it for 20 bucks.

[see = sell]

I'm the dealer who's convinced everyone is out to cheat me! The employees are hiding my items so they won't sell. Customers are stealing from my booth. Employees are leaving my cabinets unlocked. The owner isn't giving me all my money.

If that's a true story R357 why don't you buy it from her?

I'm the bound and gagged mummified male corpse curled up in the bottom of a ratty 1950's chest, wearing women's lingerie and with a dildo shoved up my ass. The key to the lock is long gone. Not even the booth owner knows I'm in here. I'll *never* be discovered!

[quote]r352 I'm the brown furniture that nobody has wanted for 30 years. I'm mahogany bitches! Everything must go!

Dear Yankee Magazine:

Congratulations on your timely headline.

Elsie de Wolfe, who as we in the trade know began the industry of interior decoration, began advocating the painting (or removal) of brown furniture in 1892, beginning with her own dining room.

You're a bunch'a philistine cunts,

(signed) Charles, last vendor on the left

Miss de Wolfe's dining room, before. (At the corner of East 17th Street and Irving Place, if you must know.)

Again, go yank yer Yankee,

Charles

I'm the dusty, half-filled penny gumball machine with ancient white, yellow, blue, and red orbs. I bet I won't get one like.

I am completely in love with this thread. We haven't had one so witty and informative for far too long. Keep it coming, bitches!

I’m the sign that reads: Lovely to look at. Delight to hold. But if you break it, mark it sold! And I can’t believe no one wrote about me yet. I’m placed in at least three areas of the mall!

I’m the only thing you want to buy - a cool vintage cabinet.

I’m also marked [italic]”Display Only - Not For Sale”

I'm the forgotten items put on layaway.

I'm the handsome Greek-American guy who has a bit of a name for myself in the martial arts world and who is the favored referral for deliveries, "He's a little expensive, but so worth it."

You will only see me on the first delivery and you, too, will think I'm worth it. Each subsequent job will be performed by a successively scarier crew of ex-cons and drfter-grifter types who show up hours late and smoke in your house without asking.

Exactly what is he delivering, r369?

I’m a tatty chaise longue with chipped, overpainted wood and several layers of replacement upholstery over original horsehair padding. I’ve been much overlooked as I’m the repository for multiple boxes of unsorted auction lots. You declare me a treasure and perfect as a window seat. When you get me home your dog immediately jumps up, inhales me deeply and loves you all the more.

I'm the box full of "vintage" McDonald's Happy Meal toys.

I'm the vendor/cashier who helped a quirky but friendly Hispanic and Arab male couple who came in and bought an expensive chandelier. They very carefully helped pack it for their car and were perfectly delightful as they told me funny and entertaining stories about their lives.

After they left the owner was aghast, said to look out for them, and told how she had followed then around the store once thinking they had snagged a vase from another vendor. Aghast, the cashier set her straight and after that she was friendlier to them.

R68, your layaway comment reminds me of the brief time I worked at the antique store (I'm the poster from comment 64). I had never worked retail before (except for a seasonal job at the local Sears appliance pickup counter, which involved no selling or cash handling). I had no concept of layaway, which infuriated the older ladies I worked with at the antique store even more. Anyway, they would have me go and put things back in the layaway room, as well as fetch items when a customer paid off their account. So many things were back there, coated with dust and way past the cut-off date for payment. I finally asked to look at the layaway log, and one of the entries was from a very well-off realtor who'd bought a relatively inexpensive MCM table. One of the dealers I was friends with kept track of the layaway items he had sold, and would have me pull them out of the layaway room the day after the person had missed a payment. It was a learning experience, as I was baffled that the customer would just lose out on the money they had paid.

BTW, for those commenting on the ridiculously slow process of being rung up at the cash register, most antique stores either have no computer system, or the one they have is from the early 90s and is DOS-based (and looks it). I made the mistake a couple of times of trying to speed up the checkout process by not noting the full item description, or the handwritten inventory # a dealer had scrawled on the tag. To say the system was antiquated...the joke writes itself.

Ahhh DOS, the beauty of a well designed paradox database... sigh.,,,

I’m the antique mall in central Vermont with a better than average computer system because my former owners worked at Wang in the 80s. I also had a business plan.

R374 here; I meant my reply to be for R368. Sorry, it's late.

I am 17 cast iron skillets. In one booth.

And 23 cast iron skillets in another.

I'm 54 pieces of Baccarat stemware in the same pattern, variety of sizes, priced 75% lower than a 24 piece set of workaday Cristal d'Arques, in a clean box. Is anyone awake in this mall? Anyone have eyesight? Well, I'm about to make someone very happy.

I'm the Hoover Portable Washing Machine that still works, but no one wants.

Back in the 80s, I found one in a rundown antique store on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. I bought it and took it home to my Hell's Kitchen shotgun flat. Getting it home in the back of the Checker cab was easier than getting it up four flights of stairs. Ah, but it was worth it to no longer venture into Ninth Avenue laundromats.

[quote]BTW, for those commenting on the ridiculously slow process of being rung up at the cash register, most antique stores either have no computer system, or the one they have is from the early 90s and is DOS-based (and looks it). I made the mistake a couple of times of trying to speed up the checkout process by not noting the full item description, or the handwritten inventory # a dealer had scrawled on the tag. To say the system was antiquated...the joke writes itself.

R374, I always found it more akin to trying to buy two tickets to the annual garden club house and garden tour at $20 each. Despite the excellent intentions of the four very nicely presented middle-aged, college-educated women cluttered around a folding card table; despite having the exact amount of cash in hand, two crisp twenties splayed out so that the statement "I have the exact amount in hand" can be immediately verified; despite there being no press of activity in the vicinity other than the song of cicadas on a hot summer day, those gals will fuck up your transaction for 20 good minutes.

