Category: Stores

Winding River Antiques – Wilton NH

It’d been a long day doing random things around Wilton. First it was failing to hike a trail that was blocked off, then it was visiting a nearby cemetery, then it was getting lost trying to find tiny free libraries and having a lively discussion with a vibrant hippie woman and now… now I was in the center of the town at their absolutely tiny but truly adorable park after having deposited a book in their little free library.

Since I was here anyway I might as well look around. There seemed to be two antique stores, a chocolatier, and a cupcake shop. Today was not really the day for sweets but why not look at the antique stores? My mother peered into the Winding River Antiques window which looked super dark.

“I don’t know if they’re open.”

Someone inside waved her in. See, if you’re going to be all creepy about it you’re going to gain someone’s attention. So we walked in. It was a small antique shop, the sort of thing you’d expect on a main street of a small town. Everything was well organized and displayed. But the two shop keeps… oooh boooy. They were throwing off some fiercely negative vibes. I think they had regretted letting us in. My mother with her doddering social inequities and myself with blazing orange hair drenched in sweat from the heat and looking like death had rolled over. The orange hair throws people. In small towns like this it causes a lot of people, and let’s be honest a lot of old men people, to instantaneously distrust and hate me. It’s fine. I find this sort of hilarious because I am the least likely person to cause an actual fuss.

Still they both watched us until my skin started burning from the searing eye contact. I took a few photos and they acted like I was trying to case the place. When my mother took a few photos herself that was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back because one growled at her to stop taking photos. Like OK dude, was just trying to give you some exposure but if you don’t want that it’s fine by me. I’ll be just as happy to write up how ungrateful you are for customers…

And so we shuffled out without buying (or stealing!) anything. (Not to be bitchy but there wasn’t anything there worth stealing in the first place. It was all very common fare.) My mother was so put off by this experience that we didn’t go into the other antique store which I presume was probably a lot friendlier.

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Riverview Mill Artist Studios – Wilton NH

So I was in Wilton today to revisit the Vale Cemetery but also to check out their many little free libraries that live there. I had decided these would be great receptacles to get my name out there if I donated my own books to them. It was one of those days though – one little library was defunct and the second one I couldn’t find. And somehow as I got lost I ended up behind an old wool mill. There were signs everywhere for “artists” and I… wanted to fall down this rabbit hole to see what it was.

As it turns out there’s a little community of artists and practitioners over there. There’s artist studios, massage parlours, tarot readings. Somehow, I had found the hippies in this town. I knew it. I knew they had to be somewhere providing a delightful counter to the tightwads who made the cemetery so… rule bound and uniform. And were they ever!

I walked in and immediately noticed a few cases full of miniatures. I don’t know what it is about miniatures but the well-done ones can really suck you in. And these were definitely that quality. There was also a few racks of gorgeous hand sewn hippie dresses, a display of glittery resin planchettes and mini spirit boards, and a table full of postcards and of course a rock shop vendor that was the only one I could see that was peopled. The woman at the counter was hilarious. She told us this was her last day until September as she was taking her goods on the road before “spooky season” hit. She lamented she was trying her damdest not to have a “real job” and doing every gig she could find vending but that she had learned her lesson that “some gigs are just not for me.” She described for twenty minutes one such event which was laden with country music that “compared women to trucks.” She just had stories to tell about drunk frat boys, terribly formulaic country music, and Christian fundamentalists who probably thought she was peddling Satan’s goods. And she did have some really nice new agey rocks. Pendants, spheres, polished rocks, natural rocks… and one that looked like a bowl of marbles. OBVIOUSLY I had to come home with the orange marble. And an orange fidget rock. But I left the orange pendent and a much bigger orange rock behind for next time. Most people are attracted to shiny things. I am attracted to orange things. Every. Damn. Time.

While talking to this delightful woman she told us there was actually a lot more here. There were three floors to check out as well as more studios on this floor. She pointed at the miniatures and joked, “I HAVE to show everyone the cat poop. It’s super realistic, absolutely perfect tiny little spiral of cat poop in a perfect little cat box. She does amazing work. Intricate tiny lace with such details! But I can’t get over the cat poop.”

