I mentioned a while back that I was able to attend the Shawano Flea Market the weekend before last. Last weekend, I couldn't do much by way of auctions, fleas, or the like because I had to work. However, my husband and daughter were able to catch an auction and then go to the zoo. I haven't seen all the "treasures" they came home with ... come to think of it, I haven't seen any of them. But I did hear that they bought three bikes (two for my daughter and one for me), some old boxes, and some box lots that "we" need to go through yet.

Having a pickup truck is both a blessing and a curse!

My daughter, being the sensitive and thoughtful child that she is, told me yesterday that it "wasn't fair" that I never get to go to the zoo and auctions with them because I'm "always working." In truth, I'm not always working, but it only seems so because it's when I do need to work the occasional weekend, that they decide to go do something really, really fun.

The plans for this weekend? Well, the little one (who is 6) has decided she's going to be spending most of the weekend away from home visiting & spending the night at her aunt's.

Now it's Friday afternoon, and the possibilities abound. My mind is reeling: Auction? Flea market? Yard sales? Antique shops & malls that we haven't had the opportunity to check out lately? Hmmm. Princeton, Wis., has a wonderful weekly flea market, held each Saturday through the summer. It's held in the town park and has several antique shops and malls within walking distance. Here's how they bill it:

Browse "Wisconsin’s Largest Weekly Outdoor Flea Market" featuring over 175 booths every week. Our market is held every Saturday (Late April through late October, in our tree-shaded City Park, and attracts thousands of shoppers weekly. Admission and parking are free. Enjoy food, refreshments and visits with great friends.

I think, though, the final decision will be based on the weather ... Rain=shops/malls; Shine=fleas.

Good luck to all of you in your weekend endeavors, whether buying or selling — have a great one everyone! We'd love to hear about your weekend (or weekday, for that matter) antiquing adventures. Post a reply here or e-mail Robyn.Austin@fwpubs.com.

Here's a sneak peek at the cover of the newest Antique Trader that's in the mail ...

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I’ve been a pie connoisseur for lo, these many years. My expertise is in the tasting and the critiquing of the crust’s flakiness. Because I’m a perfectionist, sometimes it takes more than one piece to be sure that pie gets a thumbs-up! Rhubarb is my favorite.

The cover story got me thinking about pies, which got me to thinking about kitchens, which got me to remembering my Grandma Schultz’s kitchen.

Grandma was a farm wife. She took care of the chickens, tended the vegetable garden and kept her home squeaky clean. She canned everything ... green beans, tomatoes, beets, corn – you name it. Her specialty was pickled crab apples. To this day, when I see an apple tree in bloom my mouth waters, remembering the spicy, sweet-gingery taste she imparted to those otherwise inedibly sour fruits.

When I picture Grandma’s kitchen in my mind, the focal point is always on the window sill above the kitchen sink. There sat a Dutch boy cookie jar. When I was very small I used to think it was magic, because it was never empty. Every single time I lifted the top half of that Dutch boy’s body, there were peanut butter cookies in the bottom half, perfectly round with fork-marked grids. They melted in your mouth.

I wonder what happened to that cream-colored Dutch boy cookie jar. If it’s still in use, I’ll bet the cookies inside can’t hold a candle to those peanut butter cookies of my youth.

A couple years ago, I was walking the aisles of an antique mall and there, right in front of me was the twin of the window-sill Dutch boy! It was like seeing an old friend. (It didn’t strike me until much later that I was in an ANTIQUE mall, and that something I remembered from my childhood was now considered an ANTIQUE! )

Is there something from your childhood that brings you sweet memories or transports you to another time in your life? If you’re looking to replace it, an antique store might just be the place to start shopping!

The Dutch boy was priced way out of my budget when I found it in that antique mall, so I couldn’t bring it home, but I vowed to someday look in earnest for another. I don’t have a window sill for it to sit on, but I’ll clear a spot on the counter and I’ll try to keep it filled with treats for anyone who lifts the top and looks inside. Hopefully I will be creating a fond memory for my own grandchildren – one that makes their mouths water for a good cookie.


Is there an antique you let get away? You passed up the opportunity to buy it and kicked yourself over it later? We’d love to hear if you were able to capture it at some point or if you are still on the hunt. E-mail robyn.austin@fwpubs.com.

