Antiquing at Brimfield Outdoor Antiques Show, With Rajiv Surendra | Antiquing Across America

[Music] hi I'm reev and today I am doing the thing that is my favorite thing to do and this is the place that I've wanted to come to for over 20 years the Brimfield outdoor antique show it's 65th anniversary today oh all good things there there the city that was on [Music] brand I'm here with Kate Coro who is the co-owner of Brimfield auction Acres where the Brimfield show has been taking place since 1959 1959 so this is the 65th anniversary anniversary this is the biggest all outdoor antique show in the country and I've been hearing about this show since I was a teenager it is kind of the destination for people that love doing this that love looking for treasure you will find stuff that you're interested right right and stuff you weren't looking for that you must have how did this start so um actually in the barn here the owner Gordon Reed uh he was an auctioner by trade okay and he envisioned his field becoming the greatest outdoor antique show Under the Sun kind of stole the name from uh barnab and Bailey and was going to go with that and in his lifetime not only did it come to fruition but he had a 2-year waiting list like 700 dealers on this field it's about 30 Acres or so and then the field next to them said you don't have to wait we'll do one and then the next field and next field and that's what makes it so amazing it's not just auction acers but it's made up of about 20 other individual shows individual fields that are open all week [Music] long the vendors alone are about 3,000 or more and then the Shoppers that are coming in different days and what have you the estimates have been been about 50,000 people wow I know in the late 50s early 60s there was this real Revival and appreciation for for genuine early American antiques that was like one of those eras where stuff started to be recognized for its cultural historic value the prices of things skyrocketed early American Furniture in its original paint and there have been these sort of dips between it being in Vogue and and then young people not really knowing what it is I feel like we're we're at another place right now where young people are they really weren't familiar with the stuff that their parents maybe put in their homes and now they're intrigued yes what would you say to young people that are intrigued by antiques but have no idea how to enter into this world oh that's such a great question I think the the most thing is for so for them to come and have fun right now um as you are I'm sure you're well aware that vintage clothing is all the raage we have and all and the fields do have a lot of vintage throughout the whole show yeah um and so they can start there and then as they walk through these other booths they'll just start to appreciate these things of beauty that you won't see in a box store or and you can hold them and touch them and then you'll leave with something something that you found at Brimfield and that's always someone's notm Mark uh they love to say I got this at Brimfield and uh they'll just gradually be educated on some beautiful things and and find something in their price range if they're a small family you know young family starting out or if they're now trying to build their nest and and just add really interesting pieces to the house yeah that's wonderful advice it is a huge honor like I I just can't believe I'm actually here and I am so looking forward to looking for [Music] stuff so I got to get going to look at Treasure but before I do I want to give you some tips about what to do if you're coming to something like this come prepared wear good shoes wear a hat I have a hat in here preferably a big hat bring a little rain coat if it's going to rain but this this is kind of the thing that I prep before I come here bring a bag that you can put over your shoulder in your bag you should have another bag then and I have like a bag that that is big like it looks small but it fits a lot of stuff cuz at the end of the day I do Envision walking around like this and walking around like this hopefully if things go good and maybe some things will be shipped back to New York in a truck who knows the second thing sunscreen bring some sunscreen sunglasses get a water bottle bring a water bottle I have a measuring tape I always bring a measuring tape with me this is actually connected to the next thing that I bring with me which is actually in my head a small list of things that I'm actually looking for now at a huge show like this I'm going to find so many things that I didn't expect to want or like that's that's kind of fun but those few items in my head like I'll tell you what they are right now I need a wicker basket I need a wicker laundry basket cuz the one I have at home which is from like 1910 it is all breaking and falling apart I would like to replace that I need a harp stool I now have a traveling harp and I I need a stool that's the right height so I actually measured and the stool needs to be 18 in high so that's what this is for uh there was one more thing that I need I need something to hold my paint brushes and I would IDE really like to find something that's old or or vintage so those are the three things that I have in my head and now just get to [Music] work so one of the things that I love to do when I'm at a show like this is actually look at tools almost everybody ends up at some point needing a hammer and what most people do is they go out to their nearest hardware store and they buy a hammer and it is an ugly ubiquitous Hammer made by someone who is making 10,000 hammers who doesn't care anything about hammers what I say is use this opportunity to either replace the hammer you have at home or if you don't have a hammer buy it here look at this box of hammers over here look at how beautiful these are this this is a beautiful tool that you will have in your toolbox and it's so much nicer than something that you buy when you're in a rush cuz you need hammer and you just run out of the house to go get a Hammer Hammer screwdrivers wrenches balls all that kind of stuff you can find at a place like this sometimes I get asked like how do you know how to do this and that's often a very hard question for me to answer but specifically I have a an example here so I've been painting signs and I've been painting signs that look like old signs and one of the ways that over the years you learn about things is by actually looking at original Source material now this is not always easy to find but for me when I'm painting a new sign I think about how they would have done