Marburger Farm Antique Show—Fall 2007 Pre-show Press Release
Contact: John Sauls (800) 947-5799
www.roundtop-marburger.com
johnsauls@tyler.net
P.O. Box 448 Tyler, TX75710
Oct. 2-6 Marburger Farm Antique ShowCome Early, Come Often
7/7/07 Round Top,
Texas—- Picture this: an antiques dealer sits in a lawn chair in an empty 30 foot booth at the Marburger Farm Antique Show. This is Round Top,
Texas and a very happy dealer. See it happen again at the Oct. 2-6, 2007 fall edition of the 400 dealer show, half-way between Houston and Austin.
“On Early Buying day,” said Georgia King of
Baird, Texas, “customers ran through, buying counters, tables and cupboards.” At last spring’s show, a
California buyer asked King the price of the blue cupboard, the red one, the yellow one and the brown one. “I’ll take them all,” she said. “By the end of Tuesday Early Buying,” remembers King, “we had sold three loads of American furniture. Nothing was left but my lawn chair.”
Early Buying day at the Marburger Farm Antique Show is no secret. When the show opens at 10 am on Tuesday, October 2, for Early Buying, thousands of shoppers will be welcomed past the barriers, ready for the plunder. “I always pay early admission,” says shopper Mary Beth McClung of
Dallas. “It’s my favorite time to be at the show.” McClung and her grown daughters will pay the $25 early admission, which offers free parking and unlimited entry to the show Tuesday October 2 through Saturday, October 6. Regular $10 admission begins at 2 pm on Early Buying day and lasts all week as well.
While the McClungs stroll through Early Buying, others sprint through the 6 football field-sized tents and a dozen early
Texas buildings that make up the show site. Exhibitor Kevin Stone of
New Orleans, writes as many as 100 receipts on opening day. Sometimes the customers just pick up the pad and write their own receipts. Ender Tasci of Orlando’s Elephant Walk Antiques doesn’t even attempt receipts. He just hands over a business card with an amount on it and customers come back later to pick up their purchases.
What’s coming to the show October 2-6? Georgia King will bring four store counters, one grain-painted and one in early white. She’ll have a large group of cupboards, one over eight feet tall and another pale pink on the outside and pale green on the inside.
New Jersey’s Sandra Hoekstra deals in more diminutive versions, including 1850-1930’s children’s books, toys, doll and child-size furniture and a log cabin doll house from
Maine. On the last Early Buying day, “A shopper,” said Hoekstra, “picked up 30 mint-condition children’s books, paid cash and walked out, in less than five minutes.”
“I like the excitement of opening day,” says Danny Spear of
San Antonio’sLand of
Was Antiques, “but I sell well every day of the show.” Spear offers French, Italian and Spanish furniture, plus garden antiques. He’ll have a French 19th c. marble-top and ormolu commode, estate jewelry and a large heavily-carved Italian bookcase The bookcase prize, though, will go to
New Hampshire’s Dee Coates for a pair of oil paintings of bookcases, full of books, with frames that look like the trim of a bookcase. “I bring the extremely eclectic and totally unique to Marburger Farm,” says Coates. That will include a pair of 1890’s stone lions, once pillars of a
New Hampshire home, a pair of early Texas Hill Country beds, a seven foot 1800’s
Pennsylvania corner cabinet in yellow and wooden panels from an Orthodox church with religious art on both sides. Bill Spencer, “The Ragman” of
Portland, Michigan will offer late 19th and early 20th c. political bandanas, patriotic textiles and a collection of Admiral Dewey era furniture with patriotic motifs embossed in the wood. Further south, Theresa and Craig Smith of
Glendale, KY will pull in to
Texas, as Theresa Smith puts it, “with lots of crust and rust” and the soothing textures of white paint, ironstone and accessories. Celebrating 25 years in business with a recent spread in Country Living magazine, the Smiths sell architectural salvage, primitive and industrial furniture, garden items and European lighting.
Sarah Thomas, of Balzac Antiques in New Orleans (formerly Rosenthal Antiques), likes to “mix it up,” pairing 18th and 19th c. French, Italian and Continental furniture with “charming” mirrors, lighting, art and rustic-industrial pieces. Charming as in inexpen-sive? Yes, “but let me tell you,” says replies Thomas, “I have a lot of very expensive charming things too. I sell a lot of high end things at Marburger Farm on Tuesdays.”
While early buying is no secret, it’s less-well known that shoppers can enter the gates on Early Buying day at 8am. Park, have a leisurely breakfast at the Food Pavilion over-lookingLake
Marburger and plot your path for the 10 am lifting of the barricades to the show tents. The other secret? Return late in the week, of course. Shop early, Shop often. The Marburger Farm Antique Show opens Tuesday, Oct. 2 at 10 am for Early Buying at $25 admission. At 2pm that day regular $10 admission begins, with the show running Wed., Thurs., and Friday from 9-5 and Saturday, Oct. 6 from 9-4. Admission is good all week and parking is free. For information on maps, travel, food, lodging, bus trips and on-site shipping, see www.roundtop-marbuger.com or call John Sauls at (800) 947-5799.
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