Curiosity Shops

On an episode of Antiques Roadshow, a genteel Southern couple from Georgia stood next to an immaculate, hand-carved highboy, identified by the appraiser as the epitome of eighteenth-century Connecticut River Valley carpentry. The appraiser asked his questions and provided the usual historical context—skillfully stretching the suspense to the moment just before a viewer might click away. Then he got to the point: “You had mentioned before that you had, um... you had had it cleaned at some point. When did you do that, may I ask?” 

Uh-oh.

After suggesting that they sit down, the appraiser told the couple that if they hadn’t had the grungy gathering of decades of dust, oil, and dirt meticulously removed from the piece, the highboy would have been worth about $230,000. As it stood (in front of the television lights, sparkling with the care it had received), the piece was worth a paltry $30,000. Collectors with that kind of money, it seems, prefer the authenticity of honest layers of grime. 

It is this sort of ignorance that has novice antique shoppers, flea market pickers, and storage warrior wannabes wringing their hands upon walking into a store that sells old things. Whether the shop is a cozy clutter of worn signs, rusting pre-industrial tools, musty quilts, and rows of creamy milk glass or a high-end purveyor of centuries-old furniture, imported silver, and five-carat jewels, one hardly knows where to start.

Diane Deaton, best known for serving up Baton Rouge’s morning weather, on WAFB channel 9, with as cheerful a demeanor as torrential rain or blistering heat allows, brings her sizable enthusiasm to the picking game. She’s on a first-name basis with antique dealers all over the region, even earning herself her own coffee cup at one shop, which had a pot brewing on the cold winter morning that I requested she show me around two antique stores up Zachary way. 

I followed the petite native Missourian around our first stop as she handled different pieces, testing their weight and finish, assessing her level of desire against the price. We rounded a corner where she admired a blue suede-covered saddle trimmed with rhinestones. She then alternately examined a quilt, a stack of old cookbooks, and a stained-glass window, giving each thoughtful consideration, though not often remarking on value. 

But value is the bottom line and, often, the biggest thrill, isn’t it? It’s what attracts us to the modest rags-to-riches stories played out on Antiques Roadshow, Storage Wars, or American Pickers. And it’s what packed the house on the day that Deaton volunteered at the River Center when Antiques Roadshow visited Baton Rouge in 2013—the prospect of discovering that the trinket you picked up for a song or the piece you inherited from your great aunt is actually a somewhat-to-very valuable piece of history. 

Deaton herself didn’t bring anything to the show for appraisal. “I don’t have anything I don’t already know the value of,” Deaton said, who hasn’t come by this knowledge by instinct or luck. “You do a lot of research with the Internet. Heck, all you have to do is ask your phone, the little Google girl, or Siri, or whatever her name is …” 

True enough. The Internet is full of useful information, not only about fair prices and how to spot reproductions, but also clues about how to be a good antiques shopper by understanding how to be a good antiques dealer. For instance, one article offered cautionary good sense about stores that do not display prices. Either you’ve wandered into a high-end shop with price points designed for those who don’t have to inquire about cost, or prices are negotiable, in which case, as the article asserts, “a man who does business that way is obviously a much better horse trader than you at this point.” 

Deaton wouldn’t dissuade you from doing a little bargaining, however. “They [vendors] expect it,” she confirmed. Value is determined by the market, after all, an economic truism so often ignored by the smack-talking pickers on TV. As Deaton watches these dealers pull out so much junk from boxes, calculating their supposed future earnings, she said her blood pressure rises: “You know, it’s what the market will bear. They can say they’ll get $500, but until you get $500 in cash, that’s worth a big fat zero.”

Deaton knows from experience; she once tried her hand as a dealer, maintaining a small booth at a market in the area. But the business took up a lot of time, and in the end, wasn’t where her true interest lies: in the hunt. She related an excursion to London’s famed Portobello Road one February day: “It was freezing; but it was so Charles Dickens. Overcast skies; cold; snowy. I felt like I was going to see Charles Dickens right around the corner. … I’m trembling, I’m so excited because I’ve always wanted to do this; and sometimes, when I can feel I’m going to get something, I just really almost quake because I know I’m going to find something and I’m just so thrilled about it!” 

What she found was her favorite piece ever: a Victorian cameo that people admire whenever she wears it. “The one that got away” was also a cameo, left at an Italian market because she didn’t want to spend too much money on the first day of her trip. “I know I must have touched it five times,” she said. She still thinks about that cameo to this day. 

As we touched and handled and ogled our way through the contents of two enormous antique markets, with room upon room appearing as in a video game, it was clear that Deaton didn’t have any unusual strategies. Time spent researching and tagging along with those more expert than herself, over the course of many years, has resulted in an accumulation of experience that is, in the end, the only route to expertise. But what is innate to Deaton, and does seem a prerequisite to the enjoyment of antique shopping, is an open-hearted curiosity for both the objects and the people one finds in antique shops. As one old Italian dealer once told her after she had admired some of his most prized heirlooms and listened to the family histories behind them, “Madame, you do not see with empty eyes. You see things for what they are.” 

Where We Shopped

Two antique markets, Antiques at the Crossroads and Four Sisters & Etc., sit within a half-mile of one another at the intersection of Highway 64 (Main Street) and Highway 67 (Plank Road) in Zachary. The storefronts are deceptively unassuming, but what unfolds as you walk into the shops is a labyrinth of items: handmade, re-purposed, antique, and everything in between. Both businesses operate under the dealer-booth model of antique market, displaying the collections of independent dealers who typically specialize in certain items or styles. 

Mike Blackwell, owner of Antiques at the Crossroads, has operated his business independently for four years, though the shop itself has been there longer. The shop’s aesthetic, and the items it carries, are what he calls “country antique.” The store does not carry many high-end items, favoring “quantity over quality,” as he explained. There’s certainly a lot to look at, and the store expanded its holdings to a building next door about a year ago, which also houses the wedding-rentals arm of his business. The store was recently named among 10 of the Most Amazing Antiques Stores in Louisiana by OnlyInYourState.com.

Driving north, just past 5D Western Store and Zachary Feed & Garden Supply, you reach Four Sisters & Etc. antiques, run by Alan and Judy Persick and Judy’s sister May Rovena. From the street, there is no way to discern that the front building leads to a cavernous 23,000-square-foot warehouse filled floor-to-ceiling with collectibles. This store is also stocked by vendors, like Millie McVey, who maintain booths in the shop. McVey’s specialty is primitives, which happens to be Deaton’s favorite style of décor and the initial cause for the pair’s many-years-long friendship. 

Leave at least an entire morning or afternoon to peruse your way through both of these shops … and make sure your smart phone is charged up for those price comparisons.

Antiques at the Crossroads  
20130 Plank Road
Zachary, La. 
(225) 570-2039 • antiquesatthecrossroads.com

Four Sisters & Etc.
21126 Plank Road
Zachary, La.
(225) 570-2339

Events for the Antiquarian Set

• Jackson Assembly Antiques Show and Fair: April 1—3, Jackson, La.

• Covington Heritage Antique Festival: April 16—17

• Hunt Slonem: Antebelleum Pop!: April 22—August 5, Baton Rouge

• Spring Street Fair: April 23—24, Slidell 

• Antique Village Spring Festival: April 30, Denham Springs