ANYWAY. I did move on and met another lovely artist in a studio full of paintings and little scrap book type things. She’d just moved here from the south and was starting to offer classes on how to make different things. She shared the space with someone else who had some terrific Americana tattoo flash on the wall which I was again very attracted to. It was interesting.

The only other studio open was a jewelry maker at the end who’d been there the longest but I didn’t go in. It just seemed socially odd to wander in (there was a doorbell.) The three floors above… no one was in today. So I got some great exercise and took a photo of their gorgeously utilitarian spiral staircase but that was it for that…

This was a fun distraction. I really enjoyed it but I think you have pretty offbeat to find this sort of adventure worth finding this place. It’s… unique. Perfect for the eccentric.

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Big Chicken Barn Books [and Antiques] – Ellesworth Maine

I was super happy that during this trip to Maine I remembered soemthing on my bucket list and we actually made it. Not only that it seemed catered to exactly what we were looking for – books, and antiques.

I have passed this place so many times but I didn’t recognize it with new siding this time around! It’s starting to look a lot less like a refurbished industrial chicken coop which is what it is. The area was known for being a large producer of chicken eggs for several decades but most have gone out of business since then which has left a smattering of these huge coops just gathering dust and decaying. It’s really refreshing to see someone use it for something else!

And let me tell you this place was huuuuuuuge. The whole bottom was all antiques of every kind and the top was completely dedicated to books and other media. Just thousands upon thousands of them. You could absolutely get lost up there.

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Central Maine Antique Mall – Bangor

After Fort Knox we both felt like the day wasn’t over yet so we set out to find some antique stores. The first one we stopped at was the Central Maine Antique Exchange. We had half an hour before it closed so our visit was abrupt but not bad. This place was sizable but not enormous – a good collection with the usual mix of haunted dolls, inexplicable buckets of doll parts, and of course a light smattering of offensively racist things – I think the winner of that went to a rubber doll named “Chief Wahoo.” It wasn’t all bad though – there was also a HUGE bucket labelled “peanut butter chips” and a lot of nice artwork on the walls. I don’t know if I would really go out of my way to see this place again buuuut I would stop in if you just happen to be in Bangor.

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Watch Hill Merry Go Round and Lighthouse – Westerly Rhode Island

Last week was just so completely random. I have no idea how I ended up at the bougiest corner of Rhode Island staring down the world’s most terrifying carousel while surrounded by ice cream lapping tourists but I’m not complaining…

Truth be told I desperately needed to be somewhere, anywhere, that was so completely and utterly different from my usual surroundings that I could just mentally check out for a while. You know what I mean. You feel it too. Well, I don’t live anywhere near the ocean so that fit the bill but really we went for the carousel and the lighthouse. The rest was just a cheerful bonus.

When I drove up it was definitely hoppin’. People were everywhere packing nearby beaches and perusing the shops and boutiques. It was like… going back in time… you know to the mid 1990’s, before the economy collapsed and people had vacations like this all the time! Parking was just an ever lovin’ joy to figure out as it was all parallel and pretty much full down the whole block. No worries after a 20-minute show with at least one horrified onlooker I was able to technically get the car within the lines. Technically. Then we walked!

This was the most touristy tourist trap I have ever seen in New England. Kids ran about with reckless abandon being ‘watched’ by their dads who were buying ice cream for the whole gaggle while their wives fucked off and enjoyed some sweet sweet alone time in the boutiques. There was even an antique store! Granted it was all nautical, just vaguely antique, and reminded me more of one of those Old Timey Country Stores with what it was selling. Just add some salt water to that country chic and you can picture it. I took some whimsical photos of random hanging trinkets.

