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Page
4
THE
MAY 2011
BRIMFIELD
ANTIQUES FAIR
By Carlton
Hendricks
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16
pages - 16,521 words - 33
photo pages |
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1000
BRIMFIELD PHOTOS
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c1880
40" BASEBALL BAT ADVERTISING DISPLAY
Found
at Brimfield Acres North on Tuesday |
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BRIMFIELD
ACRES NORTH TO THE RESCUE
The
Brimfield
Acres North field was better. Right as I got in I found a piece that was
right on the bubble....I couldn't decide if I wanted it or not. It
was a large 1880ish baseball bat about 40" which appeared to
have been an advertising display that would have hung from the
ceiling in a sporting goods or hardware store...It was so close to being something great...If it would
have just had some message in gold leaf lettering to positively I.D. it as an advertising piece, or maybe if it had been a little
larger. Of course if it would have had gold lettering it would
have been priced somewhere between $5,000.00 and $50,000.00
instead of the $575.00 or so he was  asking. As it stood it had a
great early 19th century patina. It had two holes on one side for
mounting hooks or what ever, that basically proved it had hung
from a ceiling. But without a message of some kind I had to
envision how it would look hanging from the ceiling in my
collection...would it come thru, would it look
dynamite with lots of character?....As I recall the dealer was
originally asking $675.00 and came down to about $575.00....After
some low balls and a lot of himming and hawing I think I finally offered $475 and he
wouldn't budge so I walked.
Later
that afternoon I happened to bump into Ed Turner on right and Dan Hauser
on left with bat, who are co-authors along
with John Gennantonio of the book "Antique Sports
Uniforms and Equipment - Baseball Football Basketball". 
Although I've featured their book on
my site I'd never met them in person. I had no idea who they were
when I struck up a conversation with Ed at a booth because he had a
vintage tennis racquet sticking out of his knapsack and we ended
up introducing ourselves....So while we were all talking, Dan
disappeared as Ed and I chatted....The next thing I knew Dan
reappeared with "The Bat"....Turned out Dan, like me had
been considering it and went back and pulled the trigger.
Congratulations Dan, good call! It was a pleasure to finally meet
them both in person.
| A
few sports antiques seen in Brimfield Acres North field |
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Porcelain
football boy
by
Huebach |
1917
12" tall Copper
baseball
trophy $1,800.00 |
Very
rare porcelain baseball player by
Shaffer Vader |
I
saw a very nice 1917 copper baseball trophy with crossed bats on
the front. Great size and condition priced at $1,800.00. Which was
sort of top dollar but worth it...It just wasn't in the gotta have
it level for me at that price. The
one oasis at Brimfield Acres North was the booth of
Doug McElwain's of Sport and Spool
Antiques...Doug had the best
booth I saw all week. His booth always
looks like a Polo Ralph Lauren store. I didn't find anything that
hit the gotta have it level, but there was a heavy crew neck
college sweater with NYU on the chest that caught my eye...I think
Doug was asking like $375.00 without the arm wrestling. I was so
fatigued from walking all day my brain was fuzzy and I passed and
left still thinking about it....I called my buddy John Gennantonio
since I owed him a show report anyway...I asked his opinion and he
advised I get it...So I headed back to get it and ran into Doug
walking toward me...I sold the sweater Doug said, even before I
mentioned it...Oh great I said...ARGH!!....Doug said someone
affiliated with J.Crew had bought it...As a prop no doubt.
Another
piece that had my attention at Brimfield Acres North was something
I start laughing about when I think about it....A c1910 35" x
24" ping pong painting....yes you heard me, ping pong....I
know....but it was very cool..It was a scene of sophisticates in
formal wear watching a ping pong game....talk about
different...maybe I should have pulled the trigger, it was that
good. I'm pretty sure it was an illustration for a magazine at the
turn of the century and I seriously doubt there's another on the
planet. Priced firm at $500.00.
WEDNESDAY
The
three main markets for Wednesday were New England Motel at 6AM,
Heart of the Mart at 9AM, Hertan's at Noon. I ran into John Orban at Brimfield Acres
North on Tuesday and he graciously offered to let me buy a
dealer's helper badge for $50.00 to the Heart of the Mart field
where he was setting up the next day Wednesday. Which opened
to the public at 9:00AM...which of
course meant I could get in before the hoards. As bad as
things had been I figured I could use the advantage and handed him
the
fifty. Unfortunately I still didn't find a thing. Somehow I
guess from getting the early pass to Heart of the Mart I completely
forgot about the New England Motel field Wednesday morning and missed
it...Had I been together I could have hit New England at 6:00AM
for an hour or so and still got into Heart of the Mart early...But
I guess my brain batteries were run down from all those incredible
finds Tuesday!
So
thanks to Brimfield Acres North, Tuesday turned out OK. It was fun
I saw some, at least interesting, stuff....So Tuesday morning
bad....Tuesday afternoon not too bad...Wednesday back to bad
again...The whole day was a big huge zero...I put in a lot of leg
power and got nothing for it but exhausted
CONTINUE
TO PAGE 5
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