Let's go antiquing!

Learn what Midcoast Maine has to offer

It’s a piece of junk that your aunt has held on to for way too long. Or it’s grandma’s thingamajig in the corner collecting dust. It may not have much value to you, but to someone else, that “junk” is a treasure.

By Kelly Michaud, Editor

Liberty Tools, Liberty, Maine.KELLY MICHAUD PHOTO

Antiquing has grown in popularity and shops line the streets of many towns in Midcoast Maine, drawing in visitors in search of a piece to complete a collection or to remind them of times passed. People come looking for pottery, glassware, oriental rugs, furniture, toys, postcards, magazines — you name it.

Bruce Gamage Jr., has been in the antiques business for more than 30 years. He owns and runs Bruce Gamage Jr. Antiques in Rockland but spends a great deal of time working as an estate auctioneer and appraiser. According to Gamage, the whole “gamut” of items in the antiques business can be found here. While antiques are popular year-round, the best antiques season in Maine is the summer, he said.
“We’re in a wonderful renaissance in Midcoast Maine,” Gamage said. “We’ve become quite a hotspot in Maine for people looking for antiques and collectibles.”

The lure of the area has helped establish numerous antiques festivals. Only a couple of weeks ago, the 21st Annual Maine Antiques Festival was held at Union Fairgrounds off Route 17 in Union. The festival attracted more than 350 dealers.

Jamie Terrill of Terrill Antiques in Dixmont, Maine, was one of the dealers there. She attends about 15 shows in New England a year, she said. Terrill got involved in the business because her parents had a lot of antiques and now for half of th

e year, she spends her time buying and dealing them.

Everyone wants something different, she said. She deals in glassware, specifically Majolica.

“If we knew what people wanted, we’d be all set,” she said. “It’s a spin of the dice.”

Terrill said that in her opinion, interest in antiques has declined recently and she blames it on the economy. But regardless, she’ll always love them.

“I like old things,” she said. “The new stuff isn’t made as well — the quality isn’t there.”

Scott Roland of GlimmerGlass Antiques traveled to the Antiques Festival from Schenevus, N.Y. He said he’s using this trip to Maine as a buying trip as well and will probably buy as much as he sells. Roland deals in Victorian glass made during the 1880s to 1910.

A woman inspects a rug at the 21st Annual Maine Antiques Festival in Union, Maine. KELLY MICHAUD PHOTO

“Antiques are a story,”Roland said. “They’re beautiful and almost all the things in my booth were made before there was electricity.”

Each piece tells a story of another time period. There are items that have survived generations, even centuries of use and have been owned by people who have long since passed.

Gamage said he thinks “it’s the mystery of the piece and where it has been and who had it,” that makes antiques so interesting. “Most of the stuff is timeless,” he said. “There is a sense of historical value in each piece.”

Being an antiques dealer or appraiser is not a trade you can learn overnight. Knowing what you’re doing takes a great deal of experience. Roland has more than 1,500 books that he has referred to for guidance when it comes to pricing items and learning about them. But collectibles and other items like furniture and oriental rugs are a different story.

“I only base what something is worth based on the experience I have selling the item at auction,” Gamage said. “Nobody really knows what something is worth — you have an opinion and opinions can be educated.”

Gamage said that because items are so different and no two pieces are usually made the same, it’s easier to give a range of the value of something.

“No one can pinpoint an exact price and anyone who tells you they can do that doesn’t know what they are talking about,” he said.

But there are certain details about a piece that will add or subtract from its value. Among other things, prices for furniture are based on the condition of the surface (the condition of the finish is important), the construction of the piece, the form and if the piece still has the original paint, Gamage said.

“You need to recognize what is real and what isn’t and that takes time and experience,” he said. “It takes years and years of handling things, of losing money and of making money.”

While there is no exact way to know if you’re getting a good deal or not, there is some good advice to keep in mind.

“A good deal is what you’re happy paying for what you like,” Roland said. “You should buy what you love and love what you buy.”

But people are becoming more and more knowledgeable about the antiques in their homes, Gamage said.

“They want to know what they have and that’s a good thing,” Gamage said. “People love to know what their stuff is worth and the Internet has been big too. If you have [a collectible], you can probably find it on the Internet and get a value on it.”

There are wonderful antique spots all over the Midcoast area, such as Hearts and Roses Antiques in Northport or Village Antique Group Shop in Warren Village. In Rockland, you can visit the Rockland Antiques Marketplace, which is a group shop with a hundred different dealers, or for another place with 110 dealers, visit Route One Antiques Marketplace. Further down the coast is Avalon Antiques Market in Wiscasset or you can swing over to Union and experience an antiques auction at Brooder House Auction Service. Another great auction spot is Thomaston Place Auction Galleries.

A little out of the way from Route 1, off of Route 220, is the town of Liberty. Just one look at Main Street can take visitors back a few generations and stepping inside two shops will take you back even further.

Liberty Tools is your father’s or grandfather’s old work bench times a hundred. The shop is massive and has anything and pretty much everything someone could use or have absolutely no use for but love. The shop, owned by Skip Brack, has been around since 1976.

This is not your Home Depot type of tool shop. It’s a lot more charming and old-fashioned. The number of items in the shop is overwhelming, but if you’re looking for an older tool, if you look hard enough, you’ll probably find it. There are rows and rows of old saws, hundreds of jars of gadgets, shelves of saw blades and numerous other items.

Machinists, blacksmiths, carpenters and artists all frequent the shop, in addition to tourists, looking for that rare find.

A few steps down the road is Frapoli’s Place, a small group shop that offers some hand tools, but also collectibles, antique jewelry and primitives.

“We find everything because you never know what people will like,” said Gail Philippi, who owns the store with her husband Dana. “Everybody is looking for something different so you have to have things that you might not like but someone else might come in and love.”
“It’s interesting how something will end up here and then it goes onto a new life after it leaves,” she said.

Gamage agrees.

“It’s a big recycling business — antiques never go anywhere, they just move around,” Gamage said. “It’s the purest of the recycling we do. We don’t throw anything away. It gets sold, kept and resold again.”