Last weekend was beautiful in central Wisconsin, and my family and I took full advantage of it.

To celebrate Father’s Day, my husband, daughter and me went to Zurko Promotions’ Shawano flea market. Zurko’s holds flea markets every Sunday at the Shawano County Fairgrounds in Shawano, Wis., through the summer. This was our first opportunity to get there this season, and for $2 admission per adult (children under 16 are free), it’s a fantastic way to spend the day.

My husband and I love flea markets and auctions. Since our daughter came along, we haven’t gone to as many as we once did, but now she’s getting old enough to appreciate all the wonderful things that can be had … for a price. At first she didn’t want to go, but once I explained to her that it was like a “ginormous” garage sale, she was okay with it.

We didn’t get to the flea market until almost noon (my husband suggested we go out for breakfast, and I always take full advantage of the opportunity when my husband suggests that someone else cook), but we were still impressed with the number of vendors that were there. We’ve been to some flea markets where, if you don’t get there before 10 a.m., you don’t even need to bother going because everyone gets there at the crack of dawn and they’re packing up by 10.

My husband and daughter wandered off to find their kind of treasures while I hung back and just enjoyed being there for a while. It felt great to be back at a market where every few minutes I heard haggling between buyers and sellers, I heard dealers exchanging anecdotes, and buyers calling their friends and families on their cell phones telling them about where they were and what they were finding.

While browsing goods that ranged from hand-made doll wardrobes to old farm implements to (and this is new this year) dried fruits and nuts, I spoke with a few of the vendors of more vintage items.

I asked how often they come to the Shawano market, and a couple of them said they come every week, and that they always have a good rotation and of vendors and good vendor turnout. One said it was her first time this season, because they don’t come before Memorial Day since they’re traveling a distance and there just isn’t enough of a crowd to make it worth their while. The vendors were all very upbeat and positive.

The majority of the vendors I spoke with also said that they’re pretty happy with how the season’s shaping up, even though the weather has been “beating us up.” One of the vendors opined that he thought the secondary market was going to be okay and manage the rough economy better than retail stores because retailers have to pay more to stock their shelves. I think he’s right.

A summary of my most recent flea market experience: The weather was beautiful, there was a great group of vendors with a wide array of merchandise both old and new, and an appreciative buying crowd. If there is any way possible, I’m going to make it back to Shawano for the holiday extravaganza that is scheduled for July 5-6, because a couple of the vendors told me they were going to be “filled to the fences.”

Will I see you there? Or will you be visiting other venues? Feel free to post a reply here and share your flea market experiences and impressions.

We saw on a news site this morning that the city council in Reno, Nev., is looking to revamp its rules for antique dealers now that a second antique mall has closed, citing excessive and expensive regulations.

Apparently some time ago, jewelry that was stolen from a legislator's home showed up at an antique store. Since that time, antiques dealers have been lumped in with pawn shop owners and both are required to report their sales and purchases DAILY to police.

Good to hear they value the antiques industry enough to take another look. To read the whole story, click here.

Remember our recent cover story on marbles? Seems we weren't far off the mark when we reported that the collecting trend just keeps rolling...

Morphy Auctions reported this week that its May 29-31 Spring Antiques Auction hit a $1.4 million record – including the sale of an $18,400 box of marbles.

According to a company press release, Morphy’s has always drawn a strong contingent of marble buyers to its sales, and this time was no exception. The prize everyone seemed to be after was an extremely rare, complete 100-count box of Christensen Agate Co. marbles. Some of the marbles exhibited extraordinarily rare color combinations – “maybe even unique,” said Dan Morphy, himself a longtime marble enthusiast. Estimated at $10,000-$15,000, the boxed selection finished its run at $18,400.

How do you like them marbles?!

Morphy Auctions is a division of Geppi’s Entertainment Auctions & Publications. For information on consigning to future sales, to view prices realized in past sales or to learn more about upcoming auctions, click here.

Inuit art. Last year we traveled to Alaska and got to see Inuit art up close and personal. We took a side trip to a village, a living history museum, where we got just a small taste of the way life was for generations of Inuit people. Our native guides were two college-age young women who quite obviously loved telling the Inuits’ story.