it in the 1800s or in the early 1900s and I think back to the times when I've actually seen genuinely painted signs from that era and right here we have an example of signs that are not behind glass that are not in a museum that are not hung up on a wall or or inaccessible but where I could actually get right down to them and look at them up close and I could actually analyze like the brush strokes and to see that this was done in one color and then outlined in another color and the great thing about this is you can you can pick the stuff up and you can actually not only look at the front but you can look at the back and you're informed to how a sign was actually built and put together and this will go in here and it will really help me for the next time that I'm painting a sign this is not just about buying things this is also about seeing wonderful old things and learning and then often also to talk to the dealers who are experts in in in this genre like I could go up to him and talk about old signs and I'd probably learn a bunch of stuff that I didn't know I love old baskets uh woven baskets wicker splint baskets like this these were the sorts of things that were used in the place of cardboard or plastic in the 19th century or early 1900s was common to carry things around in baskets and I just I always think that these things are so beautifully made you'll you'll find baskets in all different shapes and sizes and you can easily clean these up you can turn this from looking like this by just washing it with Murphy's Oil Soap and oil oiling it with a mix of Lin oil and turpentine and you can make it look like this another little tip like when you're when you're shopping for stuff like this and you're outside um smell the things like open them up and smell what it's like inside cuz you're going to take this home and often when you're inside at home sometimes you discover a smell and you're like oh I didn't notice the smell when I was looking at it outside so that's a that's a little tip and I always do that not just not just with a basket but especially with any kind of textile um anything that can absorb a smell this is a brass candle holder and it has this so you put the candle in here and as it burns down to the stub you could raise it up so that you get right to the very end another thing that I pack in this bag are some kind of wet wipes touching things all day and I don't want to be afraid of having to really get my hands into a pile of rusty iron tools to find that perfect thing which I have done many times and at the end of that my hands are covered in Rust and then you're like now what do I do you can't handle someone's beautiful linen textiles with Rusty hands so you see you're talking to a very seasoned [Music] Pro so this this is an old level look at how like it's it's broken but it has its little shaft there with the liquid in it and what I look at what I what I think of when I look at something like this is compare this to a level today a level today is not a beautiful thing and look at this level they didn't have to put all this filigree work in here but they did they made a conscious effort to take something that was a completely utilitarian tool and make it beautiful and when it's sitting off to the side like it's a beautiful thing and what I always ask is what happened what happened where did we go wrong how much do you want for this everything at a table is all the same price okay it's all 10 each 3 for 25 wow I'll take this please wrap it for you thank you so the great thing is that you don't really have to bring like bubble wrap no paper because usually dealers that are selling things that are fragile they'll have newspaper and they'll wrap it for you I have to ask you aren't buying it for a dog are you no okay that would be that would be cruel unusual I have one at home that says dog and these are made in Roseville Ohio yes and they made I knew that they made both the dog and the kitty but I've never seen a kitty there's something that's so cute about it and it's actually stamped on the bottom yes exactly this is made by the Robinson rans bottom company which is a which is a pottery that goes back to the early 1800s in Roseville Ohio and the cat one says Kitty which is so adorable thank you thank you very [Music] much doorknob antique doorknob so in my my apartment is from 1923 but when I moved in all the door knobs on the old doors had been replaced with ugly fake brass they're Hollow lifeless so I gradually went around from door to door in my apartment and replaced all the new door knobs with old door knobs and I have to say that this is something that a lot of people don't think about a doorknob is something you touch multiple times a day every single day and it's you might think it's just a doorknob but changing doorknobs to beautiful versions and versions that are substantial that feel good when you're holding them that is a tiny tiny tiny minuscule moment of every day in your life where you're adding value to a a seemingly ubiquitous ordinary moment that otherwise is meaningless but you do this you take the effort to find a beautiful old doorknob and to actually put this into a a door in your home and it's life-changing like this is so nice it's glass and there's a little rosette detail the back of it has been silvered so it creates a kind of mirrored effect [Music] here is an Ironstone coffee pot with a lid it's an excellent condition it looks like it has never been used so what I always do when I'm looking at a coffee pot or a teapot is I look on the inside it's so clean and I can just tell cuz I've looked at this so much that that hasn't been used usually there's chips along here or here nothing is chipped there and this is the place that's really really prone to chipping the very edge of the spout cuz it's so thin and it it bangs up against things and these are always chipped here and this one is not chipped and this was made by one of my favorite Ironstone makers T and R boot b o o t there's the stamp right there and this pot is a great price at $35 so here's the thing when you're looking for something specific there are booths at shows like this where they just specialize in Iron Stone where almost everything in the booth would be Iron Stone but if you go to a booth like that you're often going to pay for the curated aspect of of just that Booth whereas if you're looking around you might come into a booth like this where there's all kinds of different things and you might find something that's potential for a curated Booth but it's a great price and it's beautiful so this is coming home to New York Iron Stone someone