Discover Mid-America

News & Events

Mid-America News
Show Calendar
State Event Calendars

Regular Features

The Antique Detective
Antique Detective Q&A
Common Sense Antiques
Refurnished Thoughts
Traveling with Ken
Good Eye
Books for Collectors

Directories & Classifieds

The Finder: Unique Shops
Lodgings Directory
Museum Directory
Aviation Museums
Wineries in the Heartland

Classifieds
Web Links

Archived Features

Antiquing in Colorado
Dealer Profile Archive
Editor's Notebook
Heirloom Recipes
Helpful Hints
for Collectors
Is This An Antique?
Past Cover Features
Reflecting History

2005 Best Of Winners
Destinations 2006

Discover Mid-America — November 2006

It's open season for dealers

There's a difference between showcasing inventory and merely putting it out. As this article goes to press, it's just before Halloween and we’re looking down time's barrel toward Thanksgiving and Christmas. Collectors often take the thematic opportunities presented by holidays and other seasonal changes to rotate displayed items in their collections — since most of us don't have the room to display everything in our collections all at once.

Effective use of seasonal and holiday display themes means thinking beyond the obvious. For the September-October window of opportunity, maybe you don't have witches and jack-o-lanterns in your inventory, but chances are you have cats and owls, and other items associated with the spooky season. These two Lladru cats, for example, fit the theme quite well. The cat on the left dates from the 1960s, which is about as early as it gets with Lladru.

Dealers could take a leaf from collectors and use seasonal and holiday display as an organizing principle to showcase merchandise to better advantage. Not only does this seasonal display strategy give a paying customer a chance to actually see what's there, but it makes everything old seem new again in your display space by avoiding the staleness of having it all on continual display throughout the year.

Do I have to be an interior decorator, too?

No, we're not talking about decorating your display space with little pumpkins and autumn leaves, or sprigs of holly or little paper flags. In fact, if that's all you do, customers will see it as a gimmick.

No, all you need to do is look at your total inventory with fresh eyes. Think color and not just form and function. If you're a glass dealer, for example, what in your inventory says "Autumn" or "Thanksgiving" or "Christmas" or "Spring" to you? Colored glass in Amber, Amberina or Chocolate can serve as the basis for an autumn-themed display even if you do nothing else to the display except showcasing those items.

Nothing says "Christmas" like ruby and green glass interspersed with white milk glass. If you're a jewelry dealer, think about what stones or settings or colors are especially apt for particular seasons.

This opal ring was a gift to me from my parents, who acquired it from an estate sale featuring many antiques. The ring is in a 14k gold setting and dates from 1910 to 1920. I later found these opal earrings as a close match. Opal is the gemstone associated with the month of October. This ring features oak leaves on either side — perfect for a jewelry dealer's fall display. For seasonally based displays, think creatively about what you already have in your inventory!

If you're a furniture dealer, why not display that table with a holiday centerpiece, especially if you can compose it with items you also offer for sale? For dining-sized tables, why not include a holiday place setting or two? (Caution: setting the entire table is ill advised. It will be a royal nuisance for anyone actually wanting to see the tabletop before buying it!) All of this means, of course, that you'll have to resist the urge to use the table as extra "counter space" for jumbled inventory.

Serving platters are a major display challenge when you try to cram them in with (which generally means hidden under) the items in a more generic display. Why not use the month of November to build a display around the platter and other large serving pieces instead of piling other unrelated stuff on top of them.

If you're a silver dealer, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are a great time to display fancier tea sets and serving pieces that might be dismissed as "over -the-top" by summer shoppers. Likewise, all those Victorian smalls — the pickle casters, the relish dishes, and so on - can seem especially apt for Thanksgiving through Christmas display. You can also use small toys in your inventory to set off a Hanukkah-Christmas season display.

The great thing about seasons is that there are several of them spanning the entire year. For spring, floral patterns (to use one obvious example) abound in everything from textiles to china patterns. Similarly, nothing says "spring" like anything else you have in your inventory like baby animals, from lambs to wild fawns.

This glass pattern, known variously as Argonaut Shell and Nautilus Shell, was made by a number of glass companies, beginning with Northwood around the year 1900. The Northwood molds were used as late as mid-century by Fenton and other companies making glass for the L.G. Wright company. The fiery opalescence in this unmarked custard example (the mold was also produced in blue) marks it as an early piece. Custard glass of this period was often accented with gilt overpaint, which does not stand the test of time and actually looks quite awful today. Like florals, shells are ubiquitous as a decorative theme in everything antique, from fine china to furniture - and shells are a natural for inclusion in a summer display.

For summer, you have not just the traditional summer activities to draw from in assembling displays but also the Fourth of July, which presents a great opportunity to display items that feature American symbols or that relate directly to American history. (Heads up, book dealers!)

Why not share display items with other dealers?

Maybe you're a porcelain or dinner china dealer who hasn't a piece of silver or glass in your entire inventory. Why not arrange some mix and match opportunities with another dealer displaying in the same shop?

(All tags in multi-dealer shops are tagged with the inventory and dealer ID numbers so there should be no problem for sales. Having dedicated and exclusive display spaces is merely a matter of trade tradition, not a marketing necessity.)

For example, if you have a beautiful china place setting that says "Christmas" but you really need a great piece or two of stemware and a place setting of nice table silver to set it off, why not ask another dealer or two to lend you those display items, with the understanding that the original sales tags will go with the items and that any sale will be credited to the lender? Offer the other dealer the same opportunity to borrow items of yours.

Just a note of caution on this: Most shop staff is as conditioned by the traditional multi-dealer shop "boundaries" as dealers and have been trained to "return" items where they "belong." So if you're going to experiment with a mix-and-match approach, be sure to inform the shop owners or managers of your intent so that well-meaning staff person doesn’t deconstruct your carefully constructed displays.

Will the customer "get it?"

If you want to have a little sign on your booth that says "Great for Thanksgiving and Christmas," or "Perfect for Passover" or "Elegant for Easter," that's fine, but you really don't need it. What you're after is a display that will make a cumulative and subliminal impact on the customer; if you assemble them with care, seasonally based sales displays will speak for themselves.

Advertising ephemera and tin lithography are a treasure trove of colorful graphics that readily lend themselves to seasonal display. This old tin can label from not long after the turn of the 20th century is part of my kitchen display. For a dealer display, the pumpkin and the colors in the label are ideal for fall — but the butterfly also makes it apt for spring!

Whether you're aware of it or not, how you arrange your display does speak. The question is what kind of message it's giving.

Many dealers complain about the slumps in the trade. Taking advantage of opportunities to rotate displayed items on a seasonal basis and using seasonal themes is one way to make stale inventory fresh again. So if you're one of the dealers who "tosses it all in there" willy-nilly and convinced you "don't have time" to do it any other way, I guess there's only one remaining question: How's that workin' for ya?

Peggy Whiteneck is a writer and collector living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a topic she can address in her column, email her at allwrite@sover.net.

> Good Eye Archive — past columns