And then we made our way to the carousel at the end. It was…. a thing of tremendous terror. Something that shall haunt my nightmares for years to come. Here they were selling tickets to ride the Merry Go Round $1 for the inner ring of horses, $4 for the outer ring and a chance to grab a gold ring to win a free ride. Now as fucking amazing as I find all that truly obsolete Americana I was a little trepidatious for the poor children on this machine who were whipping around that thing at great speeds, so much so the horses were at full tilt, their wee hooves kicking the air towards the onlookers at the sides. It made my heart skip a few beats. And the horses. Oh my God, the horses. I have no words to describe just how blood curdling creepy they were. They are supposed to be America’s longest continuously running Merry Go Round built in 1867 and “mysteriously abandoned” at Watch Hill in 1883 by a travelling carnival which… makes sense for a bunch of ponies that look like they could suck out your soul. I’m told each one of them still has it’s original eyes which is some sort of stone… but really it makes them all look like they have milky white cataracts and combined with their over all grizzled appearance I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the zombie horses of the apocalypse. They look the part. Every time I found one that just had to be the most unnerving another one would pop up behind it that made me gasp even more. Left me in a real pickle to find a favorite.

You may ask, “Did you ride the scary pony death machine?” No, no, I did not. The horses on this carousel are very small, clearly just for children unlike today’s carousels with life-size horses (or steam punk monsters if I remember the one I once saw in Brussels, Belgium right…) And I mean if I were a kid I probably would have loved hanging on for dear life as I spun wildly out of control trying to catch a gold ring as I went by. I mean that’s just good old fashioned family fun. Right? RIGHT?

Well anyway, there was a beach right next to the carousel with plenty of people sunning and swimming and having a grand old time. We decided to shun it in favor of walking up a nearby side street to see the lighthouse which I guess is only open for a short time every year – a short time that didn’t include that day. But it was still technically a park so we went to at least poke at it. This was my companion’s first lighthouse so he was impressed. I was amused by the mansions lining the drive it was on (especially the one with the witch weather vane) but the lighthouse itself was intensely meh for me. Maybe I’m just jaded having gone to so many. Either way it did seem to be a nice fishing spot and a few people were here doing exactly that and enjoying this gorgeous summer day.

All and all it was a nice way to spend an hour or two and the carousel made it 100% worth it because it was just soooo weird. Everything else was just a cherry on the terrifying carousel cake.

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Cambridge Antique Market – Cambridge MA

It was yet another day and yet another antique store. I know we’ve been hitting a lot of those lately but it’s hot outside at this time of year so I tend to run for the shade. This time it was at the Cambridge Antique Market which was 5 whole floors of weirdness.

I wasn’t in the most receptive of moods knowing that Cambridge is basically parking purgatory filled with empty parallel parking spots because there’s signs with super conflicting information wafting above each space confusing the ever-loving shit out of even the locals. You’ll see cars driving around and around the block for hours because there’s also not enough spaces to go around. It’s a nightmare. The antique mall was fortunate in that it had a parking lot but it was tiny, shoved between the building and some fences, big enough for maybe 10-15 cars. The front part was full so I had to go to the even tinier back bit which had parking so tight and bizarrely shaped it’d take me a 300 point turn to eventually get out. But parking drama aside this was another delightful adventure.

We had chosen this local for it’s size. It was in another mill building and sprawled out for five whole floors with who knows how many different vendors, each a new chance to find something crazy or wonderful. We’d been in a car a long time though and I had to pee so I tried to find the bathroom right off and it was… a whole separate adventure. They had an old one stall bathroom that felt like the light should be flickering. The lock on the door was this tiny antiquated dead bolt that barely aligned with the door and I was more than a little amused that they had tried to add a little class by using toilet paper with frills. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was like using a doyly! I washed my hands with their fittingly super fragrant soap and hopped out as quick as I could. This adventure was followed by getting into an elevator that could be the whole set for a horror movie any day.

But all the endearing architecture aside this place was packed full and there was a lot to find. There were the usual assortment of haunted dolls (this time featuring an old lady marionette!) deranged Buddhas, terrifying paper mâché masks, weird novelty postcards showing a woman riding a giant grasshopper, boxes and boxes of instant ancestor photos, cannibalistic looking horses, likely serial killer clowns, a smoking bunny, a boot with Chewbacca’s face on the heel, and sooo many freaky cookie jars! I mean just hundreds of them scattered about like tinker tape. We must have been in there a couple hours – time having completely evaporated.

