Category: Stores

Nathan Hale Antique Center – Coventry CT

The Nathan Hale Antique Center was one of our more unique adventures. We had travelled all the way out to Connecticut after getting a lead from an antiques pamphlet having no idea that this particular shop was in an old church. I admit the outside looked pretty run down and we had our doubts but upon wandering the whole perimeter looking for an entrance we found a little shop in the basement selling all sorts of Christmasy things (as it was December) mixed among the antiques. It was small, charming, and sweet, and we were told all of the upstairs was also an antique store if we wanted to wander back outside to the front entrance.

And we were happily surprised by this recycled church! Here there were several stalls with different kinds of antiques, all very well displayed for the most part. It was cozy and warm and everything I hadn’t previously associated with an old church. There was even a few vendors who’d set up on the podium. Obviously, all the pews were gone. I was surprised to see more medieval looking art in a few nooks and corners as well as a lot of country chic type decor. It was all very cozy.

And another great thing about this place was that there was another antique store right across the road and another still just down the street a little ways although that one was closed on that particular day.

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OSA Aquarium Superstore and Services – Seekonk MA

The antique stores we had chosen earlier on in the day were kind of meh so we decided a change it up a little bit and check out another fish store. I’m still looking for places I can buy healthy plants and maybe more for my own freshwater tank. It’d be nice to be able to help support one of these little stores instead of continuing to buy plants online.

When we drove up I noticed their logo was a piece of coral and I wondered if we hadn’t accidentally ended up at another saltwater store. The storefront windows were all blocked with posters, I am sure to keep algae growth down, and DAMN were these some clean tanks! And quite a few of them! Every single one of them was fresh water so I have no idea what the logo was about. There was a pretty sweet collection of larger fish – cichlids, angels, discus, and an adorable catfish that was swimming upside-down for some reason. Everyone looked healthy and they even and some snails and freshwater shrimp! The range of nano fish was also decent. They even had some rainbow fish.

But what really made me smile was a big set of shelves full of various driftwood. You’d think a store with driftwood would have plants but alas no, every tank I noticed with plants had garish plastic ones. Oh well, at least now I know. Otherwise this place looks like a great place for fish or driftwood. They even had a little river tank that kept the fish on the move. It was sweet.

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Town Line Thrift and Consignment Swansea MA

The second antique store we attempted to check out today was actually the first as well. We drove into the wrong side of the parking lot and ended up at some other place that was closed. We then left and after looking at a photo of the place decided that’s not where we were and returned. The other side of the parking lot indeed had a store that was open and it was… interesting.

This place was CRAMPED. Just furniture and random things everywhere. Really reminded me of the junk shops in Maine or just living with a hoarder! I can’t really blame the guy though. It appears the place is run by one older gentleman who takes in new merchandise almost on the daily all by himself.

As such this place could have had some gems. You just never know. This place had a lot of model cars and an unhealthy amount of likely haunted wall paintings and photos. All mixed among a whole herd of grandfather clocks. I found a really decent birdcage for $75 and a vaguely body sized travelling trunk for $30. And a series of boxes made in the style of Old Timey soap which I still can’t figure out if they were satire or not.

As claustrophobic as this place was I still think it was a good place to check out. I didn’t go home with anything but the guy working the shop said the inventory was always changing so who knows. Might be a fun place to re-check if we find ourselves back in the area.

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The Emporium Consignment and Antiques- Swansea MA

Another day, another antique store! On this particular outing we were heading into Swansea MA to see what they had to offer. The Emporium had an impressive sounding name so we decided to start there. This was another one of those places that seemed to have estate sale kind of items. I was hoping maybe something weird for a good price.

When we walked in it was a pretty cramped place. A lot of the usual antiques were spread around – you know the granny dishes and whatnot. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly special until we were near the back of the shop. It’s at that point several items showed us how absolutely random a place like this could be. It started with a dish of soap bars set out like Halloween candy. And a bunch of metal signs someone clearly printed for people with quirky decorating styles. Then we found a Hilary Clinton nutcracker (because why not) and a set of mammie jars half off. I couldn’t guess as to why. I also found a weird clock with an actual face on it for $13. It seemed to be the only moderately reasonable priced thing so far.

But the real fun was in the back room which was currently being guarded by a doll in a little baby bouncer which just looked… well, a bit like a dead baby. Probably shouldn’t put hyper realistic looking dolls in baby furniture. It’s unsettling. Doll was $40. I then found an awesome camping cat carrier – $50. Fun extra finds were a cat bed in the shape of a duck (pelican?) with an open mouth, several shelves worth of hand sanitizer, an old Easter Bunny head ($25) and a bag of Depends (which I guess you might need if you saw that Easter bunny coming at you.)