At the end of the day, their cash box will have an excess $43.67 when all tickets are $20 each.

Those same people tend to find employment at the front desk at antique malls.

I'm the former proprietor of a booth in an antique mall. I'm contributing an oddly specific anecdote to this thread.

I’m the addiction hallway in back - sideboards with water damage, ski-ball machines, radio cabinets, crushed stick art, windsors missing legs and spindles.

Every piece is a dare. You could make something extreme and save the environment. You’d cover the stuff with a tarp and put it on milk crates on the patio.

Your yard will be covered in tarped projects because you are stupid. Welcome to why I can’t have nice things. I should park cars on the sod. Yeehaw

I had one of those R379 ! You could only wash like three items at a time,but it was wonderfully handy !

I'm the bag of shit you bought to add to your hoard.

I’m the newly-installed plexiglas shield at the checkout counter.

We could always be a thrift store....

I am the Nazi and confederate flag items that will take your breath away as you peruse my owner's booth. At least now you know who not to give your money to.

[quote]r374 ...for those commenting on the ridiculously slow process of being rung up at the cash register...

Cash register? [italic]CASH REGISTER??[/italic]

The antique mall I go to (for reproduction greeting cards, mostly) uses a calculator, a pencil, and a carbon copy receipt book.

And there's always some weary employee looking over the new cashier's shoulder to coach them through it.

R388. Omg. You are right! Especially at Antiques USA in Maine, though they are very friendly there.

I'm the owner of stall 54 - and I've been asleep in my chair almost all day. I have no other life but to come here to by stall, move things around a bit, sleep in my chair, go home when the mall closes, heat up a Hot Pocket, go to bed, and do it again tomorrow. My BIG day is when I have a BM.

I'm the owner of stall 54 - and I've been asleep in my chair almost all day. I have no other life but to come here to by stall, move things around a bit, sleep in my chair, go home when the mall closes, heat up a Hot Pocket, go to bed, and do it again tomorrow. My BIG day is when I have a BM.

R386 YES! And for anyone who loves Coco Peru as much as I do, her YouTube episodes she films each day "Coco Thoughts While in Solitude" are so wonderful. Funny, sad, uplifting...all of the things. Here's a link to the playlist:

[quote] I'm the overweight closeted cashier, who when you bring up your purchase to him, peers over his half-glasses and smirks, "Have you found a treasure?"

I didn't realize that question was so universal. There is one near me that is run by a doubly closeted couple, he is a queen and the wife is butch, they both always ask, "Have you found a treasure?"

R393, working dealers are used as unpaid therapists so often they find a way to guide conversation into consumer dementialand. It makes checkout smoother.

Yes, there is an asshole knocking his keys on the counter while you tell me about your treasure and your bitch sister. He likes my arms. And wears shit shoes. I mean if he chewed gum close to your ear it might be hot but who chews gum anymore?

I am the booth full of health and beauty products being sold for CRAZY LOW PRICES!!!!!!!

Most of my items are fake, stolen from mid-price cosmetic chain stores, or products ordered online from China with only pictures to tell you what I am.

I laugh when some old bitch keeps buying some jock itch cream in a tube China and uses it as a douche because the picture looks like a woman inserting in into her pussy.

I’ll eventually be shut down by the city health department when the mayor’s son buys some out of date condoms from me and his slightly retarded sister gets pregnant after playing hide the salami behind the mall.

I'm cases and cases of LPs. Beaten up copies of film soundtrack albums like West Side Story, The King and I, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, mixed with Broadway cast albums of West Side Story, The King and I, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music and two punch-out copies of I Had a Ball.

R396 Don't forget me! You can easily find ten or more copies scattered throughout used LP boxes in any antique mall.

OMG, yes. What is it about that album that caused it to be everywhere?

It was rather funny...

I'm the question marks on the tags.

Real Rolex?

Solid Gold?

Genuine Diamonds?

Real Pearl Necklace?

According to Wikipedia, the Vaughn Meader comedy LP "First Family" was massively popular in its day, with heavy national airplay and apparent record-breaking print runs to meet demand. Later when Kennedy was assassinated it was pulled from stores (along with its follow-up LP) by the writers and producers, who thought it would be in bad taste to keep in for sale. So it actually was out of print for years after its heyday.

The popularity of this record was way before my time but it seemed to have a huge cultural impact during the Kennedy years.

What wasn't before my time though, was seeing this goddamn record in every single used LP bin on earth all through the 80's and 90's. Often multiple copies. Soooo many! I swear I have the front cover memorized just from that.

Yet, I still had to look up who Vaughn Meader is just now.

I found my dad’s copy of a First Family in his large record collection around 1974 - when I was 9. I didn’t understand what it was - it took a minute to figure out the people on the cover were actors. I brought it to him and was Informed it was a comedy album. Excited, I asked if I could play it. My dad, a life long right wing Republican, got a strange look on his face and just said “No, that would be disrespectful.”

As a vinyl collector I can confirm the Meader album is literally everywhere, as is the album titled "John Fitzgerald Kennedy" released as a tribute shortly after his assassination.

There are a handful of vinyl records to be found literally in every record store. Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down is one of the more recent ones. Many of the easy listening LPs mentioned above (Sergio Mendes, Herb Alpert) will be there, too, along with various vocal singers like Doris and Peggy Lee.

I'm dust. Quentin Crisp was right, "There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse."

I’m the frau who can’t control my obnoxious child, insisting someone explain to me how chalk paint works, even after I’ve been directed to watch the video and read the literature right in front of me. “But how does it WORK?”

I’m the grammar police who attempts to get the owner to change the wording on the sign from Antique Mall to Antiques Mall.

I'm the Antique Mall Tearoom. Or is it Tea Room? We couldn't decided, so we used it both ways!

