Q&A’s by Travis Loose:

 

Dean Brayton shares ownership of Vintage Revival—an antiques, collectibles, and quality used furniture store in Springfield, Oregon—with Angela Tennent, who was not present for this interview. They celebrated their fourth year of operations on June 5, 2014.

What got you started?

My wife used to go over to England, Belgium, and bring over antiques. And we would do shows. Then, about four years ago we decided that we’d open up a store; but the antique market was soft, so we said, ‘Let’s just do a mixture of everything.’ So we did antiques, second-hand furniture, [and] collectables. That’s what’s made our niche; we’ve had a balance of all of it.

And do you have any collections? Personally?

We both collect. I like the older Mission-style stuff, and she likes older Victorian era stuff. It’s fun. As we go out and buy, there’s always pieces that you’ll take home and add to your own collection. That’s part of the benefit of having a store, y’know?

Do you get a lot of collectors to come in here and see what you have?

There’s always people who will come and check from time to time. And it’s amazing what people collect. [But] there’s certain things we don’t sell in here, like electronics, or appliances, or tools. So, when we buy out estates and we get that, every month we’ll have a big outside sale. And we’ll just blow it all out there for people at pennies on the dollar and let them have at that stuff, and it introduces them to our store.

So, you get rid of the stuff that you’re not necessarily interested in, which draws in business to the stuff that you are interested in?

Yeah! True, I had to stay here for three and half days with no sleep to do it, but it introduces a lot of people to the store. And then whatever’s left after a sale, it never goes back into my storage; it all gets donated.

Who do you donate it to?

Multiple places. Life Recovery, right here at the end [of the building]; the last couple times I’ve rented the DMV, I just let them take it all. Typically, I try to donate to the smaller groups like WomenSpace, the Arc…

Have you thought about the hospice?

I do do the hospice as well. So, those are the groups that I try to target more than the corporate world of St. Vinnie’s and Goodwill.

They put a premium on their prices and they’re getting it for free.

We’re just always looking for how we separate ourselves from everybody else, so it creates a fun niche.

 

 

Chuck is a co-owners of the Antique Peddlers in Springfield, Oregon. For nearly four decades, Chuck has found interest in collecting various antiques. Now, Chuck – with the company of Laura – spend their retirement time antiquing and running the Antique Peddlers shop. 

What is your opinion of antique collecting?

Chuck: It’s a disease.

A disease?! Why do you think that?

Chuck: Don and Clara Freeman, that had the Purple Lamp, they were in their 70s, and Dick Grossbeck auctioned all their stuff off. And it wasn’t very long, they was out collecting again. It’s a disease, y’know?

What do you collect?

Laura: Laughing

Chuck: I collect a lot of things, I do. Glass, coins, paper money—whatever I like.

How long have you been collecting things?

Chuck: Thirty-five years.

What got you started?

Chuck: A fruit jar.

What, you just saw a neat looking fruit jar, and it just sucked you in?

Chuck: No, no. It just had the name ‘Portland, Oregon’ on it. So, that’s all.

How long have you been working here?

Chuck: Here? Twenty-four plus years.

Do you enjoy it?

Chuck: It’s a disease. At my age, it’s something to do.

What is your interpretation of thrift shopping?

Laura: He doesn’t thrift shop.

So, do you think that this shop is for people who are looking to collect specific items?

Chuck: Hopefully.

Laura: They sometimes find the things they’re looking for [at thrift shops]; I don’t have the patience to go through all those things and never find anything. You hear of some people who find treasures at the thrift shops, or whatever. Good. Instead of the stuff going to the dump, it gives some people at the thrift shops a job.

Do you guys do a lot of buying, or—how do you get the items that are in your store?

Chuck: Various stuff that comes through the door, and estate sales.

Do you go to auctions, and things like that?

Chuck: Yeah. Garage sales are a waste of time because all you see is kid’s clothes and stuff. They don’t have the over-head that we have. There’s some of them that, after X amount of times, you recognize the address. They have some good sounding ads, but [then] you check the address.

Who is your target audience for this particular antique shop?

Chuck: Who do we target? The one’s with money.

Laura: We mainly do antiques and some collectibles.