Honestly don’t know if this store was overpriced or just in a town that has high price values on things but either way I went home not terribly impressed. If you happen to be in the area doing other things by all means give it a good poke – you never know what you’ll find in a place like this – but I wouldn’t make it a destination.

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Newport Antiques and Treasures – Newport RI

Today was one of those lowkey days that we decided to stay in town and kick about for a bit. On our radar was a little antique store we’d yet to visit – Newport Antiques and Treasures which was a little place tucked away in a very pedestrian friendly part of town.

Upon walking in I thought this place might be swank, and some of it was – a glass peanut jar for $275 sat in a sweet wooden display cabinet – but this place also had a weird assortment of not antiques? Like a plush chicken I knew came from Tractor Supply less than ten years ago (I have two.) And a voodoo doll and then a little corner containing a terrifying partial ventriloquist dummy missing a jaw and legs and possibly hands too. It just gets creepier the more you look at it. And mixed in with those there were clear humor items that you might find in a tourist shop. It was all very quirky. But I liked it. I have a soft spot for shops that have their own personality.

Now this shop isn’t enough to go to Newport for on its own but there are several other antique shops in town Aardvark Antiques was a lot of fun and if you’re a history buff there’s a TON here. In fact we ended up doing a tour of the Touro Synagogue just a hop and skip away earlier that day.

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Max Reefs [Saltwater Fish Store] – Bridgeport CT

I have been trying to set up my own heavily planted freshwater fish tank for a couple months now and it’s going well except I can’t find anyone local with live plants so I decided when we were at the Startford Antique Center that we should check out a fish store when we were in the area. Only problem was my phone was not reading my location correctly so I had to give this duty to my navigator and he had no idea the shop just a mile down the road was a saltwater store. I knew immediately when driving in as it’s called Max Reefs which… well there aren’t any reefs in freshwater are there.

Most saltwater fish stores are tiny, hidden, and only open for three random hours a week. They have far more in common with a speakeasy than a pet store but this place? YIKES. It was by far the biggest saltwater shop I’d ever been in. It was in an old warehouse building so the ceilings were high giving it an even more spacious look. And unlike the other stores I’ve been to the lighting was maxed out and everything was so bright!

I immediately was taken by a fish I’d never seen before – a spotted grouper – and his darling personality as he danced about trying to get my attention. There were rows and rows of fish here in little holding tanks. This facility looked far more like a distributor than a shop but the variety was crazy! They had fully grown clowns of every kind – even a pair of lightning maroons which just made my jaw drop. GORGEOUS. And all the fish were so healthy! And lively! They also had some really big starfish, some sea urchins, a few different kinds of shrimp, and an unfathomable array of corals and coral frags for every price range, both hard and soft.

They were light on supplies but did have a fridge/freezer of various foods and three sizable tubs of live rock (both brown and purple) as well as a pile of dead rock as well. I really delighted in checking out this store and am sorry I was in no position to buy anything (although seriously if I did have a big ass saltwater tank that spotted grouper would have come with me and maybe that pair of lightning maroon clows because MAN where they pretty!) If you live in the area or you’re just looking for variety I highly suggest giving this place a visit – and since some of you have requested I check out more fish stores both fresh and saltwater this won’t be the last blog entry on such places. Happy fish keeping!

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Stratford Antique Center – Stratford CT

Of course, I couldn’t go a week without checking out a different antique mall. This one was a two-hour drive and worth it because it was an unending Byzantine labyrinth of all sorts of oddness. That was 16,500 square feet and 200 dealers worth of strange. Loved every second!

As with any of these adventures the shop soon came out with the theme of the day: animals that should be featured on a meme reading, “You know what a *something* looks like, right?” Whether they were old folk art paintings, weird stylized sculptures, figurines, or random artifacts there was all sorts of bizarrely created animals – each and every one of them looking at least a little bit off. One of which neither one of us could identify read cryptically, “cat.” Sure. That’s what that was.

There was the usual assortment of dolls, clowns, and Old Timey racism but also a number of art pieces and various paintings and wall hangings that could satisfy any decor. There was even one of two babies “sleeping” with a doll that probably didn’t kill them. We spent a few hours picking through the isles, booths, and glass cabinets. It was a really decent spread! All sorts of things! Even a figurine of a black gentlemen dressed in the Victorian era’s finest to offset the other racist garbage. I love to see someone celebrating minorities that did succeed (and just because history has largely made sure that didn’t last and forgotten them doesn’t mean they didn’t exist at all.)