We serve tea, of course, Darjeeling, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey (that one's ever so popular), Lemon, Herbal Teas, Mint tea, and seasonally we do well with Pumpkin Spice and Christmas Spice blends (just Kroger store brand, but people like them); and coffee, sometimes, just the old Bunn-o-matic kind on the slow burn, and orange iced pound cake, and lemon-lavender-rosemary scones (everyone loves the idea of them, but no one orders them twice), and once in a blue moon, Marc with a "c" will make a carrot cake or have his mother make a red velvet cake and all the staff usually devour them before the public stands a chance.

We have Edwardian wire and wood ice cream parlor style tables and chairs, and oilcloth table cloths, and we serve everything on mismatched bone china all marked with the manufacturer's name and the retail stamp of a department store in British Columbia, every piece floral and every piece different. A few have chips, but, it is an antique mall!

To keep the cakes fresh we pop them into a freezer every night and then put then back under the glass topped cake plates. So better to order until later in the morning, noonish, to give them time to thaw. Some days a whole group of women friends will make a day of the mall and we'll sell five or six slices of cake and as many teas! One day we it was just an absolute madhouse in here and we took in just over $32, I think it was! Can you imagine?

R405 I'm the only customer IN this god-damn Antique Mall, GERALD!!!! What are you so god-damn busy doing? Dusting? Organizing your Princess Diana collectibles? GIVE. ME. A. BREAK. Show Brayden how to use the fucking chalk paint!!!!!! If not, he'll strategically bump into the vintage Coca-Cola products on display and I will NOT be purchasing what he "breaks."

I'm the ancient queen who saw the sign at r407 and is hanging out in the restroom waiting for some action.

LOL R408.

Chalk paint is a sure sign for me to turn around and leave an antique mall or vintage place. If they are ruining good stuff by chalk painting it - or painting any furniture (other than to maybe repair or save a piece that might otherwise be thrown away) then it's a big no from me.

I’m the fat Frau who will buy beautiful antique... I mean vintage (that’s the word I like to use)... pieces to sand & paint them hideous pastel shades for little Maddysyn’s room.

Painted old wood furniture can be very nice. I am a heavy dragon footed dining room table lacquered in Chinese jade green.

I'm the large box by the cashier with half way decent items that says "For Ebay" written on the side of it.

I'm the unbearably cute miniature poodle who has a little bed right next to the owner's chair at the front counter. I'm there to make the customers feel relaxed and put them off their guard with my lovability.

It's the ones who never give me a more than a glance who mean business. But the fat lady who keeps clucking at me is going to get taken for a ride with that vase she suspects is Rookwood, but isn't.

[quote]I’m the grammar police who attempts to get the owner to change the wording on the sign from Antique Mall to Antiques Mall.

I’m the grammar police who attempts to get the owner to change the wording on the sign from "Premise under camera surveillance" to "PREMISES under camera surveillance."

I’m the lingering smell of vintage fart emanating from the upholstered furniture.

I'm the customer who just has to try and negotiate on the prices while holding up everyone else who just wants to pay and leave.

I'm the customer at check-out who snippily says "My dealer number's on file!" when he has never been there before (and doesn't have a number at all).

I'm the customer who completely ignores the social distances rules and refuses to stay behind the plexiglass when paying.

I’m the grammar police who argues with my friends that these are Antiques Malls not an Antique Mall.

I’m the grammar police who argues with friends that these are Antiques Malls not an Antique Mall.

I'm the "Oh Dear!" that is inherent in such places.

I'm my mother who used to have one exactly like that.

I am resilient pubic crabs lurking in the vintage dresses. 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀

Sorry, R424. The life cycle of crab lice is only about 4 weeks.

We 🦀 are 🦀 legion 🦀. We 🦀 are 🦀 resilient 🦀.

I'm the gold scraper. I scrap anything that has any gold content. I've destroyed many beautiful vintage watches and jewellery items over the decades in my lust for scrap gold. I will then put whatever is left over from the mangled items in my booth described as "steam punk" or "crafting items".

I'm the dealer who tries to monetize everything I find. Doesn't matter what kind of crap it is, if I can fit a price tag on it, it goes in my booth.

I'm a full bottle of Radio Girl perfume. I retailed for 25 cents over 70 years ago. I'm well worth 20 dollars. Buy me!

I'm the pearl expert who asks to see all the vintage (and clearly faux) pearl necklaces everyone wore in the 1950s, and rubs each one against her teeth to check if they're real.

I'm the owner of a booth who is re-thinking selling lawn jockeys in today's current political climate.

I’m the booth with all the vintage medical devices and morbid paraphernalia. I attract the strangest people.

I'm the fetus in a jar that R432 hides from view. He won't tell his tricks where he got that scar along his left abdomen from. I'll tell you, I'm his parasitic twin!!! If you ask me, the doctors removed the wrong twin.

I’m the old, nasty solid Glade air freshener in the bathroom that once smelled like “Summer Rain” but am now just a shriveled prune of myself emitting no smell whatsoever. Won’t someone replace me?

R429, that Radio Girl bottle is 1920s Art Deco shaped with Deco writing on it.

The first commercial radio broadcast was Election Day, November 2, 1920. Radios were a novel new technology during the 1920s and 30s, and the perfume name probably meant something like, modern, cutting edge. That’s not a 1950s brand, although who knows how long they continued to sell it. The perfume could actually be nearly a hundred years old.

A lot of people collect old perfumes now because a lot of perfumes were made with ingredients that are either on the endangered species list now, or too expensive to use. Even brands you would recognize, that weren’t all that expensive back then, would be impossible to replicate now.

You can tell from this Radio Girl powder box that it’s obviously Art Deco.

I’d love to know what a “Radio Girl” smells like.

R431 I am that owner quickly buying beige/white paint to paint over the blackness.

