Antiques On The Square News

Happy New Year!

Antiques On The Square had a fabulous 2008, and this year we celebrate our 9th year in business and 5th year at this location. We have great plans and expectations for the coming year.

In November, our great city of Madison, Georgia, and Antiques On The Square were featured in The New York Times. The article was titled Antiques Of The Old South. The newspaper scouted out antiquing in Atlanta and surrounding cities and ended up focusing most of its article on our fabulous little Madison. As you can imagine, we were thrilled with the compliment and the attention that followed. The article and attached slideshow can be viewed below in the November News.

In addition to The New York Times article, Madison drew attention for many events this past year. As usual, the yearly home tours were a great success. The Spring Tour of Homes and the Holiday Tour of Homes brought in thousands of visitors and garnered rave reviews. Madison in December with all the old homes and buildings decorated for the holidays is truly a breathtaking sight. The Holiday Candlelight Home Tours are especially beautiful. If you’ve never been to one of the home tours, please mark your calendar for this year. The Spring Tour is the Madison in May Bicentennial Tour of Homes and is scheduled for May 1-3. The Holiday Tour is the Bicentennial Holiday Tour of Homes and is scheduled for December 3-6.

This past year, other events included festivals, plays in the magnificent 114 year old Madison-Morgan Cultural Center auditorium and numerous concerts throughout the year. One event of note was the annual concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. This incredible holiday concert has been held in the Cultural Center each year for the last 30 years. The auditorium is small by concert standards – so tickets are hard to get and are pure gold!

Madison is celebrating its Bicentennial in 2009. To kick off the year, they just hosted their City of Madison Bicentennial Ball. It was an evening of celebration. Men in tuxedos, ladies in evening gowns, flowers, great food and beverages, fabulous music and dancing made for an absolutely beautiful evening!

The next event to mark on your calendar is the 8th Annual Madison Antiques Show and Sale. It’s scheduled for February 26-28. As usual, it will be held at the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center. There will be a preview party the evening of February 26th. The preview is always great fun – and items can be purchased at the preview. Remember what they say about the early bird… The actual show and sale is February 27-28.

This antiques show is becoming quite well known. The local antiques dealers are not allowed to participate in the show. That might sound bad – but, it really isn’t. By doing that, other fabulous dealers are brought in for the show. The local antiques shops, like Antiques On The Square, stock up with as much new merchandise as possible. The show brings in customers from Georgia and surrounding states for the entire week. It’s one of the best weeks of the year for antiquing customers and shop owners alike.

Did you know Madison is now home to 4 antique malls and 6 antique shops? Not to mention all the other shops and restaurants. You can find out more about Madison and see a calendar of events by visiting their website at www.MadisonGa.org.

This year we plan to focus more attention on our website. We get fabulous local estate furniture and we still shop in Europe for all our beautiful china, art work, books, and accessory pieces. Numerous shipments of items arrive throughout the year. We will be photographing and adding items to the website as quickly as possible. Sometimes items sell immediately - practically as we are unboxing them. But, we will do our best to catalog everything asap.

Our furniture, lamp, and rug selection is constantly changing. If you’re looking for a particular item, or need information about an item on the website, please let us know.

Happy New Year and All The Best In The Coming Year!

Photo Credit: David Walter Banks for The New York Times

See Antiques on the Square in New York Times

Antiques of the Old South
By NICK KAYE
Published: November 28, 2008 - New York Times

ATLANTA wears its catchphrase “the capital of the New South” well because by the standards of Eastern cities it is just that — new. Founded in 1837 as the end of a railroad line, nearly burned off the map during the Civil War and blossoming in the past few decades into a thriving business center, the city has a noticeable lack of history running through its traffic-clogged streets. Still, there is a way to catch a glimpse of the South’s old patina in the gleaming boomtown. All you have to do is go shopping.

Many fans of antiquing already know that Atlanta is fertile ground for both serious collectors and knickknack fanatics. What far fewer realize is that outside the urban island, in a handful of country towns where the feel of the Old South has hardly faded, more excellent shops offer pieces of the past for sale. In a few days of exploring, a shopper can gather some gems, taste unbeatable Southern cooking and stay in charming hotels, first in the city and then beyond.

Start in suburban Chamblee, north of downtown. You’ll pass a seemingly endless stretch of car dealerships before arriving at Antique Row, a cluster of shops from moderately high end to flea-market style.

On a hot, cloudless day in October, a few middle-aged women were examining rows of shiny glass cases at one of the area’s more popular spots, the Atlanta Antique Gallery. From behind a counter, the store’s enthusiastic co-owner, Yvonne Auld, was quick to recommend currently en vogue Victorian-style jewelry, like a cameo brooch set in sterling silver and dating from around 1920 ($835). “If your granny didn’t leave you all the baubles, you can fake it,” she said.

