Concord, New Hampshire
The line to get into the Edward Everett arena was still substantial, even midway through early buying at the Concord Antique Show on August 4. It was still early, but cheerful shoppers were already leaving with their acquisitions.
Positioned at the entrance, show manager Peter Mavris did double duty, both warmly greeting newcomers and assisting those departing gratified buyers who were laden with bags and boxes. Mavris told M.A.D. that he had been setting up the show for three days, and it showed. He added that a large trade sign that had sold earlier had only just left the building. Buying was decidedly brisk.
After the early buyers had left the building, one could easily see that many antiques had already been purchased and were on their way to new collections.
For more information, call (207) 608-3086, email [email protected], or check the website (www.petermavrisantiqueshows.net).
The first booth off the entrance belonged to Brendan Edgerton of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who trades as Country Cupboard Antiques. During early buying, shoppers were eager and sales were already in progress. Front and center was the spectacular coverlet, numbered 132, worked and signed by Mary Elizabeth Morrison, a known New Hampshire artisan. The coverlet was priced at $22,000, and when we passed by the booth later, it had a red tag—sold to a New Hampshire collector.
Edgerton also had a Victorian lattice work letter holder, circa 1900, in the original marbleized blue and white paint, lapped together with brass tacks. It was tagged $2750. A miniature feather basket, 4½" x 2¾", in the original chocolate brown paint was priced at $2500. Dating to between 1890 and 1910, it was most likely the work of an Indigenous basket maker from the New York area. Tightly woven, with a swelled middle and an open weave bottom, it was exactly proportional to a full-size working feather basket.
Perkins & Menson Antiques, Ashby, Massachusetts, stood this cigar store figure in a corner of the booth, and priced it at $3600. Not much later the figure was observed leaving the building in the arms of an exuberant collector.
Bob Jessen and Jim Hohnwald of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, had a nearly full booth for much of early buying. They showed a linsey-woolsey coverlet, 90" x 81", dramatic in red and green and estimated to have been made between 1800 and 1850. It was priced at $4200. They also showed an 1833 New England “labor of love” homespun blanket with a provenance that includes Rocky and Avis Gardner, priced at $2900. A Rhode Island brace-back Windsor side chair in old red paint under a later coat of green, and dating to between 1760 and 1790, was tagged $750.
County Seat Antiques, Litchfield, Connecticut, showed a birdhouse resembling a church, which had contained a nest when found, priced at $550. To its left, a walking stick carved with a dog’s head as its handle was tagged $295, and the carved eagle to the right is signed and dated “1965” and was tagged $475.
Tinkers Wagon Antiques, Flint Hill, Virginia, showed a rooster weathervane with a lace-like original surface that retains some gilding and was tagged $1200; and a New England butter tub in vivid green paint with sturdy fingers for $1500.
A selection of ledger drawings by Sammus Gray Owl of Crow Creek Indian Reservation, South Dakota, were offered by Carlson & Stevenson Antiques, Manchester Center, Vermont. In one drawing, an Indigenous person wearing a top hat and smoking a pipe is driving a wagon full of assorted critters that is pulled by a deer with a beaver on its back, all of whom are also smoking pipes and wearing top hats, including the bird perched on a boar’s hat. The drawing was priced at $2500. Gray Owl created 51 meticulously drawn and colored drawings between 1918 and 1925. Carlson & Stevenson Antiques also showed a selection of drawings by Barbara Shermund (1899-1978) for The New Yorker and Esquire. In a change of pace, the paint-decorated candlestand, circa 1790, with the original polychrome egg-and-dart border, possibly central Massachusetts was tagged $2650. The top was cleaned professionally 27 years ago. Also displayed was a Shaker No. 1 rocking chair with shawl rack and an aqua painted finish over an earlier old brown surface, priced at $3800.
Sideli’s This One’s for Man Ray, a Western Electric telephone repurposed as a lamp,was tagged $3500.
For John Sideli of Bristol, Rhode Island, it was a special father-daughter event with daughter, Elise, helping with logistics and heavy lifting. Sideli’s booth addresses his considerable talents as an artist with a magical eye, giving traditional antiques new life as works of art. Alive with form and color, the booth offered a cast-iron whippet, circa 1910, for $7500.
An inveterate collector, Sideli turned three cases into a wonder cabinet filled with treasures of a former collector.
All Together Now, 2024, a spoke-like arrangement of old wooden shovel handles was inspiring, and tagged $4500.
Originally published in the October 2026 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2026 Maine Antique Digest