Well Radio Girl may date at least back to the 30s but some believe the bottle pictured was introduced in the 40s and sold through the 50s.

I am in several museum collections.

Ah, worth point has some good background.

There is a small independent downtown department store, near me, that has somehow managed to keep the doors open. They are still selling, as new, things that would otherwise be in antique malls. I'm pretty sure I've seen bottles of Radio Girl in their perfume counter. I bought a tie there a few years ago, and when I looked up the manufacturer, I discovered the company had been out of business since the mid-1960s.

I am the queen who wants to go shop there tomorrow. Where is this store!

I haven't seen such stores since the late 80s in the USA! When I was young I would hunt for old haberdasheries for elegant ethnic men - would find them in black and "Spanish" neighborhoods. They had stock going back decades.

R440 R441

One of the greats just closed.

Fabulous

The weird thing about Ruben's R441 is that it has managed to survive, after all the other department stores in town moved to the malls in the 1980s. And, it survived even though it was always the minor store in town. The main reason it did so well in the past, was that it was located between the city's two largest department stores J.B. White's(a Mercantile Co. Store) and Davison's( a Macy's owned company). People would check them out while walking between the two larger stores. Once those stores moved to the malls, I would imagine their foot traffic fell about 95%. Downtown Augusta also became very depressed and even now is mainly active in the evenings, but Ruben's closes at 6:00 pm. The owner is also notorious around town for buying downtown buildings and neglecting them. She bought the old JC Penney building, for instance, and let the roof collapse.

[quote]I’d love to know what a “Radio Girl” smells like.

Ozone and old tampons.

I'm the dirty looks I got from the employees and customers alike for wearing a mask when I went to an antique mall this morning.

You're shopping for bric à brac in the time of the plague, R447? Tsk tsk. You should only be shopping for essentials.

The "Radio Girl" packaging is super cool, but r446 is exactly right--it just STANK.

Doesn't perfume and cologne go bad after a relatively short period of time, break down chemically etc. ?

r450, usually, although not always.

r450, usually, although not always.

R450 - it all depends on the perfume and how it was stored. Real perfume can last decades and perhaps only lose top notes (what you smell the first 10 minutes). But it's a crap shoot. A cheap cologne can also last a long time if its stored in a dark, cool place but again it depends on the particular molecules that were put into it. Citrus based colognes don't last well but some florals and some base notes last a very very long time.

r437, I'm sure that is the female version of Aqua-Velva.

R453 speaks the truth . I bought a 1980s bottle of Halston z-14 from an estate sale,still in the original shrink wrap ,and it smelled amazing ! I know it was from the late 80s because the price tag had a date on it. Every single time I wore it people asked me what scent I was wearing . I was sad when I used the last of it.

It's very time consuming and iffy to shop Ebay for vintage fragrances. It's almost entirely rip offs by people who know, and people who don't know, what they are selling.

We found a bottle of Wind Song perfume in my parents house--probably 25 years old. Sealed up and away in a drawer---my mother was long dead but my father never through out anything including her diaphragm. It actually smelled good---I remember her using something cheaper like Evening in Paris (Wind Song was sort of the top of the drug store line), Evening in Paris was not but my brother and sister really seemed touched by it. So yeah, the stuff can smell halfway decent even after many years.

I think I remember the guy in the Windsong magazine ad being dreamy.

Same here r459. I am afraid to check and have my memories dashed.

I found the article below. As usual, no photos of interest, so perhaps we can hold on to our memories.

And that jingle? I can't seem to forget you...your Windsong stays on my miiiiind....

I am the sign that says "You break it, you bought it...and at FULL price". That is probably the only time those places make money.

I am the shoplifter with the big, big handbag.

R457 - Tabu is one of the scents whose formula was changed some time, I think, in the 1970s. The original scent by Houbigant is incredibly potent and I used to know men who used it.

You can find the original scent on Ebay, along with some other increasingly rare and/or discontinued scents; I found a source for my sister, who started using it in the 1950s and has been devoted to it every since. But I agree you have to get lucky with it.

Mitsouko is the fragrance I want to find, but its ridiculously expensive - and not the same 1930s formula.

Jesus, you fragrance queens...get a room (or your own thread.)

I'm enjoying the discussion on perfumes, R464.

Someone once told me that they used to use whale blubber or whale oil in perfumes and that made the smell better or held the scent longer or something.

I am ambergris, kind of like a kidney stone in a whale. I am not blubber.

r466, I think you are thinking of ambergris.

[quote]r464 Jesus, you fragrance queens...get a room (or your own thread.)

Speaking of [italic]Wind Song,[/italic] did you all know the original bottle looked like a little crown?

On this basis alone, it should be the official scent of DL.

I am the sign that says, " Lovely to look at, lovely to hold, but if you break it, consider it sold."

I'm these.

I'm the Gone With the Wind collectible plate.

I’m the range of collectibles referenced within this handbook. Originally targeted at children, then sold on the secondary market as an ideal starter level collection, we now linger untouched under dust and grime on the lower back shelves of some cabinets. Others have quietly removed us to be auctioned off at a loss or to be placed in the leaking outbuilding storage that every dealer seems to have for the damaged and out of favour stuff that also fills their homes.

[quote]I’d love to know what a “Radio Girl” smells like.

Radio Boy's jizz.

I'm epemera.

You mean ephemera.

R476, not according to the handbook cover in R473's link.

r458, Smelling your dead mother's diaphragm? ...that's just gross.

Yeah! Husband took me to an antique mall in Pennsylvania today! I did look at some green transferware (but that was the dishes thread, not this one). I saw a nazi flag but that was outside at the flea market area. Saw a mammie (sp?) cookie jar inside. I was trying to mentally take notes of the things mentioned on Data Lounge! Oh yeah, the place had that musty mixed with cigarette smell going on big time.

