Chicago was a booming town for the Arts & Crafts Movement. It is filled with historic buildings and the stories of the prolific craftsmen and women of the Period. I have a friend there and I might be able to get a report from her. Would love to visit Chicago myself and explore what is available.
Fred
Fred (Moderator)
http://fredz49.blogspot.com/
Posts: 684 | Location: Tucson, AZ | Registered: 01-19-01
i have been to chicago several times and have done the requiste pilgrimage to oak park. at the time i was focused on the wright legacy and not on the arts and crafts movement in general. im sure that area could cough up a ton of A&C treaasures. it would be nice to have time to scour the small shops.
This show is organized by the folks at the Eastwood Gallery in MN. We attend their St Paul show every September, and they do a great job. We hope to make it to the Chicago venue as we've heard it's worth the trip (from Iowa, anyways...).
I plan on attending the chicago show as well. If not as a dealer then as a collector. I'm on the waiting list as a dealer and in for sure for next year. But it's only 2 hours away from me so i'll attend regardless. Can't wait.
We had a great time at the show today. I'm glad we made the effort to travel and attend. It was nice to be at an antiques event that was exclusively A&C. It was easy to find and the parking was free in the campus garage. The show was quite busy without being crowded, so it was a nice atmosphere. As usual, we overspent our limits we had set beforehand...
Sorry, no pictures, as I forgot to bring the digital camera with me.
All of my purchases ended up being new pottery & tiles actually. Mainly because my money went further that way rather than on antiques. The eye candy was definitely there as far as pottery and furniture antiques were concerned, and was a pleasure to look at (mostly from behind glass cases of course). I was surprised at the nice amount of antique linens/textiles as well in the dealer booths, although I didn't find anything that suited my taste or price range (I'm picky about textile patterns). A smaller amount of metal than I expected (with the exception of the Heinz dealer), and almost no Niloak swirl at all strangely.
There were a couple (ok more than a couple) of small antique furniture pieces that I could have gone home with, but in my opinion the dealers were overpriced (about the same as they are at their home galleries though). I never get why dealers don't understand that a buyer can pay top dollar anywhere. If I wanted to pay $950 for an unmarked Gus taboret, I can do that at any time any where. However the sales were apparently still happening, as I was right behind a $7500 antique furniture purchase at one booth that afterwards didn't seem as enthused about my unexciting $200 vase buy (for a 15" new artist green vase with dragonflies though, so I was content at least).
The biggest surprise (in my opinion) happened at the beginning of the show in the morning actually. A core group of pottery collectors had established themselves at the front of the line to get in first, and then proceeded to rush the Ephraim booth as a mob and grab everything they could get their hands on (people were literally juggling 7-8 vases in their arms). I was unaware that beanie baby collectors were now hooked on art pottery.
But I had a nice time getting to shop in person at Door, Ephraim, C. Powell, & Prairie Art Tiles and talk to the artists and pick up some new pieces (and a couple one of a kind show items too). As I said, the amosphere was definitely busy, without being crowded (as long as you didn't go to Ephraim first thing). I'm sure we'll go again next year, and we are considering the Minneapolis show as well (but higher in travel expense for us).
Great report on the show - though ya gotta bring the camera to these things! Remember, none of the rest of us got to go!
I like your observations of the Ephraim rush. I had been wondering about Ephraim collectors since I get their newsletter that sometimes has photos of people with hundreds of pieces of pottery that is all Ephraim! It seems if they were really into A&C pottery they would have a wide ranging collection from various makers both antique and new. And a collection that was thoughtfully arranged in a simple yet decorative style. Not lighted glass cases that cover living room walls. Beanie baby collectors - ha!
I can't take full credit for the beanie baby collector comparison, as it was actually an observation/comment made by another couple standing next to us.
I too was unaware of the Ephraim collector craze. It explained why the show doors were strictly closed until exactly 9a (which was annoying to have to wait like school children in a line queue outside). What was really strange is that the diehards rushed the Ephraim booth, crowded each other out to grab as many pieces as they could, blocked the booth for everybody else as they waited to pay for their purchases, dropped off their pieces at a side table to be wrapped and bagged up for them to pick up later, and then proceeded to leave the show. Apparently some of the diehard collectors make a habit of just following Ephraim from show to show just for the rare pieces each time. As I was watching this display (from afar), it made me wonder just how many of those pieces will go straight to eBay or were dealer purchases.
