SEARSPORT, Maine — The coast of Maine is packed with flea markets, antique stores and auction houses, where for decades residents and summer visitors have searched for one-of-a-kind treasures to add to their troves.
But the business is changing quickly, according to the flea market vendors and antique dealers who’ve noticed that younger people nowadays either don’t collect stuff or do so in a sharply different way than their parents and grandparents did. That change has had an effect on the dealers who sell things in Searsport, a small, historic town known for its abundance of antique stores, flea markets and other shops that deal in stuff.
“The market has changed drastically,” David Oakes, the longtime manager at the Searsport Antique Mall, said recently. “Kids don’t want what their parents have. We see people coming in and saying, ‘My kids don’t want it. My grandkids don’t want it. How can I get rid of it?’”
Some in the industry said they first noticed a sharp downward trend during the dark, uncertain days after Sept. 11, 2001. Another decline happened during the Great Recession in 2008. Since then, although the stock market has recovered, the collectibles business seems to have made a permanent change. Among the reasons, Mainers in the industry say, is the fact that the people who used to be the buyers are getting older and trying to downsize.
Additionally, the national trend towards minimalism and decluttering one’s home has arrived in the Pine Tree State. “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” a guide to decluttering by Japanese organization maven Marie Kondo, has spent 86 weeks on the New York Times best-sellers list and remains in the top position this week in the category of advice, how-to and miscellaneous.
“We’ve had to change what we sell,” Cindy Gallant, the owner of the Hobby Horse Flea Market on Route 1 in Searsport, said. “We’ve got to adapt to stay in business. To give the younger generation what they’re looking for, it’s a total shift.”
That can be hard on older folks, many of whom collected with an eye toward the future. Karna Olssen ran the store Old Stuff in Belfast for 14 years and said that her father was an avid collector of things.
“He collected with the idea that it would be his retirement money,” she said. “But fashions change. What was popular 20 years ago is not popular now, and he did not receive what he had expected to receive.”
Changing tastes
Gallant’s own shop at the flea market is a cozy, crowded spot where a curious browser can discover items including beautiful glass paperweights, prehistoric shark’s teeth, Maine blueberry packing labels from 1910, cases of costume jewelry and a wall full of cast-iron cookware. There are also many of the objects she is finding no longer sell, including a wall full of Depression-era glassware that glowed pink in the morning sun.
That glassware used to be a staple of the business, along with dish sets, cookie jars, souvenir spoons, salt cellars, Longaberger baskets and other knick-knacks, but no more, Gallant said.
“Nobody cares,” she said of those types of items.
What does still spark interest in shoppers, she is finding, is cast-iron cookware, chunks of minerals, American Indian artifacts, antique toys, old-fashioned lanterns, fishing poles and sporting equipment.
“I’m not worried at all,” she said of the business. “You just have to find your niche and adapt. There will always be people who stop and shop and bring something home.”
Over at the Searsport Antique Mall, where 70 or so dealers fill about 10,000 square feet of space with all manner of American and European antiques and vintage goods, the most popular items might be very familiar to people who grew up in the second half of the 20th century.
“We’re seeing younger collectors,” Oakes said. “They’re just collecting the stuff we grew up with. The chrome dining room sets, the funky lights, the Pyrex, the CorningWare, the Fiestaware.”
He shakes his head a little at the popularity of some of these things.
“Twenty-four years ago, we wouldn’t have had a Pyrex bowl here,” he said. “I tend to like formal furniture. When I started in this business in the 1980s, that stuff was extremely popular. People wanted the beautiful sideboards.”
No more.
“Brown is down,” Oakes said, referring to the well-made wooden furniture that is perhaps too formal — or too large — for modern tastes. He pointed out a mahogany sideboard he is trying to sell that was made by A.H. Davenport and Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the turn of the 20th century. Just 15 years ago, that sideboard would have sold for $900. Now, it’s priced at $495.
“And it’s just sitting here,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever see the prices be as high as they were. Fortunately, I never collected as an investment. I collected because I loved it.”
Hopeful future
But not all the news is bad, when it comes to antique furniture, according to Phyllis Sommer of Pumpkin Patch Antiques, which has been a mainstay of downtown Searsport for more than 40 years.
“The changing habits and focus of interest has really altered the antique business,” she said. “Our older customers, they’ve finished their collections, their houses are full, they’ve passed away. And a constant conversation among dealers is how we can interest younger people.”
However, in recent years, she’s noticed a positive change in that direction, which she attributes in part to the short lifespan of much of the furniture that is available at big box stores.
“People in their 30s and 40s are experiencing how quickly those things don’t hold together, or hold their value,” Sommer said. “They’ve picked up from relatives and other people that antiques might be a better value. The fact that the furniture has been here for 175 years is a pretty good indicator of its future longevity.”
Now, when Sommer sees younger people coming into her shop, sometimes with their parents, or sometimes newly married, she feels hopeful.
“I think it’s a good sign. I’m not trying to be Pollyanna-ish about this. It’s not a total reversal — but it’s a turn,” she said. “The general reaction I hear from people who come into my shop is thank God. Real antiques. That’s what’s beginning to draw younger people in: that sense of history and human life being encoded in something.”