I'm the pile of cute woven baskets for holding miscellaneous stuff without which no antique mall would be legitimate. You can find me next to quaint two-slot painted wooden magazine stands and a table holding "hand-painted" trays and painted trinket holders.

I'm the "guys booth" - made up of old oil company signs, desk sets made from vintage hood ornaments, beer steins, old tools, etc.

I'm the beautiful hand-painted circular saw blades. You homos never buy me. Never.

You think you are unloved? I'm the hand-painted cast iron skillet. I have a big cock and they still won't take me home with them.

these places are irrelevant now. All of the items are available online--including the ones in you're looking at in an antique mall. It's all such garbage. I'm not sure how these places stay open. Back in the day, collectables were a thing, then came Ebay, and now there's tons of sites and services and people are more internet savvy. Part of the pricing before was that you found something cool, you'd never knew if you'd find another one. It wasn't that the item necessarily had "Value"

Today a lot of waterford crystal items are worth less than the shipping costs.

[quote] All of the items are available online--including the ones in you're looking at in an antique mall.

Yeah, but where do you think a lot of the items on EBAY come from? You can find things cheaper in antique malls and then turn around and sell them on EBAY.

I'm Bev, a sixtyish divorcee and purveyor of Space 47. I also run the register 2 Saturdays a month, much better than those dimwit bats who need a tutorial every. single. time. Fueled by vodka and insufficient alimony, the sales I make keep me hanging on to the middle class by a thin thread. And sell my stuff does! None of the other dealers can figure it out; they have never seen any of my stock at local estate or garage sales. That's because it's mostly from my mother's large decrepit Victorian 2 towns away. Mother is 97, half blind, half deaf, half witted and refuses to die. I go over for visits and raid the attics, cellar, closets and barn when the old woman nods off. 40 place settings of Limoges, handmade lace, old swingy dresses from the 50s. I load it up in my aging Volvo wagon (a relic of my divorce) and motor down to my stall where I contentedly merchandise, pricing items a bit below their value for a quick sale. It's 100% profit unlike these other bitches and closet cases who have to BUY their crap.

I am the middle class matron who works in the charity thrift shop. I don't really need to get out of the house. NO, I do not really care about the mission of the thrift shop. I am really there so I can get first pick at the wonderful vintage and not vintage items donated to the thrift. I am on great terms with the woman in back who takes in the goodies. In fact, sometimes I help out back there. Those donations I want will ALWAYS be priced at laughably low prices for me and the others who pull this stunt. We then either use these or turn around and sell them on the Internet or at our booth in the antique mall.

R487: That's a fucking complicated way to make an extra $200 a month, if lucky.

But my dear R488, it’s not about the pin money! It’s all about a post-menopausal thrill.

It's about grabbing all that she can, never mind anyone else. She will be the alpha female!

Plus, she can say she does charity work

I'm the vintage glass Aunt Jemima pancake bottles flying out the door today, since the dealers in the store don't have smartphones and the Muzak is tuned to 50s doowop station. Little did they know they could've marked me up for 5x the marked price due to today's announcement that Auntie J has been cancelled.

I am the hand-crafted things creeping in because the booth owner can't find anything that can be by any stretch of the imagination be called an antique. These hand-crafted things include signs that say " The lake is calling and I must go" or "Flip Flop". That last one features a pair of flip flop sandals. Scented candles are another one of these. Sometimes they are made of bee's wax and are tinted with somber colors for that ...ahem.... olde fashioned look.

Eventually, made in China or the Philippines versions of this crap will appear. So too will be plenty of reproduction iron door stops, all hideously painted, repro green glass of all sorts, and puh-lenty of faux British style things for the man of the house.

Not to be forgotten is the hideous Victorian-style glass lamps called Gone With The Wind lamps. They should have went with the wind long ago.

Send it all to the landfill. Fast.

R492 I love Victorian style glass lamps!

I'm the customer who has to pass through the gauntlet of dealers trying to get me to look at their wares because they haven't had any sales in months. Invariably I'll get a wink and whisper that they have the "good stuff" in their car. I'll be met with a scowl when I decline to follow them out to the parking lot.

Fenton Poppy Lamps are great! And pricey! If I lived in the states I would collect a few.

R495, in what country do you live? Some sellers ship to locations around the world. Expensive, I know.

R485 It doesn't work like that. By the time it makes it into the antique mall, the seller has already priced it on Ebay. Which when it comes to collectables only serves to inflate the price, since sales and listings trend towards extremely high pricing (fewer sales, much bigger margins). The place to find things to sell on ebay is yard sales, high volume thrift shops and at one point, Goodwill, but they've gotten savvier in past few years.

R497, you are spot on. The dealers at the store I used to work at would rummage thru all of the above and also storage auctions, estate sales, etc. The customer who walks in an antique store is essentially paying for having the merch presented to them, without the fuss.

R487. Omg. You are totally right about this.

Housing Works in NYC has been siphoning off the best things in-house for years. What you see on "Preview Days" are the things nobody who works there wants,

R497 - Believe it or not, Habitat for Humanity's REstores are worth checking out once in a while; they usually have a tchotchke (sp?) section behind the big room with all the used furniture, rugs, lamps, bookscases, etc.

I have picked up some very nice glass sets, a few pieces of Waterford crystal, and once a set of beautiful decorative Russian plates that were on sale in a local bona fide antique shop for $75, but were (wait for it) $2 each in the Habitat REstore. And as it's a nonprofit, you don't pay tax in Habitat.

I've also come across some pieces of good furniture in the main showroom for unbelievably low prices, including once a marble-topped Victorian glass-fronted mahogany display cabinet (waist high, not full size) in nearly mint condition for . . . $275. The local consignment shop would have charged a cool $895 at least for it.

