This Saturday and Sunday, January 21-22, there was an Antique & Collectible Show at the Moorhead Center Mall. Since it’s too cold for garage sales, leaving just thrift stores and antique shops for hunting this time of year, hubby and I, along with his folks, went to check out the show.

Overall, the show is a good one: free to get in and a good variety of dealers and their wares. You have everything from coins, flatware, & jewelry specialists to those dealers who have a general mix of vintage and antiques, and even the more modern toy collectibles dealers with Barbies, Mary Moos figurines, the obligatory Beanie Baby table and the like. Certainly enough variety to keep the collectible connoisseur content. Even the dealers with high-end antiques had a mix of inventory in a number of price ranges so nearly everyone can find something worthy of opening their wallet (or heading for the ATM machine located inside the mall).

As my parents taught me, you can learn a lot at shows. You can see what values others have placed on items you have. You can see just how rare an item is (at least in your area) by counting the number of dealers who have it — or I should say how common that ‘rare’ item is by the number of dealers who have it for sale. But of course the most fun you can have, without buying anyway, is to see things you’ve never seen before. If you’re lucky you can even talk to the dealers about their wares.

At this particular show I discovered the following items I had never seen before — I had hubby snap the photos.

First up, this old makeup tin for Stein’s Face Powder.

A pretty enough tin, yes, but what thrilled me was the list of powder shades available, including “Healthy Old Age.” Funny enough, but then there was, along with the various shades of pink, “Brunette”, “Dark Brunette” and other ages such as “Juvenile Flesh” & “Sallow Old Age”. “Olive” and even the non-pc ethnic shades of “Chinese”, “Japanese” and “Indian” make sense… But what shade is “Othello”? Or “Moving Picture”? Despite the tin’s statement, “For the Stage — For the Boudoir,” I can’t see cosmetic companies selling “Healthy Old Age” as a look for women, let alone “Sallow Old Age” — even if you are supposed to match your powder to your own skin tone for a more natural look.

Sold by Sue & Gerald McMahon, a really neat couple from Big Stone City who do not have a store but travel about doing antiques and collectibles shows, gave me the story on where they found this tin and the others displayed for sale with it. “It was in this fishing tackle box… all these tins and tubes of red makeup, like for clowns,” Gerald said. “All this makeup in one box,” continued Sue, “some theater group must have had it.” I’m guessing from what they described and the other tins they had left, that they had a vintage theater kit like this one.

Wherever they got it, they also got a kick out of the shades too. (I really wish I had bought that tin and a few others they had too.)

The next discovery I can’t show you. The dealer not only refused to let us take a photograph, but refused to even look at us when he shook his head ‘no’. Obviously disgusted by such a request, he was even rude to my mother-in-law when she caught up with us and asked the price on an animal on wheels. He remained, for the duration of our time at his booth, facing away from the lot of us. I point out his surly attitude not only to explain the lack of a photo, but to vent my displeasure at his customer service skills.

Anyway, what you don’t see here is a collection of little hand-carved wooden baseball players in animal forms. Each vintage piece was a character by itself — and each was different. Not just different positions or stances, nor just individually numbered uniforms, but each was a different dog breed with priceless little carved faces. (I think there was a total of nine of them and all dogs, but since he was so unpleasant, I didn’t linger too long.) What struck me about them was the fact that each was clearly a labor of love. More than ‘just another sports collectible’ or even a ‘cute dog set’ they were folk art pieces. Very cute with the authentic charm of worn paint, and again, I wish I could show them to you. But onto more happy things you can see.

Next, there was this antique photo album.

I’ve seen many of these old beauties, in various states of care or lack thereof, but what was spectacular about this one was that it had a beautiful Indian woman on the front.

She had a little bit of damage, but nothing to really detract for her age. In fact, from what I saw, even the velvet was still rich and brightly colored, without those typical thread bare spots. There were no photos inside, but no real damages that I could see to the binding or anything. Frankly, I was surprised she hadn’t been sold. (The seller is David Sonsthagen, and he sells on eBay under his last name — he said he mostly sells coins there, but if you are interested in this pretty lady you can contact him there.)

Last but not least, this little lady.

A ceramic piece, about 10 inches tall or so, with bright blue rhinestone eyes, I imagined she was another vanity or boudoir item, but on her tag it read “napkin holder.” I was intrigued…

The seller of this pretty pink lady, Gail Washburn of West Fargo, was kind enough to explain more. “Yes, she’s a napkin holder; you put folded napkins in each of the slots — and a candle on her head. They were used for buffets and other group entertaining.”

When I told her I’d never seen one before she said, “Oh, they made lots of this sort of thing… lots in wood.” With the wooden ones, it’s easier to imagine the napkins becoming the lady’s skirt, but with the finished look of the pottery, I never would have guessed something was missing. Many thanks to Gail for educating me.

There will be another Antique and Collectible Show at Moorhead Center Mall on March 10th and 11th. You can check here for times and, if you are a dealer, register for the event. (I’ll likely drag hubby back to see if the McMahon’s have any of those tins left!)

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Article Tags: Antique Show, Moorhead

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 4:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.