And is this a dealer situation?

Laura: Yeah, it’s a mall.

What percent do you get from your dealers?

Chuck: Ten.

That seems low. Do you do that to ensure a reasonable relationship with your dealers?

Chuck: No. It’s only fair. We’ve had, myself included, some dealers that have been in here a long time. We’re satisfied with that.

How many dealers do you have here? I mean, this is a pretty big building.

Twenty-five.

 

Q&A’s by Kaitlyn Sledge:

 

Carole Riggle has been a loyal visitor and customer of the Oregon Antique Mall for over 20 years. After moving to Oregon in the late 1980s, Riggle has been exploring local antique stores in Eugene. Although she has visited many local shops, Riggle continues to return to the Oregon Antique Mall.

What brings you to the Oregon Antique Mall today?

I saw the “for sale” sign here. I’ve been coming here for years. Well, I moved to Eugene in 1989, so I’ve been coming in here and in Pewter Rabbit when it was located elsewhere. They were two good sized stores, now one of them if just a Mexican religious hoo-ha.

How long have you been collecting antiques?

Oh gosh. Since I was a teenager. I looked at the stuff that the old ladies had and I thought it was pretty neat.

What got you in to collecting?

I’m by nature, filled with avarice.

What do you collect?

I collect Mexican dance masks, over 100 years old, carved. I have a big collection from when my sister lived in Mexico.

I [also] collect salt and peppers – I have about 250, maybe more – and they’re all characters. I prefer them if they are people. I look at people when they’re standing on the corner, and wonder what kind of salt and pepper set they would make. For instance, right now I have an eye towards graffiti artists. Two of ‘em. You know, one is black with a hoodie and a spray can and the other is white with his pants hanging off his butt, and a Mohawk, with a stencil.

Also, I collect anything metal that will make into a metal puppet. I’m convinced that we’re at a point where we can take tin cans, and make little puppets out of them, and sell them to the girls to dress. And if you invert those chip bags that have the metal liner, you just cut a little hole in the top and the sides, and then you’ve dressed a doll.

Oh, I also have a collection of stuffed paintings left over from when I was showing. I did fake quilts on 4×8 plywood.

What do fake quilts look like?

Very eye catching. Very gaudy. It’s a quilt, so I painted all of the little things. This is back when I was obsessive compulsive, but I seem to have lost my energy for obsessive compulsive.

Well, are you an artist?

Yes, I have my Painting and Sculpture degree from San Francisco State. Before I left San Francisco, I used to show in the Castro district. Those were the good ol’ days.

You’ll find that an awful lot of [antique shop people] are artists.

 

 

Skylar Berry has always had a fascination with antique stores and old postcards. She has been browsing thrift stores with her family or friends for many years. A former resident of Eugene, Oregon, Berry now resides in Seattle, Washington.

So, what brings you into the Oregon Antique Mall today?

I just like antique stores. I like looking at old postcards and reading them. It’s one of my favorite reasons to go into an antique shop.

So what do you like about old postcards? Is it the messages on them, or something else?

Yea, I love that. And the pictures! One day, I will find a picture of a dead person that is posed. I’m waiting because I look through them every time. And you can tell because they would paint eyeballs on their closed eyes. And they are really still and everyone else is kind of moving. And it’s really cool. I’ve read about them so much and I’m going to find one someday.

How long have you been collecting post cards?

Oh, I’ve always looked. My family has always been the type who like to come into them. So, I guess my whole life, I’ve always looked at them and noticed.

And how long have you been shopping at the Oregon Antique Mall?

Well, I’m from Eugene originally, but I’m in Seattle now. So, I used to come to this store specifically, I’d say through high school. So, for four years.

[Today] we wanted to go to downtown Eugene, and there’s not much here – it’s not like downtown Seattle at all. I forgot about this place actually. We came down the street and I remembered. I used to come in here with my best friend and we used to wander in here every day.

What got you into collecting post cards?

Just the idea. It’s so intimate. You’re reading this post card from so long ago, and the way that they write it. Their handwriting is so beautiful every time. And it’s so sweet every time. It’s just like, “I’m here! How are you?” And that’s sometimes all they say. It’s so nice – they didn’t have cell phones.