I second the recommendation of Habitat for Humanity. I've rarely seen things incorrectly priced there, except for the many items that seems to be priced very cheaply. It's clear, though, that Habitat gets the donations it needs and makes its money from its volume of sales. There are two Habitats within my own easy reach. Both get too filled with incoming donations and then it's Half Price for a day on Furniture. A sofa they only had priced for $50 becomes $25. If you can, Habitat is a good one to keep an eye on.

I am the Victorian furniture. I sit ignored by all. Mid-Century Modern is all the rage.

I am the customer who comes in, expecting to find high-end MCM furniture for laughably low prices so I can laugh at the people who sold it and make a bundle. little do I know that some of us dealers do not bother to bring it to the antique mall. We send that stuff straight to auction. We dealers laugh too, all the way to the bank.

r486 You and some of the other here should pitcha series about the daily life of a group of antique mall sellers, the staff and customers to Netflix. I already feel like I know "Bev" and some of the other characters here. Some very evocative writing in this thread.

The show could be sort of a blend of Are You Being Served? meets Fawlty Towers, meets Antiques Roadshow possibly set in Newhart's Vermont...no, wait., Peyton Place.... Funny, campy, unexpectedly dark, saucy, sometimes heartwarming, satirical. I'd watch the hell out of a show like that the same way I'm reading the hell out of this thread.

Off to see if I can find any streaming episodes of Lovejoy, and drool over Ian McShane. This thread has put me in the mood.

Apologies for my tragic typos. It's the tequila typing.

I'm The Whirlybird, a move you do not want to make around antiques.

Lets cast Polly Holliday as Bev.

I went to my local antique mall the other day and noticed a line of Mrs. Butterworths on hold behind the counter—why? It’s Aunt Jemima going down, not Butterworth! To me, Mrs. Butterworth is a plump Anglo lady with an amorphous persona.

The company has already said they are re-considering Mrs. Butterworth, because some people incorrectly assume she is black and rooted in the Mammy stereotype. And they are afraid that as a large woman connected to pancakes some people might confuse her with Aunt Jemima. They haven't made the glass bottles in about 20 years anyway.

The actual Butterworth syrup always has been awful--very fake tasting.

R510 I agree. If I use something other than actual maple syrup, I use Aunt Jemima because it doesn't taste funny. As a child we would buy Mrs. Butterworth just for the bottle, to use as a vase, lamp base, or some other craft. Now that it is plastic, I never buy it.

I'm the overweight closeted cashier in the OP’s post. Monday through Thursday, I moonlight as the cashier at the bathhouse where my stock line with customers there is, “It’s a business doing pleasure with ya.”

I love the idea of it being in Newhart's Vermont. I'm already imagining Larry, Daryl and Daryl making cameos.

I'm the busload of Asians from Toronto who descend on this place every weekend through a tour group. It wasn't a big deal before, but now most other customers stay away when they see us milling about.

[R510] It does smell disgusting. We had a mouse invasion in the basement and the mouse poop smelled like Mrs. Butterworths. It was a sickly sweet fake odor.

[quote]It’s Aunt Jemima going down

Wow -- is it Uncle Ben's birthday again already?

I'm the crystal. No one wants me anymore. You can't even give me away these days.

R517 You can give it to me! Though the issue most people have with it is the lead.

Forgot about the Antiques Road Show. I got four tickets for it in NYC at the Jacob Javits Center when it was a big deal. It may have been the summer of 2001. I wanted my boyfriend (fiance) to bring his mom and I would bring my mom so they could both meet. My boyfriend backed out and I had to go with both moms. I asked my mom to bring good stuff and she brought a crappy pressed glass box (which I didn't hate but clearly wasn't worth anything) and some French silver knives. I wore a red outfit, but I never showed up in the background. So it was pretty much a bust but I'm glad I went.

I'm the dealer who complains that this place isn't a good location to sell nice things. I also complain that no one buys the crap that I bring in.

[quote]R517 You can give it to me! Though the issue most people have with it is the lead.

Okay, so that means crystal drinking glasses don't sell but what about crystal flower vases?

R521 I don't understand it, I love crystal. But, that is because I want my home to look like Southfork or Falcon Crest. I was very young when they were on TV, but they completely fixed my idea of how one should decorate.

Well, R522, it looks like crystal is mainly a problem when wine is stored in decanters for a long time. I have a hard time many people in the West suffer serious health problems because of lead poisoning from crystal glasses.

Sacre bleu.

*have a hard time believing many people in the West...

I should really check over what I've written before I hit "post".

I'm the dealer who describes everything as "art deco".

I am the only dealer in the antique mall who knows what style and what period everything is. I really AM better than all of the rest of the dealers in this mall or in any antique mall within 500 miles. I started as a teenager as a picker, sold to Sack and Stockwell and Philip Bradley and Joe Kindig. I never had a shop but sold by appointment and to dealers. Now though I do very well with a highly followed IG account, and to some long time clients at my house orI just send it to them on approval. I have genuinely good things. I use the antique mall to unload things that are middling to me but top drawer for the antique mall, the lesser things I bought as part of a package deal, the occasional favor for a friend who's tight for money, the extra pieces in a mixed lot at auction. I don't make any money and don't care, it's just a way to pass on junk and keep the stock in rotation. As much as I like to buy I like to sell more, so that I can buy more. Other dealers hold on to their pride and their mistakes. Not me.

We’re the stall holders who try to time our stock rotation visits to coincide with the dealer described at r526. We approach him with sly smiles and greetings but come bearing items we have acquired which we think could be special but don’t have the knowledge or expertise to value ourselves. Our resident expert gives short shrift to his queue of obsequious amateurs taking up his time and feels justified in cherry picking the odd tasty morsel in a dealer to dealer cash purchase.

I'm the air conditioner that doesn't work.

I’m the flood of Hummel figurines that’s going to wash over every third-rate antique mall stall once the boomer ladies start dying off.

