Making It to the Show: Shopping Antique Shows vs. Online Shopping

By the mid 1990s, antique malls and shows were already feeling a bit of a pinch, and the rise of online sites ranging from eBay to Ruby Lane certainly didn’t help matters except for a few shops that started combining online sales with the brick and mortar business. There are, however, disadvantages to shopping online, and in some regards those disadvantages have grown even as the sites have grown. The covid years emphasized those problems.

Shopping at 2AM in the attire or lack of attire of your choice does have a certain pleasure of its own, as does the general anonymity of online shopping (not counting all the tracking programs watching your every click). Still, even the introverted among us are social creatures despite some anti-social grumpiness, and the world of antiques, collecting, and living the vintage life has a very social side. That may just be a chance to share your obsession with others who understand even though your family thinks you need serious intervention.

Sometimes, it’s the need for adventure, the quest for the missing part in a set when searching for the meaning of life gets too complicated. Other times, it’s the competition, outbidding someone on that special item or being the first at a show to realize there’s a hidden treasure. It’s always different from the 9-5 side of life.

Those who got into eBay early remember how social it was. We didn’t have video chats, but sellers and shoppers chatted, helped each other, and had extended conversations. You could be in that chosen attire at 2AM and still have a type of social life. Dang it, it was fun, even if not the same as being face to face.

As eBay grew and went “corporate,” they took more and more control of communication until it became impossible (or at least required more creative side trips around the rules and algorithms) to talk without going through eBay. Now, even the payment methods are tightly controlled, and where there were once easy chats, it has now become a trick just to get a buyer to respond when you send a thank you note.

That growing corporate mood gave Etsy an opening, and they made the personal side of their site an advertising point. It just wasn’t the same since Etsy still controlled the look of each storefront and has followed the trend of controlling communication. It almost seems like the push for gray as the dominant style color of the day has grown out of the ever-growing grayness of the internet.

Ah, but something happens when you make it to the show. Every few feet there’s a new booth with a different layout, different items, and a different person right there waiting. Personality may range from garrulous to grumpy, but it’s personality. After so much time at home coping with covid, it can be a bit unnerving, but it’s rarely gray.

Some dealers will introduce themselves with the same joke they’ve used for 20 years, and some won’t introduce themselves at all. Some won’t have a thing that you’re looking for or anything that you didn’t know you wanted but just have to have, and maybe one or two will make you long to take the whole booth home. Instead of keywords and keys, you have to use your eyes, use your hands to touch what you find, actually feel it and see it for yourself in three dimensions.

No, a show is in four dimensions because time is always a factor with opening time and closing time. The game is afoot, and you have to make the whole circuit, see it all, spend time with old friends and new friends, make the find, and do it all before the game is over. Dang it, it’s fun, and it’s worth getting dressed for. So "Come see the show. Come hear the band." I always think there's a band, kid." (Oops, I'm mixing my movie quotes, but come on out, anyway.)