Dunedin this weekend

Well, I don't really want to talk about the Dade City show. Let's just say that someone decided to hold a show and no one came. We were missing vendors (about half of them) and some of the meager traffic consisted of people who happened to be blowing through town and stumbled upon us. I will say it here: this could a hiccup, or it could be the demise of this show, which would be a shame.

Onwards, then, to the Sunshine City show at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg last weekend. Sorry for not writing about it in advance, but I haven't exactly up to snuff - another factor that is making this beginning of the season kind of hard for me. Stock is all priced, sorted, wrapped, packed away and identified, but I am deep in my funk and trying very hard to get up to a semblance of normality.

The Coliseum show was a different one for us because we decided - at the last minute, and it was a good hunch, for us - to share our small booth rental with another dealer. It halved the cost and so we had a jump start on the profits for the weekend - woo hoo! It also meant that, given the space constrictions, Bob and I took turns manning our portion of the booth. Let's hear it for shift work at antique shows! There were several good sales that were bonafide "be backs", where Bob had negotiated the prices with the customers, and they came back to make the purchase while I was working the shift.

Generally speaking, though, there were more people looking than buying. We did bring our premium inventory and as a result our average sale was higher. The lesson for us is: whatever we bring is what people will buy.


This weekend we'll be participating in the Dunedin Antique Show on Saturday, October 16th, after a hiatus of a couple of years. The stars are aligned as Bob has some time to be able to do a couple of shows in a row, and we're trying to take advantage of that while we can. We can always gobble some ibuprofen afterwards to apologize to our backs.


The photos at the top of this post are of 2 of the theatrical robes we picked up at a recent auction. They are sumptuous and old - the silk lining of one of them is very fragile. I believe they date to between 1895 and 1933. We were quite excited to pick them up and they are a great draw for the booth.