[quote]R521 I don't understand it, I love crystal. But, that is because I want my home to look like Southfork or Falcon Crest. I was very young when they were on TV, but they completely fixed my idea of how one should decorate.

I bought a Steuben olive dish about ten years ago because I'm a silly label queen. It was probably around $500. I can't remember exactly. When it got dusty, I washed it in soapy water with a dish cloth, just like regular glasses or dishes. I took a good look at it later on and it was all scratched up. I guess what's coming in though my window isn't just ordinary dust but sharp sand too. My scratched up dish is probably worth about $2.99 now. I'm crying as I type. I should have left it in its original packaging so it wouldn't get dusty. Or maybe if I had rinsed the dust off carefully under running water before using a dish cloth, it wouldn't have been scratched up. Too late now.

I'm the slutty, big dicked exhibitionist who likes to cock tease horny gay men all through the Pacific Gallery Antique Mall in Seattle 15 years ago until we can find a secluded, off limits area to have nasty furtive jack off sex which will only last about 2 minutes because of being so horned up but who cares...it's one of our most memorable sex experiences ever.

R530 Enjoy your crystal!!

r531, VILE, you chose to wipe your cum on my 19th century Lyonnaise Silk drapery panels...granted they should have been locked in my showcase.

Thanks, R532. It turned out to be a great investment.

I am 16 year old me who has figured out that some of the older guys who sell from these antique mall booths are gay and if I could just get one of them to take the bait I'm handing them with my underage hand.... But they always know better.

I'm the classic rock station that's always on, but quietly, to stir the nostalgia response in browsers.

I'm also the customer who can't help suddenly swingin' and swayin' as "Dancin' in the Streets" starts playing.

Im the 30% 0ff sign permanently affixed because there isnt one damn thing in my booth anybody wants. Even the sign is dusty.

I'm the assistant manager tasked with calling all the former tenants and former waiting-list tenants. The owner wants me to drum up some new tenants "to fill the gaps in our antique mall smile."

Some of these lists are 15 years old. A lot of these names have died. No one seems remotely interested, though one guy asked the price and made an audible "Hmmmph.". The smile has a lot of gaps and no one wants to fill them.

I'm the out of state customer who walks out with some vintage yellowed lace runners and tablecloths, and a Lenox platter decorated with red and green holly designs for Christmas, and asks if there's someplace "cute" nearby to lunch.

I’m the wrapper at the register who shouts “NO!” when a customer places an emptied basket on the floor. “Give it to me! We can’t block the aisles!” I look like Laura-Louise in Rosemary’s Baby.

I’m my pissed off henpecked father standing outside with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face as he waits for my mother to finish rummaging around for more crap she neither needs nor has room for.

I am the friend of one of the women that works here. The 2 of us work together. I come in when she is helping out at the desk. I act like I don't know her. Then, I walk around the mall, carefully putting some things in my large handbag. I ignore that sign that says leave large bags in the car or at the desk. My friend says nothing to me, as planned. That camera that watches everyone has not been viewed by anyone in a long time. It will be awhile before anyone realizes some things are not just misplaced, they are missing. Some of these booth owners are never seen, anyway, if they are even still alive.

I'm the overweight closeted cashier and I'm onto you, R543.

Yes, the big cashier is on to what we are doing. The other cashiers secretly don't like the big cashier so that cashier won't be believed. I have been there, I speak from experience. They won't believe you until something gets stolen and the dealer makes a HUGE fuss over it. By that time, the parties involved will be gone. The police show up. Lots of head shaking. It all comes to nothing. Sad, but this happens.

I am the cop that shows up to take statements. I look HOT in that uniform. They all like my ass. I know it, too. I am the hottest thing this mall of junk has ever seen.

We’re the mother/daughter team known for shoplifting, and we’re back! We can hear the employees whispering to each other, “Just keep an eye on them.” But we know they can’t legally do anything to stop us. It’s a free-for-all! More junk to hoard!

Im the dealer who spends an enormous amount of time tending my booth. Im forever bringing in and toting boxes of stuff. Everyone just loves me to bits,but what they dont realize is every time I leave my box is full of OTHER dealers stuff. Wich I then sell online. Yes there are cameras,but they arent even on most of the time and I always check before I do my thing. I get away with it for years,until another dealer hides a camera in her booth and catches me dead to rights . Oh the scandal !

I'm the dealer who's tired of not making any money in this place! I didn't renew my contracts and I'm cleaning out my booths. When I'm done there will be 15 empty spaces.

I am the big, scruffy guy in dirty T-shirt and jeans. I stroll in on my lunch break, acting all cocky. I ask the price of something that has a sign stating the item isn't for sale. Why the dealer has it there remains a mystery. I get nasty and persistent when told the item is NOT for sale. I say everything has a price. The dealer holds her ground. No sale, not to this nasty piece of work.

The items in question are a pair of iron garden urns, circa 1874. They are in the mall because the elderly dealer has no other place to store them.

I'm the old woman still trying to sell all that SMC crap Tom Bosley tricked me into buying back in 1995.

I'm the $1 table. You'd be surprised what you could find on me if you really look.

And a solid gold Hamilton watch!

I'm the July 4th 15% off storewide sale going on today! (Excluding items marked "firm," the Lladros, the Hummels, the Pyrex, and Bruce's booth...he never participates in these promo sales.) We've put up some slightly mildewed bunting from the 50s on the front counter, and we are having a BBQ from 11AM-1PM organized by Shirley. $5 donation suggested, and all contributions go to the Children's Miracle Network. Cue to Shirley in the breakroom boiling store brand hot dogs and opening bags of store brand chips and tins of store brand baked beans. Also cue to her emptying out the donation bucket for CMN and stuffing it down her bra.

I'm the gold filled Hamilton watch incorrectly tagged as "solid gold".