The Inuits throughout the village who shared their stories and told of their ancestors’ way of life were passionate about and proud of who they were and where they came from. They have a reverence for their past, and feel it’s their duty to pass along Inuit history and knowledge to each new generation.

We learned all about building fish traps from a youngster whose grandfather stood proudly behind him as he showed us how it was constructed – the same way it had been done for generations – and told us how it worked. We saw a mother-daughter team smoking fish, using the same methods their ancestors used.

Though most of the Inuit crafts we saw were useful items that contributed to daily survival in the cold North, the work could be very beautiful as well. The most memorable example was a coat, modeled in the picture by one of our guides. An Inuit woman was applying the intricate beadwork by hand, each bead individually placed and sewn in place. The native woman, whose work is shown in numerous museums including the Smithsonian, told us how her grandmother taught her mother, and how her mother taught her. She is now teaching the craft to the next generations.

When a family heirloom is passed from one generation to the next, it’s not just a piece of furniture or jewelry. Like the Inuits, it’s a remembrance of someone from our past and it should be valued for not only its beauty and usefulness, but as a piece of our history, of those who came before us.

A reverence and respect for the past. That’s just one of the reasons we love antiques.

Do you have a cherished heirloom, perhaps handed down through several generations? Does it have an interesting history that you can share when you pass it on to the next generation? Email robyn.austin@fwpubs.com, or write us at 700 E State St., Iola, WI 54945 to tell us your heirloom’s story.

Sandra Sparks
Associate Editor

MERIDEN, Conn. – The collecting community is reeling from the death of Nest Egg Auctions owner Carl Brechlin, who died during a boating trip May 31.

Brechlin, 53, was tubing along the Potomac River in West Virginia with his brothers and friends, when he had difficulty breathing and slipped underwater, according to a press account.

Nest Egg Auctions is well known by dealers and collectors in Meriden, Conn., where Brechlin held monthly auctions. The auction house was a later offshoot from a previous career as a part-time show manager for a community-based antiques show as well as a family antiques resale business. Customers said Nest Egg Auctions regularly attracted dealers and collectors from across New England and Connecticut for two reasons: the quality merchandise and what they called Brechlin’s mix of humor and street smarts.

“He was quite a character,” said Alan Brophy, a longtime antiques and collectibles dealer. “Always joked a lot during his sales: part auctioneer-part showman-part comic. But most of all a pretty good guy and a big part of the local trade here in Connecticut.” He was one of the first auctioneers to hold ‘table top’ auctions in the state.”

Brechlin and Nest Egg Auctions are well known to Antique Trader readers. He was an advertiser; however, readers got to know him and his business better in the Connecticut installment of the magazine’s Retro Road Trip series published last year. Nest Egg Auctions have been featured in the Home and Garden Television network's "Cash in the Attic".

The family plans to continue Nest Egg Auctions, with son Ryan Brechlin at the helm. Memorial services were today at the First United Methodist Church in Meriden. An article on the boating trip and an obituary for Carl Roger Brechlin can be found by clicking here.

Just in time to flip the calendar over to June, Mother Nature delivered a beautiful weekend to Wisconsin. Our neighborhood was abuzz with mosquitoes and the sounds of lawn mowers. Everywhere I looked, I'd see the backsides of those dedicated gardeners and landscapers bent over their task to make their yards beautiful.

I confess I did not inherit my mother's green thumb. Something closer to a black one, in fact. Unfortunately, even with a copy of "Gardening for Dummies" in my hands, I still can't seem to make a go of it. No offense to the authors, I'm sure.

But that doesn't stop me from sight-seeing in the summertime. I love to see what those dirt diggers come up with to create their artistic landscape. Their garden havens. More often than not, my eye is drawn to an antique that adds just the right flair to their outdoor display. I've seen everything from milk cans and wheelbarrows to tractor seats and all variety of farm implements. These are rusty old things. But somehow, they only add to the beauty.

Do you decorate your yard or gardens with antiques? We'd love to share your photos with Antique Trader readers. Please submit via e-mail to robyn.austin@fwpubs.com.

Who knows, you may inspire me to give this another try!