The Original Semi-Annual York Antiques Show & Sale

February 1st, 2015

York, Pennsylvania

The Original 164th Semi-Annual York Antiques Show & Sale at the York Fairgrounds Convention & Expo Center, Memorial Hall East, in York, Pennsylvania, held January 30 through February 1, attracted a big crowd. People with cabin fever needed to get out of the house, and dealers from the North were glad to escape the snow. A few dealers said they had to shovel out before loading their vans, and they arrived on Thursday, too late for the two-day dealer buying at setup but in time to set up for those in line to get in at 10 a.m. on Friday.

Melvin Arion holds this three-day winter show on the last weekend in January and his fall show on the last weekend in September (moved last year from Labor Day weekend at the dealers’ request). Bob Bockius, Charles Whitney, and Dave Strickler of Mitchell Displays, who supply the showcases for Arion’s show and many others, put on the Greater York Antiques Show, two-day events scheduled for May 1 and 2 and October 30 and 31, with Bockius as the frontman for show management. Many dealers do all four shows, and many shoppers never miss any of them.

Dealers said they were amazed at the large crowds on Friday and Saturday, January 30 and 31, and when the Super Bowl Sunday crowd was sparse, many asked, “Why a three-day show?” Then from 3 o’clock in the afternoon until closing time, there was a flurry of sales. “I bet $150,000 was spent in the last hour of the show,” said Delaware dealer James Kilvington. Maine dealer James Glazer, exhibiting at this show for the first time in a long time, sold a tall-case clock, the dial signed by John Fisher in York Town, York County, Pennsylvania, and a tall hoop-back Windsor chair made in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that he had bought at Pook & Pook some years ago.

Local people came late in the show and then rushed home to watch the Super Bowl while dealers packed up to get out before the next blizzard, which did not hit the region until early the next morning and then turned to rain before a deep freeze. It is not easy trucking antiques around the country in winter, and a number of those driving their vans from Ohio, Alabama, Kentucky, or Pennsylvania are women who go it alone!

This show was worth it. Business was good, and some said it was the best it has been in three years. Brown furniture sold, as did some painted furniture and many small items.

At this show, shoppers could compare three 18th-century Pennsylvania schranks: a small one from downtown Philadelphia on Kilvington’s stand ($48,000), one made in the Bachman shop in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in Philip Bradley’s booth ($50,000), and one from southeastern Pennsylvania, dated 1785 and offered by John Chaski ($17,500). Plus there were three impressive tall chests: one from Berks County, Pennsylvania, with leafy inlay on the central drawers and line inlay on the other drawers (Philip Bradley, $14,500)—it comes apart, so it is in fact a chest-on-chest; a rare small tall chest from Maryland with three over two over four drawers (James Price, $6250); and a big, bold one from Chester County, Pennsylvania, with three over two over four drawers (David Horst, $8500).

There were many tall-case clocks; Price sold four, Bradley sold one, and Glazer sold another. There were plenty of painted chests from Pennsylvania and New England, and more than a dozen graphic hooked rugs. There were plenty of quilts, and more than a dozen of them sold. Some fraktur sold, perhaps because of the exhibition and catalog for Drawn with Spirit,celebrating the promised gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art of over 230 fraktur from the collection of Joan and Victor Johnson. The exhibit opened with a party at the museum on January 30, and the illustrated catalog by Lisa Minardi with the latest research should give the field a real boost. Her husband, Philip Bradley, brought ten copies of the catalog to the show and sold them all ($65 each); more are available at the museum and online.

The show also had a selection of appealing rag dolls, some special sewing balls, three rare hatboxes, and a selection of woodenware, some of it painted. There was very rare redware; historical Staffordshire china; earlier pearlware, creamware, and salt-glazed pottery; and some Chinese export porcelain, but not as broad a selection of ceramics as usual. There was an early velocipede, a painted wood tricycle, and a doll’s surrey with fringe on top. Holiday decorations find buyers all year long.

Three items could have won a prize for good design in any period. One was an 18th-century wrought-iron bird or fish roaster, priced at $950 by Colette Donovan. Simple and well-proportioned, it turned with a flick of the wrist, and it sold. Another was a Shaker-style staved keeler for washing buttermilk from butter; John Rogers priced it at $2500. The third, an 18th-century oak sieve, put together with large rosehead nails and used for sifting wood ashes to make soap, was $495 from Cheryl Mackley.

There was an unpleasant moment at the show on the crowded Saturday afternoon. A group of five professional thieves sneaked in without paying, walked into James Kilvington’s booth, popped the lock on a vitrine, and went off with some jewelry. Dale Hunt ran after them, and the police stopped two of them, but since they did not have the jewels, they were released. The others got away. Their license plate number was taken, and the type of car noted, but they were not apprehended.

“It was a professional job,” said Kilvington. “Two of them distracted me, and the other three went to work. I think they got three pieces. I have to check my inventory to see the value.”

The pictures and captions show just a fraction of what was there and some of what sold. Most dealers said they sold well, some said they did just OK, but most left happy, and a good number plan to come to the York Fairgrounds for shows four times a year—in January and September for Butch Arion’s and in May and October for Bob Bockius’s. York has been a crossroads for antiquing for generations.

For more information, call (302) 875-5326; website (www.theoriginalyorkantiquesshow.com).

Originally published in the May 2015 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2015 Maine Antique Digest