The Lititz Antiques Show
June 24th, 2016
Lititz, Pennsylvania
For 54 years, the Lititz Historical Foundation has held an antiques show on the last weekend in June to benefit the 1792 Johannes Mueller House. It is Lancaster County’s oldest show, and for the second year it was held at the Warwick Middle School, an air-conditioned space with good lighting that has given it a second wind.
Friday morning was a busy time at the show.
Exactly 107 people were lined up to get in when the doors opened at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 24, to see what 51 dealers had brought to sell from their full stands. Lititz is a country show with farm items, kitchen gear, quilts, coverlets, homespun fabrics, early lighting, dolls, holiday items, painted furniture, and woodenware. Some called it “country chic.” One southern dealer drove up in a U-Haul truck, loaded it with a lot of painted furniture, and took off by midday on Friday, saying that he cannot find this kind of furniture where he lives.
The show attracts a local audience. More people came on Friday than Saturday, but those who work and some of the big spenders came on Saturday, so selling continued on day two until 2 p.m. The dealers are mostly locals, but they were joined by some from New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. According to show manager Henry Paul, who is known as Smitty, 32% of the dealers have done the show for more than a decade, and some have exhibited for two or three decades.
John and Peggy Bartley of Old Farm Antiques, Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, asked $785 for this Pennsylvania yellow, green, and red quilt.
Dianne R. Hogg of Gumtree, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, asked $140 for this 19th-century white homespun linen shirt.
This is a tabletop show, though some of the dealers bring their own walls. Dealers said they like the venue—easy setup, easy out, and air-conditioned. It is not expensive to be an exhibitor; a stand costs $295.
“This show is growing,” said John Rogers, who came from New Hampshire to exhibit and shop.
The 4" x 3¾" Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, watercolor of a bird on a flowering branch was $1500 from Diane Farr.
Cheryl Mackley of Red Lion, Pennsylvania, priced the doll’s cupboard in green paint at $225 and the homemade dolls at $950 (left) and $475 (right).
“People were enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and they bought,” said Diane Farr of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. “The show was full of vitality. We sold three pieces of redware; a stoneware chicken waterer and stoneware cake crock; a chalkware squirrel; a painted prayer bench from a meeting house; a glass fluid lamp; two sticking tommy candle holders; an iron button-holer; a wooden sugar cutter and iron sugar hatchet; two lanterns; a small glass ship’s lantern and a Philadelphia Universal; two fraktur vorschrifts, half-sheets; two blown-glass darning eggs; a Lancaster game wheel; a painted dome-top box, probably New England; and a bentwood spice box and a coverlet.”
Joe Urbanick of Antiques by the Falls, Painesville, Ohio, sold the oval-top bench-table. The green-painted wheelbarrow was $265, and the chairs around the table, $910.
Anderson-Breish Antiques asked $75 each for the two clothespins turned on a lathe. Two sculptural clothespins like these are on view this summer at the New-York Historical Society’s exhibition of the collection of Modernist sculptor Elie Nadelman and his wife, Viola.
The Lititz show proved that the middle market is far from dead. It’s hard to say whether the show’s success was due to the tradition of 54 years, or because people could come to Lititz and shop and stay over for Renninger’s Extravaganza in Kutztown the following day, or the fact that this is the last show in Pennsylvania until fall—or all three. People came, business was done, and everyone had good things to say about show manager Henry Paul. He counted more than 65 pieces of furniture leaving the gymnasium. “I can’t remember when so much furniture sold,” he said.
The pictures and captions show only a fraction of what was there.
For more information, call (717) 575-4006 or view the website (www.lititzhistoricalfoundation.com).
Ruth and Al Rogers of School House Farm Antiques, New Holland, Pennsylvania, offered the 1850s Pennsylvania bed at $600, the trundle bed under it at $500, and the Star quilt at $1950. Both beds sold.
Originally published in the September 2016 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2016 Maine Antique Digest