I'm the Sodom and Gomorrah commemorative plate that makes you gay guys squeal with delight.

And I'm the solid gold Hamilton watch incorrectly tagged as "gold plated".

I'm the Bakelite bracelets and pins in a locked glass cabinet as if they were really worth something.

Meanwhile, on an open tray on top of the same glass cabinet, is an intricately carved genuine Whitby jet brooch in mint condition that actually is worth something, sitting quietly amongst all the rhinestone gew-gaws, waiting for a customer who knows his stuff to come along and take me home for a few quid.

I'm the holy grail antique that every dealer takes with them everywhere. I'll be carefully unwrapped and shown to a customer in hopes of getting my asking price. Invariably I'm either a shitty example of a valuable item, or a fake. But don't tell my dealer that!

I'm the "vintage" bean bag ash tray. No one's EVER gonna fuckin' buy me - cuz nobody fuckin' smokes anymore.

I'm the Toby Jugs from the hutch, original 60s Knoll unearthed in the barn, and blue Mason chairs from the pantry. Mother nodded off during a rerun of Days of Our Lives and I loaded up the Volvo. This stuff will be gone from the mall in a week and I'll make my August mortgage payment. Ka-ching!

I'm the entitled pain in the arse customer who ignores the "Please Ask for Assistance" sign on a locked glass cabinet filled with fragile ivory (pre-ban, of course), and porcelain ornaments, and insists on trying to open it herself, rocking the cabinet as she does so that several objets d'art inside fall off their glass shelves and break.

I'm the female shopper who likes jargon and feeling in-the-know I will use the word "smalls" 50 times in my tour of the antiques mall, and would go for 51 times but for a spot of trouble at the booth mentioned in R560.

I'm the irate customer who wants a refund. After being told all sales are final, I demand to see where I signed a contract agreeing to that. When the sign next to the cash register is pointed out, I state that is not a legally binding contract and demand to speak to the manger. When told I'm speaking to the manger I demand to speak to the owner. When told I am speaking to the owner I threaten a bad Yelp review. As the confrontation grows my threats become more desperate until I finally storm out saying that I'm going to ruin this business!

I'm the vintage cigarette machine you want but have no idea why or where you would put me.

I’m the new dealer who rents most of the spaces in the back wing. I buddy up to the owner and seem as if I’ll be a key player in the months and years ahead. Suddenly, all my stuff is gone, leaving much of the lower level empty. Other dealers wonder what happened. It won’t be long before they hear through the grapevine that, once I learned the ropes, I opened my own store a few miles away. I copy all the other shop owner’s ideas and declare myself the number one co-op in the area.

I'm the customer who brings her own jeweller's loupe with her everywhere she goes, and asks to see the tray of mostly costume jewellery in the locked glass cabinet and examines every single thing in it to see if any of it is "real", hallmarked, signed, or mistakenly priced as costume, because antique mall owners are notoriously sloppy about verification.

The clerk has to stand at the counter watching me for the twenty minutes it takes me, to make sure I don't slip anything up my sleeve or into my pocket'

I end by taking nothing, pushing the tray back with a sigh and a little Thank You.

Because I took up so much time examining every fucking piece on the tray, elsewhere in the store, another customer, who knows very well that that CCTV sign is bullshit and the camera hasn't worked in years, has slipped a pair of Waterford crystal and sterling silver salt and paper shakers into her pocket and is walking out the door with them.

I am the youngster that runs around as if the mall is a playground. I touch everything. I am the parent who lets them do this, ignoring the signs to watch your child and if you break you buy and at full price. Eventually, something gets broken. The young parents just smile and laugh it off. Quickly, quietly they leave.

I'm the poster who loves this thread so fucking much, and is worried it will run out, no Part 2 to be found.

I'm the customer who brings up a (probably fake) blue and white platter with a label that says "Hand-painted Delft" costing $10 and asks if there's any "wiggle room" in the price.

(NB: you can usually tell the transfer method from the handpainted Delft by looking very closely at the painted design - if you spot a faint "dot matrix" showing, it's fake Delft).

I'm the aisles and aisles of overpriced garage sale crap.

For R567, a continuation thread ...Part II

I love you r570! Thank you!

I am the trailers parked behind the building overflowing with even more junk.

I would buy that, r52!

I am the customer who points at an item and says, "I have one just like that!"

At which point the person with me says, "You should sell it!"

Sorry, r423.

I'm the oldies radio station pumping in songs from the mid-century through the store, so as to make you feel nostalgic as you peruse the crap.

R346, Is that display in Eastern PA?

I’m the front window displays that draw people into the shop! A bored dilettante will grab something from every dealer to fit their theme. You want greater visibility, don’t you?

Whatever is displayed NEVER sells because “it breaks up the display” or “I can’t climb in there” or “that’s a gay dealer; Are you sure you want gay antiques?”

R346, Never mind! I thought it was a display I've seen, but no.

I"m the bewildered face of the DLer wondering why we have a Part 2 for this thread when Part 1 still has 20 posts to go...

I got this at Goodwill on Sunday. It was priced $9.99. But it was 25% off because the tag was yellow. Had it been a purple tag, it would have been 50% off.

I'm the vast collection of yellowware, which was highly priced and popular....30 years ago.....now, will sit for sale for many years.

R21, those FLASH comics that no one will ever buy are doing quite well. At least according to the fourteen watchers on this listing.

I’m the broken Lionel Train.

I found my festive Christmas snood at the antique mall. I was a bit offended that the cashier concluded it would make some lucky bitch happy. Backhanded Queen.

I'm the obscure British pottery piece that the American dealer didn't recognize, purchased by someone who paid attention to Miller's in addition to Kovel's.

I'm terrifically underpriced and made the buyer a bundle on eBay.

(Sold internationally, of course.)