Yes – this was a win. A really wonderful find and I would completely suggest it to all my eccentric friends.

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Buddha Bob’s – Eastham MA

Our trip to Cape Cod was one of those last-minute things where we really didn’t know what we wanted to do… so we decided to fill up our National Park Passport with stamps. That being said we ended up stopped in traffic in front of Buddha Bob’s only a little down the road from Salt Pond which was our real destination. And this place looked so bizarre that we decided right then and there it needed more investigation.

It was… a trip. WELL worth the detour! I parked in front of a Bigfoot wearing gold chains and that’s where we started. Have you ever been to a little shop that has no idea what it is? This would have been that. It was part rock shop, part lot for eccentric yard and garden ornamentation, part commissioned junk shop. As such we found everything from a pair of bronzed baby booties, to Buddhas of every conceivable size, to LOTS of pretty rocks inside, to a pair of Turkish looking marionettes (perhaps haunted!) to a rather fetching (if totally rusted) statue of Achilles. Fuck knows my Achilles heel is… Achilles himself. That’s how I ended up writing a whimsical satire about his teenage years but I digress.

Buddha Bob’s was an adventure for sure. No one quite knew what would be around each corner and to my great delight the people running the shop were just as unrepentantly weird as the shop itself. This was my kind of place. And my travel companion lucked out by buying two hematite rings for $1.88. I know in previous entries I have been a little dubious about the whole hematite ring thing but I guess it’s not so bad if each replacement is less than a dollar… This was my happiest tourist trap yet. FEEL THE WHIMSY!

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G’s Treasures – Used Furniture & Antiques – Deep River Connecticut

It was one of those days we wanted to go to a familiar haunt so we ended up at Gilette Castle and spent some time enjoying life there before coming home. We had time to spare though and didn’t feel our adventures were quite over so we kept an eye open to antique stores that may be on route and that’s how we ended up at G’s Treasures.

It was a sweet little store right off the street front. I even parallel parked for it! Well… sorta. There were 3 open spaces and just drove in but I’m still counting that because I need a win. ANYWAY, this place was adorable. It was tended to by a young guy who upon reading my companion’s T-shirt “Ninja Turtles don’t do drugs” snickered, “Maybe, but the guy drawing them sure did!” I don’t know if he understood it was supposed to be ironic but I was enjoying his youthfully enthusiastic energy nonetheless.

This shop was well maintained and had everything from antique furniture to a whole double wide case of old wooden duck decoys. Of course, I was immediately drawn to a rum thing(??) that looked like a soulless Pilgrim with no eyes. Touch the dark side, I dare you. There were lots of other scary things in there too – a stuffed duck that could inspire its own horror movie, a mannikin head with a giraffe neck, a cookie jar in the shape of a fat friar and of course more clowns and a single mammie doll that was tucked away in a dark corner all hidden and coy-like.

I sort of feel bad wandering through all these antique stores because I barely have money for gas much less buying anything and usually leave whatever cool things I find behind. A total tease. Today however one of my travel companions had claimed a couple shinies (necklaces) off a jewelry table to satisfy his “magpie brain.” And they were very reasonably priced at ten dollars a pop! So really everyone left happy.

And if you happen to be in the area looking for lunch there’s plenty of options but we went right next door to Deep River Pizza and all got various wraps and grinders which were all goddamn amazing. So well worth it!

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Sturbridge Antiques – Sturbridge Massachusetts

We had initially set out to go to a different antique store somewhat nearby but since none of us were capable of reading opening hours on the internet or the signs on the door we arrived to a completely dead complex. Closed except for weekends. Undeterred we asked the Google Gods and they said we should try Sturbridge Antiques so off we went!