So that’s where I’ll end this blog entry. If you happen to be in the Stratford CT area or are looking for a big place to go picking this seems to be a good bet!

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Mike’s Estate Services – West Warwick RI

After extracting ourselves from Candy’s Curiosities we decided we still had some umph to go explore yet another shop. That’s when my travel companion decided on something I probably wouldn’t have – Mike’s Estate Services. I mean what does that even mean? In the country we have barn sales… you know people who go to estates, buy lots of things from dead people’s homes, and try to resell them in their barn… was Mike’s some sort of city equivalent of this? YES. Yes, it was.

But I’m not knocking it! Because this place was HUGE and it had EVERYTHING. So much luscious furniture in every conceivable style, all old so made to last. And each tag read a whole story about coming in, being priced, and then going down in price every consecutive month they were there. This resulted in some really nice furniture being sold at some damn decent prices! Most that I saw seemed to hover between $600-1,200 but these were ornate antique pieces probably worth a lot more. Should I ever be lucky enough to find myself a homeowner I am coming back here!!

And upstairs there was a bunch of wall art for every decor as well as kitchen supplies, dishes, a healthy dose of probably haunted dolls, brand new looking cloth luggage cases, a few books here and there, lots of orphaned but still very handsome chairs, and even some grandfather clocks and rocking chairs. There was something for everyone here. And if you happen to need something to furnish your new home I HIGHLY suggest this place!

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Candy’s Curiosities & Vintage Oddities – Coventry RI

Candy’s Curiosities was A TRIP. We had NO IDEA what we were walking into and quite frankly I don’t think anyone would. Earlier on that morning my navigator and travel companion had come up with the idea to go to Candy’s to which I giggled, “I hope it’s better than Cookie’s” (which was such a hilariously unnerving experience that it’s gone a little viral this week.) Anyway…

The word oddities could mean anything especially when it is in a shop’s title. That’s more or less bait for weird looky-loos like yours truly. Even better it wasn’t that far away so off we went! It was an easy shop to find but from the outside it looked tiny. I parked in an equally cramped parking lot and skipped inside where we found ourselves deep deep down the rabbit hole.

I’m not going to lie, this shop is not much bigger than a walk-in closet but it was totally worth it! This place is PACKED with weird trinkets, old horror movie memorabilia, vintage Halloween decorations, a Gothic clothing rack, some dubiously strange used books. It was a little bit of everything and every nook was filled which meant that we were stuck like flies on a sticky trap just staring. Under domes there were sculptures made of bones and googly eyes, there were dried chicken and raccoon feet, and some dried toads for good measure. My companion found himself lost in a bucket of vintage humor postcards while I looked through black and white photos of funerals and natural disasters in the area. Eventually I’d find myself wrist deep in a tub of pins and well… I came home with one that was of a conjoined skeleton.

I also brought home a magnet that was an actual casting of a design on a one of the local slate cemetery stone’s – a death’s head (winged skull) which are my favorite! I was DELIGHTED when I got home and found out that it came with a business card from The Gravestone Girls who created it and on the back of that a whole history of the stone the image was taken from. So neat!

The shop owner was friendly too and packaged my new treasures in a laboratory sample bag. What a clever idea! Anyway, I would highly suggest this shop to other fellow freaks, geeks, and goths. It was absolutely goddamn delightful.

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Quaboag Valley Antique Center – Palmer MA

We ended our day of antiquing at the Quaboag Valley Antique Center which is in town… and yes I had to badly parallel park in traffic to be anywhere near it which is always added fun! (Pleeeease stop asking me to do this. I am but a simple country bumpkin with no real use of parallel parking skills.)

This place lacked the great size of the Yankee Flea Market but that’s OK. Everything here was fine, cultured, and well displayed. And for the most part it was the usual things you’d find in a shop like this – pretty baubles, fine china, and of course a basement full of furniture. That’s not to say we didn’t find anything interesting because we did… I found a black ventriloquist dummy which, how fucking weird is that?! I always see haunted dolls as being a white person hobby but OK! Happy to bring others onboard! Actually, Twitter told me the dummy was half of the comedy team Willie Tyler and Lester. Lester was the doll and apparently they showed up on Laugh In at one point. Soooo want to see that…

I also found a canary cage, the kind miners would bring canaries into mines with which was almost as morbid as the decrepit doll pram on the other side of the shop. Whhhy do those always call to me?! Oh! And a little metal stove that was silver! I’ve seen dozens of these things before but they’re always cast iron, never silver colored?! Very cool.

Anyway, if you happen to be in town, are in need of good sturdy furniture, or are checking out other antique places in the area this shop might be worth a looksey.

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