Also on display were pieces of Southern folk art by Howard Finster. A version of his plywood painting of Elvis Presley as a child was $800.

Nearby, past a little brick building with gingerbread accents that houses a store called Georgia Chain Saw, is the hard-to-miss Biggar Antiques, whose front is covered in colorful splashes of vintage signs. Inside, Americana like a Pabst beer bar stand ($125) and an old framed trolley-car ad for Heinz oven-baked beans ($450) shares space with items including oddly pretty porcelain glove molds ($35 for one) and a golden oak nut and bolt cabinet with brass hardware ($2,250).

Closer to downtown, in the trendy neighborhood of Buckhead, there’s good antique hunting on Bennett Street, a quaint little dead-end road lined with a number of upscale antique shops and art galleries. Items for sale in October at the Stalls, a large store with stock from 60 dealers, included an orange and blue snowball-patterned quilt that very likely dates to the 1930s ($325) and a 19th-century French walnut buffet ($4,500).

For sheer choice, many local shoppers patronize the Scott Antique Market, which includes 2,400 booths in two buildings and is held on the second weekend of each month at the Atlanta Expo Centers, not far from the airport. Another big draw is the Lakewood 400 Antiques Market, held the third weekend of the month about 35 miles to the north in Cumming, Ga.

For dining that fits the Southern theme, try the renowned Mary Mac’s Tea Room on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Midtown, where you’ll find everything you could possibly want from a Southern table, including chicken and dumplings, country fried steak, Brunswick stew and sweet potato soufflé.

Once you’ve sufficiently traversed Atlanta, head to the countryside. Drive east over rolling hills for about 50 miles on Interstate 20 and take Exit 101 to Route 278/12. Out there, the urban scenery gives way to wide cotton fields and farmland studded with hay bales.

In tiny Rutledge, whose main intersection is an old oil drum with four stop signs sticking out of its top, head for a shop called the Barn Raising, where Pam Jones sells items like a late 19th-century German doll by Armand Marseille ($225). Also on display are 18th-century furniture reproductions made by her husband, Paul, whom you’ll find next door at an old hardware store. It has been nearly 25 years since the Joneses first took up business here in a row of historic storefronts with facades dotted by flourishes of ironwork shaped like stars and Indian heads.

In 1997, the couple jumped at the chance to buy the hardware store, which had been in continuous operation since the late 1800s, and promptly found themselves amid “layers of history,” Ms. Jones said. One item they discovered while digging through the store was a Cole Boll Weevil Killer — an old piece of farm equipment that used mop-like instruments to cover cotton fields with a mixture of molasses and arsenic. Mrs. Jones thought to call the Smithsonian, and eventually the relic was hauled off to Washington.

For lunch, backtrack west on a road named Hightower Trail to the town of Social Circle. As a historical marker notes, the road is part of what was once the dividing line between Cherokee Indian land to the north and Creek land to the south, and in 1864 a section of General Sherman’s army passed along it after leaving Atlanta smoldering.

The popular Blue Willow Inn, in a mansion in Social Circle, is a top-rated buffet-style restaurant that turns out some of the best Southern cuisine anywhere — perfectly fried chicken, creamed corn, fried green tomatoes and not-to-be-missed cheese and pecan biscuits. And yes, you’ll be eating off plates with the namesake pattern.

About 16 miles farther east lies vibrant, well preserved Madison, incorporated in 1809. The kind of frozen-in-time place where you can’t pass someone without getting a friendly “hello,” it’s often referred to as “the town Sherman refused to burn,” but locals note that the Union army did destroy a cotton gin and commercial buildings. What it left behind, however, are dozens of antebellum houses that have since been restored. One, the grand Heritage Hall on South Main Street, is open for tours and well worth a visit.

The shady town square is still Madison’s center of activity. Locals fill sidewalk cafe tables as traffic slides slowly by, and the hulking Morgan County Courthouse, more than 100 years old, looms at one end. A few blocks away is the James Madison Inn, a new neo-Classical Revival building where the guest rooms and suites are named for the town’s antebellum houses.

Start the shopping at Antiques on the Square, where you’ll find items like a Renaissance-Revival-style American walnut armoire, circa 1870 ($1,795).

Beth Hammond was surveying the shop meticulously on a recent Friday, showing the keen eye of an antiques veteran as she moved up and down the aisles. She had made a detour on her way home to Macon, Ga. from Augusta, Ga.. “My husband loves Flow Blue china, so I had to stop,” she said. Mrs. Hammond, who grew up in the Midwest, said the South made for good antiquing because of its great sense of history and appreciation for old things.