Ephraim didn't help the situation much by having their checkout lines situated in front of the display, which then blocked everything. They also had everybody fill out an invoice with full address and itemized listing for each piece, which only made the checkout take much longer. On the plus side Ephraim staff was very engaging and informative when answering questions and gave a free collecting binder to new collectors which was nice.
Ephraim did have 30 or so rare pieces that they deliberately held back for the next day. Supposedly they were going to bring them out at 3pm for a preview display, but were not for sale until the next day. However we needed to be on the road and were not going to be there Sunday anyways, so there wasn't any point to stick around just for that reason really. I'm sure the same diehard collectors were at front of the line before the doors opened on Sunday, to repeat the whole process all over again.
I am not very familar with Ephraim. Is there a website I can look at?
Hey, all you see at the indoor flea markets these days are 100's of beanie babies, just sitting there. I know people that spent a fortune on this investment years ago. They bragged about how much they were worth and what a deal they got. They should have invested in Mutual Funds or real antiques--not a fad.
Sorry, that's the only picture I took from the show. I only took it because it was my booth. Jeremy was not kidding at all about the mad dash to the ephraim booth at 9 am saturday. The doors opened and there were literally people running, grown adults running to the back of the show to that booth! It was crazy. But I guess overall for the 2 days, attendance was down a bit from last year, not much but it was down. I think for the most part all of the dealers did pretty well as far as sales go. Some better than others obviously. It was a very good show with some really nice pieces and I can't wait for the next one.
SWEET set-up jayk has the eye and the passion to hunt some good stuff, based on previous posts, his eBay stuff, and what we see here.
I'm guessing on the S Bros rocker but I think I have the others correct, plus a few unknowns. Being Roycroft the bookrack has a bit of a premium associated with it - I'm guessing jayk had $350-450 on it.
Originally posted by Stonecat: Being Roycroft the bookrack has a bit of a premium associated with it - I'm guessing jayk had $350-450 on it.
I believe he parted with the Roycroft Little Journeys bookstand early, as it was already marked sold by the time we got around to viewing his booth Saturday morning, so I would also be curious on the price.
There were a couple of other booths that also had one (also with included sets of Little Journeys), but the going rate (ironically exactly the same at each dealer as if it was collusion) was always an steep $795. Of course if I wanted to pay that much I could do that on eBay at any time. $350-450 and I would have snapped it up without hesitation (it's one of the items we've been wanting).
One dealer had a Roycroft 3 shelf magazine stand (waist high) which was a neat treat to see (although priced at $7500). I also saw a real nice drop front secretary (unmarked as far as I could tell) that had the neatest gingko shaped metal drawer pulls ($1195 if I recall). We hesitated on a nice unmarked plant stand with spade cutouts ($250) at one booth only to find it sold when we came back to look at it later again before leaving. The closest we came to furniture purchase was a Lakeside Craft Shops plant stand (~15" square with slatted sides and metal corner bands), but it was high priced at $650 and the dealer only came down to $600 and would not budge at all. Hmmm, $600 plant stand or 3-4 pieces of new pottery....guess which won out. There was also a Lakeside Craft Shops vice stand/cellerette at another booth in great condition, but again pricey at $795. Obviously there was much much more, but these were the ones that stand out in my memory. There were the usual Gus and other rare stuff, but so far out of my price range that I don't bother to dwell on them long.
To clarify, I meant 350-450 for the small bookrack that's sitting on the sideboard. I think 800 for the regular Little Journey's stand sounds about right for retail, especially if it has a set of books, not that the books seem to be the valuable part. The price on these hasn't moved too much it seems for several years based on old auction results. If you want a piece of Roycroft folks, this is the one still affordable piece you're going to find - nab one before they get scarce. The small bookrack is probably the second most common Roycroft piece, next to the Little Journey's stand, so it's not priced too crazy but still more than a generic or a LCS equivalent.
I've got a Little Journey's sitting in a pile of pieces that sooner or later I'll get around to working on.
I'll take a wild guess the cane sided magazine stand at the right of the photograph is Limbert (splayed legs and caning being my only clues). Could be Stickley Brothers as well given some of their caned furniture.
