Antique Malls! - Recreation and Education in One

What is an antique mall for? Roaming, wandering, browsing, looking, learning. It's a museum and a museum store all in one. It's a businesslike shopping trip, to get a gravy boat to match your Friendly Village china. It's an outing, a place to spend a rainy afternoon. It's a weekend trip. It's serendipity gone wild. It's nostalgia galore, if you're any age over thirty. "But I had one of those!" you shriek unbelievingly. If we're all so young, how can our toys be antiques?

And, to tell the truth, if all you're interested in is handmade furniture of the Eighteenth Century, pieces that would make the Keno brothers, from Antiques Roadshow, drool, then maybe an antique mall isn't the place for you. Most of the dealers aren't quite that high-end. You'll find many items that might better be called "vintage" than "antique." The tablecloth you pick up is more likely to be fifty years old than a hundred. But the dining room chairs or the Hoosier cabinet might well be old enough to call antique.

When you think of an antique mall, you may think of a huge place, and some of them are indeed huge. Two of my favorites are the Medina Antique Mall in Medina, Ohio (near Cleveland), and the Riverfront Mall in New Philadelphia, Ohio (about an hour and a half from Cleveland, slightly more from Columbus or Pittsburgh). Both are absolutely enormous, with hundreds of booths.

But I've also been to smaller malls, in cities (the large ones are usually situated in large parking lots, not downtown areas). They may have a dozen dealers, or twenty.

What they have in common is that no one's looking at you! The dealers usually aren't present in person. You can peer at the stain on the linen without anyone's hastening to tell you how easily it could be removed. You can find out what a Hoosier cabinet is by looking, not by asking. You can gasp at the price tags without causing offense or feeling that you have to bargain someone down.

It's a marvelous learning experience. What I would compare it to, is learning about something from the library or the Web. You could just get out one library book, or try one website. But you get a much broader view by getting several books or trying several websites. Whether you're interested in gardening, or antique motorboats, different writers will have different opinions. By checking several, you get a feel for what's accepted, and what might be one writer's little quirk.

Same thing at antique malls. You look at the labels, you browse around, you get a good idea of what you like, what it's called, and what it sells for. (Always remembering what my husband invariably points out: the fact that it's sitting there with that price tag means it hasn't sold at that price - yet!)

If you're going to a big mall, wear comfortable shoes and take money for lunch. There's probably a place that sells sandwiches and drinks. Some of them have books you can read - and buy - about collectibles and antiques. Most of them have accessories to buy - plate holders, furniture polish, doll stands - so if you need sixteen matching plate holders, the malls are the place to go.

When you enter, the first thing is to make sure you have a pencil and paper. The mall will probably provide those. You can note down the booth number of anything you are interested in, because when you've gone through half the mall, you will not remember where the Azalea mayonnaise set was. Was it on Third Street? Or in the cabinets at the front? You need to have it written down. And since writing isn't buying, you can write down lots of things, then go back and look at them all again, comparing. Push a button, and someone comes to get that necklace out of its case so you can examine it.

There are no shopping carts, thank goodness. When you find something you want to buy, you bring it to the front desk and they will hold it for you. Delivery may or may not be available. If you are looking at furniture, you will probably want to call ahead, or bring the truck.

And when you leave, it may be with a carpenter's plane, a rug, a picture, a pretty plate - or just the memory of a day you enjoyed. I'm heading out next week!