Next door at Attic Treasures, you may be lucky enough to find Charles Stewart, who started the store with his wife, Joann, in 1991, inside smoking his briar pipe. Ask him to show you one of his most prized possessions, a Union cavalry soldier’s diary complete with bloodstains.

“Some people tell me if I charge $1 to get in I could break even,” the white-bearded Mr. Stewart joked, and it’s very likely he’s correct. Sharing space with more typical items like dinnerware and vintage fine and costume jewelry are enough Civil War relics (rusted belt buckles, pistols, swords) and Indian artifacts (arrowheads, beads, an effigy dug from a nearby burial mound) to fill a museum.

Around the corner on West Jefferson Street is another gallery-like shop, Saffold House Antiques, which mainly carries antique furniture, specifically American and mostly from the South. Don Lane, one of the store’s dealers, proudly points shoppers to Southern pieces like a sugar chest ($4,500), circa 1840, which was used to store sugar, and a hunt board ($12,500), a high table with spindly legs that was likely made about 1820 and said to have been designed for easy reach by mounted hunters.

Other worthwhile stops are the large Madison Markets, with 75 dealers, and both locations of the local J & K chain (which also has a clearance center, open only on Saturdays, in Rutledge).

About 20 miles farther east, a few interesting shops are tucked into the small downtown in Greensboro. Fans of jadeite should not miss the Greensboro Antique Mall, where one case, recently marked 40 percent off, held green-glass pieces like an ice bucket ($100) and a finger lamp ($85). Upstairs in the back are the remnants of a manually operated elevator, once used by a funeral home that took up part of the building, and items like a primitive-looking wooden feed bin ($180).

Across the street at Dreamcatchers, you’ll find an eclectic mix of merchandise, including a painting of a saucer-eyed fawn by Evel Knievel ($849) and Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler dolls ($40 and $89). Take a minute to check out the shop’s nearly hidden back garden, full of palm trees and black bamboo. It’s a nice place to linger for a spell, reflect on your trip and think about all the finds you’ll be bringing back home.

WHERE TO SHOP

Chamblee Antique Dealers Association, www.antiquerow.com.

Atlanta Antique Gallery, 3550 Broad Street, Suite A, Chamblee; 770-457-7444; www.atlantaantiquegallery.com.

Biggar Antiques, 5576 Peachtree Road, Chamblee; 770-451-2541; www.biggarantiques.com.

The Stalls, 116 Bennett Street; 404-352-4430; www.thestalls.com.

Scott Antique Market, 3650 Jonesboro Road, 740-569-4112; www.scottantiquemarket.com; admission $5; second weekend each month.

Lakewood 400 Antiques Market, 1321 Atlanta Highway, Cumming, 770-889-3400; www.lakewoodantiques.com; admission $3; held third weekend each month.

Barn Raising, 118 Fairplay Street, Rutledge; 706-557-2956.

Antiques on the Square, 115 South Main Street, Madison; 706-342-3311, www.antiquesonthesquare.com.

Attic Treasures, 121 South Main Street, Madison; 706-342-7197.

Saffold House Antiques, 176 West Jefferson Street, Madison; 706-342-3536.

Madison Markets, 144 Academy Street, Madison; 706-342-8795; www.madisonmarkets.com.

J&K Fleas An’Tiques, 184 South Main Street, Madison; 706-342-3009.

Greensboro Antique Mall; 101 South Main Street, Greensboro; 706-453-9100.

Dreamcatchers Art Antiques and Collectibles, 104 South Main Street, Greensboro; 706-453-4334.

WHERE TO STAY

The Georgian Terrace Hotel, 659 Peachtree Street Northeast, Atlanta; 404-897-1991; www.thegeorgianterrace.com; rooms and suites from $169 to $359 a night.

The James Madison Inn, 260 West Washington Street, Madison; 706-342-7040; www.jamesmadisoninn.com; rooms and suites from $150 to $400 a night.

WHERE TO EAT

Mary Mac’s Tea Room, 224 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta; 404-876-1800.

The Blue Willow Inn, 294 North Cherokee Road, Social Circle; 770-464-2131.

Antiques On The Square specializes in antique china including English Staffordshire china, transfer-printed china, majolica, flow blue, creamware, and pearlware. We also carry a large selection of American Brilliant Period Cut Glass, antique inkwells, antique English collector quality books and Bibles, and antique paintings.

We make frequent trips to Europe in search of unique, rare, and beautiful items. Among our "purely English" items are barley twist candlesticks and lamps, biscuit barrels, trophy cups and shields, and pewter mugs and plates. Our English Staffordshire china selection from the early 1800s is exceptional.

In addition to our fine collection of antique china, we take pride in our ever changing selection of antique Amercian furniture, estate items, rugs, and light fixtures. If you are searching for a special gift that will always be remembered and appreciated, call us.

We will gladly email photographs and help you choose that special perfect item.