Do you have anything that really stuck out to you? Something that you’ve found that was memorable.

There was one that someone was sending to their dad, I think. And it was just really detailed on what they were doing with their family while they were there. They used up every little space on it. And it was really cute because they probably just had this one post card that they could send, so they used every little space. They even wrote around the address.

 

Q&A’s by Hanna Elliot:

 

Glenn Myers has been the owner/operator of Trash-n-Treasures Antiques and Collectibles in Springfield, Oregon for the past five years. Myers’s own collections can be found in his shop after his wife made him move his continuously expanding collections out of the house.

How long have you been in the antique business?

Eight, nine years.

What got you started in it?

Well, that’s kind of funny. I was a printer for 15 years, and then the company got sold and they fired everybody that was related to the owners, and my dad was the owner.

I went to school and I got a degree in computer network operations. That was the year Symantec moved all the jobs to India. So, a friend of mine took me under his wing and started showing me how to buy and sell storage units. One thing led to another, and within two years I had my own store.

Do you own this place?

I don’t own the building; just the business is mine. I started out doing like most the other places do, by renting space to people. That was just a hassle. I kind of did the math, and I could make more money per square foot selling my own stuff.

Do you have any personal collections yourself?

Before I started doing this stuff, I was a Hot Wheels collector. I collected the old red-line Hot Wheels—the old ones. I had a pretty decent collection going. Then I started collecting Lava Laps; and then…Well, then my wife banned all my collections from the house. Except for the Hot Wheels. So, I brought all the other stuff down here, and I just priced it way too high to sell. [laughs]

So do people bring things in that you purchase now?

On occasion, I try. And I go out to estate sales and garage sales and auctions. People call me and I go out and look at stuff. I’m a one person show. I’ve got a rule of my own that most places don’t have: If I can’t pick it up, I’m not gonna buy it.

So, you were interested in collecting prior to getting the business. Do feel like there was some connection there? Obviously, you must enjoy what you do here.

I do, I do enjoy it. I better because I don’t make a lot of money. [laughs] Even though when I buy stuff, I buy it with the intentions of trying to triple on it. Although that rarely happens when I finally sell the item. If I do double, I’m happy.

 

 

Penelope “Penny” Dolan moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1959 to attend the University of Oregon. Before she could finish her Ph.D in education, Penny was introduced to the antique business and has been working in it ever since. Her business, the Oregon Antique Mall, is currently in the midst of moving to a new location.

What got you started antiquing?

I was working on a Ph.D. in education, and was teaching classes at the University of Oregon, and I met this delightful, charming, young man, whose mother was in the antique business, and he scooted me away from my Ph.D., and we started in the antique business. He was a corrections officer for the state of Oregon, too. He would go hustle things up and take them to the shop.

You don’t have any regrets about leaving your work for your Ph.D.?

No. Except that the money isn’t as good as if I was a professor. I left teaching because I didn’t like where it was going.

Oh, I taught classes on antiques too. People would sign up, pay “x” amount of dollars, and bring stuff in. And we would talk about it and the history about it, and they would ask questions.

You mentioned hustling. Is that how you accumulate the items that are in your store?

Not anymore. I have people bringing me in things because I’ve been here so long. They know I’m stupid and pay too much for things.

So, how do the dealers work exactly?

I rent space to dealers, so they pay per square foot, and when they sell something, I get 12%. And I’ve had some dealers here for as long as we’ve been here.

How do you do inventory in the store?

Each dealer, does it their own way. I personally put the month and the year I put the item in here. I have some consignments in here, and when somebody leaves, I’ll fill up the space.

What do you get out of this business?

I like the relationship you have with customers. It’s a close relationship. The adventure. People bringing things in that I’ve never seen before, and I have to research it. Every day is an adventure.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen brought in?

I like art. Some people bring in art and I say, “You know, that’s a really cool painting.” And then I research it. One local artist, Norma Driscoll, she’s 87, she’s still painting. She brings me in the paintings and they’re wet!

How do you sell those, if they aren’t antiques?

Doesn’t matter. Antique is a real wide word now. They’re calling things out of the ‘70s antiques.