They’re coming for you…

I was happy to find it seemed to be a decently sized building but when we first entered it was a little unnerving. This place seemed swank, maybe just an eensy bit out of all our price ranges. However, this was just the front of the store. There were over 80 dealers here and I must say this place had some of the weirdest most lovably eccentric antiques ever. Obviously, this started with a small alligator skin trunk labelled “doll trunk” that had all sorts of cool compartments. And the dolls… this was THE most doll infested antique store and every one of them was creepier than the last. I was THRILLED. Just two dolls in and we came across these beauties straight out of someone’s deepest nightmares:

I thought there couldn’t be anything more hair raising than those little beasties but I was delighted to find that just around the corner the dolls started getting decidedly more terrifying. Because the only thing creepier than a potentially haunted doll is a basket full of doll heads and a few limbless torsos spread about. There was even a disembodied doll head that had three faces. And if that wasn’t bad enough there were clown dolls and whole circuses to accompany them. They even had monkey dolls attached to what looked like torture devices (which I think probably allowed them to do flips or something.) And this was the first time I ever found a deflated rubber doll! Creepy! Eventually I even found an old cardboard photo depicting a family in a living room with a dastardly doll walking across the floor seemingly on it’s own, no one batting an eye. Meanwhile I found myself once again playing What’s the Most Racist Thing You Can Find with a new participant this week and low and behold the dolls got in on this too as there were mammie dolls spread like confetti through a great number of booths. And this place seemed to keep going and going and going…

I was on a mission to find some marbles because I have been told I need to “start doing the marble thing again” where I take photos of marbles on the trails that I review for this blog and leave them there in the hopes whoever finds them will find a little joy in it. I haven’t done this in ever – mostly because pretty marbles are hard to find! But most antique stores usually do have jars full marbles next to their jars full of mismatched buttons. We did find one big mason jar full for $18. I held out because they were mostly cats eye and I really favor the solid colored ones. Eventually though we came across a stash of “uranium marbles.” What the…? You mean someone thought radioactive marbles were a good idea?? Yes. After a quick consult with my phone I learned that when uranium is mixed with glass it can be used to make marbles that fluoresce under the black light. Intrigued I took a little baggy of them to play with later.

Other fun finds were a porcelain violin that looked like it could actually play, a children’s accordion, TONS of ladies hats (probably more than even dolls!) a glowing radium clock, a mange-addled teddy bear, a cool homemade marble slide that looked like it was 100 years old, a trove of nice fur coats, a goodly smattering of fancy hand mirrors, entirely too many nightmare inducing clowns, and a weirdly lecherous Buddha. By the end of the day we awarded a cast iron piggy bank as being the most racist piece in the shop and we were gleefully taking pictures of it when the woman working the counter burbled we could take as many photos as we wanted. She was really sweet and rang up my marbles after a 20 minute detour to play with what was clearly a haunted ventriloquist dummy. He was $45 and came REALLY close to coming home with me but he had no hands or feet and the mechanism to make his mouth move was busted and I have been having some insane problems with mice lately so I was hesitant to purchase anything I’d have to keep safe as it were. Still…. he was so perfect. Even came with his own little coffin for some reason.

This antique store was super fun. I would definitely go again. My only complaint was that later on when I got home I put my marbles next to a black light and they didn’t glow at all. They were just regular marbles. And I was sad. But maybe another visit for a haunted ventriloquist dummy could solve that…

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Countryside Consignments & Antiques – Hope Rhode Island

After somehow managing to escape alive from cookies shop antiques we decided to move on and see if we couldn’t land something better. And so after a quick consultation with the Google gods we ended up driving to Countryside Consignments. Before we were even there I was yelling at the GPS, “BULLSHIT. There isn’t an antique store .2 miles away, this is a residential neighborhood!” And a nice one at that! But it was true, there in what used to be a house was a swank little antique store filled to the brim with lovely furniture I’ll never be able to afford. All of it finely polished and without a single scratch. You’ll have to take my word for this because still reeling from the trauma that was Cookies I apparently forgot to take any photos of said furniture. Instead only stopping momentarily to dig a giant bucket of fine silverware and yet another creepy Easter bunny.

But anyway… if you happen to be looking for great antique furniture this is the place to go.

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