Antiques Show takes center stage this weekend

GLEN RIDGE, NJ — The 73rd annual Glen Ridge Antiques Show arrives at the Glen Ridge Congregational Church tomorrow for two days, Friday, Feb. 1, and Saturday, Feb. 2. According to its promoter, Debbie Turi, 34 dealers will be present and, for the first time, talks by some of them are scheduled.
Turi said her work promoting the show began soon after the 72nd annual show ended. She is herself a dealer who promotes shows and has exhibited at the Glen Ridge show for the last 14 years. This is her fifth year promoting it.

“I promote a handful of other shows,” she said recently. “I want to keep the Glen Ridge show in the dealers’ minds. All the shows feed off one another.”

Even on the day of this interview, just a week ago, Turi said she had received a telephone call from a dealer hoping for a booth in the show. They were told there was a waiting list.

“When a dealer falls out, I try to get another one, but someone who is not competing, no overlapping,” she said. “Most dealers are returning from last year. There was very little turnover this year.”

But what is falling out is the use of the word “antique.”
“A lot of shows now call themselves ‘antique and design show’ or ‘art and design show,’” Turi said. True antiques, she said, are being replaced by objects of decorative art which may have been produced as recently as 1980.

“The market is getting broader,” Turi said. “An antique is something over 125 years old now.”
She acknowledged that there is very little on the floor at the 73rd Glen Ridge Antiques Show that is 125 years or older. But notwithstanding the various definitions — a toy from the 1950s is called a “vintage collectable” — when buyer meets seller, there is a potential for a market.
“Art is selling strongly,” Turi said. “Painting for the most part. And American and decorative art, although it’s not really an antique.”
Furniture will be offered by two dealers at the show this weekend, but not furniture of the same period.

An addition to the event are talks by various dealers. Turi will lead a group attending the show on Friday, from booth to booth, beginning at 2 p.m. She was still working on the logistics earlier this week and advises people to inquire at the door about the location of the starting point for the tour.
Proceeds from the show go to the Women’s Association of the Glen Ridge Congregational Church which distributes the funds to various nonprofits.
According to Dorothy Waldt, the show manager and a church member, the association hosts two rummage sales for additional funding to nonprofits. Waldt has managed 10 Glen Ridge antiques shows.

“We have virtually all the dealers from last year and a few new ones,” she said earlier this week in a telephone interview. “Last year was a really beautiful show. A really lovely group of people.”

She anticipates the same this year and has 100 volunteers working on various committees, taking care of everything, including the always well-received menu. Lunch is ala carte. Chicken, lamb or vegetable dinners are offered. And there will be homemade baked goods and wine will be sold for the first time.

“The show is a big gift from the association to the community,” Waldt said.
Turi, who use to exhibit with her now-retired mother, said in the past, young people became involved with antiques through their parents who took them from show to show.

“Your parents dragged you around,” she said. “Most of us become dealers because we love the stuff.”
But now younger people come to shows, and maybe become dealers, Turi said, when they realize IKEA goods are not built to last and they begin to look around for something that has proven it will.

“The whole decorative art thing is where it’s coming from,” she said.
But an appreciation of antiques is not just a result of a kid being shuffled from show to show.
“When I was growing up, we’d take school field trips and find out what weird, little things were,” she said. “History is not taught the same way it was.”
So until people become interested in history, Turi believes a greater appreciation of antiques will not come about.

The 73rd annual Glen Ridge Antiques Show will be held at the Glen Ridge Congregational Church, 195 Ridgewood Road, on Friday, Feb. 1, and Saturday, Feb. 2. Hours: Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. An admission fee is required.

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