has a problem with iron St to buy [Music] it sometimes like at the end of the day or you need to move from one place to the other I do my Bat Out of Hell walk just oh I see something oh my God look at this is this Stafford sh no it's Tali oh it's nice it is nice the time for leisure is over now it's now it's like serious work time so you're here with me but I can't talk to you very much cuz I need to scout I need to make sure I'm not missing any key things before we go home Stafford here and how much is he did you take 60 for both two for 60 have a 65 okay okay done so the thing about Stafford Che and this is what you need to know there's a lot of fake Stafford Che that isn't actually 19th century stuff that was made in the ' 50s and then in the 80s overseas I need a wicker basket for my laundry still need to find a wicker basket something you like over here tell me how much you want to pay you have any wicker baskets wicker laundry you got to come earlier in the day damn did you sell them you got to come earlier in the day we got the good stuff oh no Iron Stone so this is exactly what I was talking about this booth has a lot of iron Stone so they specialize in Iron Stone let's go look [Music] I'm overwhelmed is this your stuff I love Iron Stone we were supposed to rush out and I was like I just have to scan and now there's going to be a bit of a [Music] problem Oh Lordy okay I am genuinely overwhelmed this is the magic of coming to a show like this you don't know what you're going to find and I just stumbled at the very end into a booth that specializes in Iron Stone which I've been collecting thing since I was a teenager store buying one piece here and there putting it under my bed and dreaming of the time that I had my own apartment when I could fill it with Iron Stone which I now have so I am finding things here shapes that I've never even seen before and that's that's the thrill and the stuff is priced like incredibly well look at these punch cups like beautiful in mint condition Iron Stone and it they $10 those are going to come home so Ironstone was made in England for the export Market it was made in England out of a very durable material to be sent to America and the colonies for use in rural areas where it could be purchased inexpensively and it wouldn't break easily it wasn't very delicate that's why it's called an iron Stone so I just find that the the Simplicity of this stuff is what makes it beautiful simple white color but the forms are so elegant designed okay I'm going to do some shopping you can just [Music] watch this is the sort of place where everything's like all these chairs don't have seats on them uh but you know like I'm looking for harp stool I know in my head I'm probably going to have to have it reupholstered so I'm not looking for something that's finished and beautiful uh what I'm looking for is the frame I'm looking for the actual wooden part of the stool cuz I will take it to my upholsterer and they'll make a seat for it I have done some caning before this is a chair all these holes are the holes that are there for caning this chair would have originally been caned that's why like when you're walking around don't dismiss stuff as uh junk because it's not in its final State these chairs are 10 bucks I see some yellow wear oh yellow wear h i I just love this stuff this is yellowware pottery made in Ohio mid 1800s all the way up until the 1920s and 30s it's iconically American and I just think the shape of these bowls are so classically beautiful look at this nice little plate a these are not common I I never see these and the first time I saw one of these yellow wear pie plates uh it was 50 bucks and I bought it and I'm curious to know how much this is so I'm going to set this aside and I'm this is going in my maybe take-home pile look at this little look at this nice little bowl you see like that right there that was a that was like a an error in the manufacturing and then it and then the person making it or the supervisor or whatever was like good enough move on the the striping wasn't right it's fine move on makes the ne make the next pole and then this went through the glazing process it went through the firing process but I I actually love this because of this because of the boo boo you know now this is when this sort of thing becomes a problem it's a very good thing I have a storage locker well that was an exciting day at Brimfield which is now coming to an end everyone is going home what did we learn well we learned that people people pack up and head out pretty early because the dealers actually set up before the sun has risen they start packing up mid afternoon so if you want a deal come later wait till they're starting to pack up and then start looking around if you don't really care what you're looking at but if you're looking for specific things a tip is to come early often these fields open at Sunrise so come really early and and be part of the crowd rushing in in the morning what else have we learned we learned that cash is really what you should be bringing with you because a lot of the dealers only take cash a lot of them have uh technology set up to take a card but the reception is shoddy so they're waiting they're trying to get reception and then sometimes it just doesn't work a second good option After Cash is bringing a check a lot of dealers will take a check and the third tip that we can give you is prepare for all kinds of weather if it's rainy it might actually work in your favor because you might get a better deal if there there aren't a lot of people here because it's rainy but if it's hot and sunny like today wear layers cuz in the morning it's kind of chilly and then throughout the day it started to get hotter and hotter and icid to taking those layers off baby well that's all there is there is no more thank you for coming along for my very first trip to Brimfield which has been a wonderful experience I've wanted to do this for a long long long time I'm glad that that it has now been documented and that you got to see how it all played out so from my staff for your sheep and me I wish you farewell there will be information in the description of this video that will fill you in on all the specifics about Brimfield thank you for watching goodbye than there she goes there she goes again buying all the Stafford she

Channel: HGTV Handmade

Views: 106,338

Keywords: hgtv, handmade, rajiv surendra, antiquing across america, largest antique shows, brimfield antiques show, antiquing videos, thrifting videos, thrifting haul

Id: pHz-sZn9WwY

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 24 2024