Armacost Antiques Shows Announces "Brighten Your Home with Antiques" Contest Show producer Armacost Antiques Shows announces a new contest, “Brighten Your Home with Antiques.” One winner will be chosen.
Washington, DC -- Washington, DC-based antiques show producer Armacost Antiques Shows today announced a new contest, “Brighten Your Home with Antiques.”
Anyone may enter the contest by posting a comment on the firm’s blog at AntiquesShows.blogspot.com before 12 midnight ET on July 1, 2009. One winner will be chosen at random to receive a mid-19th Century English candlestick made of hammered brass (properly called a “chamber stick” by collectors). The number of times an individual may enter is unlimited and no purchase is necessary. The winner will be announced July 4 on the firm’s blog and elsewhere.
“Our contest celebrates the fact that antiques are an affordable and earth-friendly way to add brilliance to any home,” says Bob James, president, Armacost Antiques Shows.
In recent months, recession-driven price-cuts have put antiques dealers’ inventories within reach of even moderate earners. “We chose this time to offer the contest, because young couples who want to brighten their homes with antiques have an unusual buying opportunity, thanks to the bargains that prevail,” James says.
“Antiques are for everyone, not just the rich,” says Dave Krashes, director of the Princeton, MA-based organization Every Collector Add a Collector. “Lots of great antique chests, tables and chairs are being sold today for under $1,000, affordable to young people furnishing a home. And innumerable pieces are available in the $500 range that can be displayed in homes as objects of art—small carved and painted wooden figures, pottery, candlesticks, clocks, quilts, samplers, boxes and baskets.”
The recent experience of two young artists, Peter Wilson and Olivia Hendricks, exemplifies the bargains to be had.
The couple decided they wanted a bureau for their home in Brooklyn, NY. They visited a few upscale furniture stores, but found the prices beyond their means. Prices were more modest in the second-hand stores they next visited, but the pieces available were uniformly flimsy. Sensing the couple’s dissatisfaction, the owner of one store offered unexpected advice: “Try an antiques shop.”
Peter and Olivia looked up a shop specializing in furniture. On display was an $800 bureau that caught their fancy. The dealer explained that the piece had been hand-made in the US around 1850 of a figured wood called “tiger maple.” He further explained that repairs to the bureau’s base accounted for its modest price tag. Although they didn’t hinder the piece’s function or appearance, the repairs would turn off most advanced antique collectors, who are usually willing to pay several thousand dollars for a 19th Century American tiger maple bureau. The bureau compared well to the ones the couple had seen in the upscale furniture stores, but was one-third the cost, so they decided to buy it.
By considering them an option, Peter and Olivia discovered that antiques—particularly pieces made after the mid-19th Century—offer an affordable way to decorate a home, creating style and making a statement without breaking the bank.
If that’s not enough, there’s also the well-known “investment quality” of antiques. Unlike new home furnishings, which lose most of their worth
