Antiques Show is a piece of history

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GLEN RIDGE, NJ — The 76th annual Glen Ridge Antiques Show was hosted Friday, Feb. 3, and Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Glen Ridge Congregational Church, returning to its traditional Friday opening, following last year’s pandemic-induced Saturday and Sunday display. The show is touted as the longest running antiques show in New Jersey and one of the nation’s oldest.

Promoting the show for the fifth consecutive year was antique dealer Debbie Turi, who said 900 people attended during the two days. Only one of the 32 dealers was there for the first time; the rest were repeat participants. More than 100 volunteers made the show possible.

“It was a nice gate,” Turi told The Glen Ridge Paper. “A lot of people walked out with their arms full and people came back for the second day.”
The show is sponsored by the Women’s Club of the Glen Ridge Congregational Church which collects and distributes the proceeds to charities enumerated in the show’s program. In past years, the Woman’s Club of Glen Ridge provided assistance running the event, but Turi said its presence has waned because the club does not have the volunteers.

“I took on certain monetary responsibilities and some basic stuff, like organizing and managing, making sure certain things got done,” Turi said.
Dealers sold a lot of art, she said, especially folk art and the usual bric-a-brac. But some large items moved, too. As is often the case with an antiques show, the early bird catches the worm.

“My furniture dealer sold a large, marble-top Victorian dresser, 10 minutes after the doors opened on Friday,” Turi said. “Another sold some chairs and another dealer sold a desk.”
Turi has also been showing at the local antique show since 2003. She and Kathleen Jensen are its veterans, this being Jensen’s 23rd year.

“This show makes money for charities that I like; it’s a great show,” Jensen said, seated beside a display case nestled among larger pieces. “It’s like old home week.”
Jensen said she used to do a dozen shows a year, but now only does the Glen Ridge show. Ordinarily, she is an estate sales provider.

“I’ve been a liquidator of people’s possessions for the last 19 years,” she said.
G.A. Cirillo Antiques of Tewksbury, which is in its fifth year, sold several large items. One was an old Asian rice box. Cirillo said it was purchased in a Hong Kong antique shop.

The other was a pine desk from the Catskills. The rice box, however, came with a book, illustrated with colored lithographs, on rice farming.
“It was a beautiful little book,” he said.