Review of Cameron, NC's Antiques District

by
H. Kent Craig
©1999




Cameron, North Carolina, is an example of a little town that could have, should have, and did.


It could have stayed a dried-up forgotten blip of a backwater town on a long-faded road map, but it didn't. At a great location halfway between Sanford and Southern Pines slash Pinehurst, with its polite and sincere and honest feel-good charm it should have become something extraordinary. And the good news, fellow antique buffs, is that it did.


As much as my wife and I have scouted the small towns and rural areas of N.C. for special antique shoppes over the years, we managed to somehow not stumble onto Cameron until a couple of years ago, when a local TV reporter (Don Ross on Channel 11) did a bit about it. Since finding it, we've fallen in love with the place, become big boosters of it, and not just for it's Southern genteel charm. We love it because of the quality of antiques selections offered, at fair prices, with shops run by knowledgeable and friendly proprietors.


Twenty years ago more or less, Cameron, the former "Dewberry Capitol Of The World" and semi-resort town, had dried up and was all but ready to blow away into the dustbin of North Carolina history, much like Aversboro had decades earlier. But something remarkably unspectacular happened.


Someone, we're not sure who or which shop (if anyone reading this has a more official history of Cameron, please send it to us as plaintext in email, and we'll gladly post here at our website, thanks!), opened a lonely, single antique shop. It must have done enough business to stay open, because at a time sometime afterwards, another shop opened up. Then another, then another, then another, on and on, until it's more or less static base of around twenty shops or so within proverbial spittin' distance of each other in the old downtown business district eventually opened up.


If Mark Twain was right and golf is a good walk spoiled, then doing the "Cameron stroll" is your daily constitutional enhanced, enhanced by being surrounded by a historical building canyon of antiques. Usually parking at the bottom of the hill (everything described will become clear once actually there), our routine consists of hitting all the shops on the right-side of the main street first until we get to the top of the hill, then crossing the street and hitting the shops on the left-hand-side as we walk back down the hill to our vehicle. From there, we drive back up to the top of the hill, and do the pull-and-scoot routine of hitting the rest of the shops by driving to them, since they are far enough apart from there on back out to the highway to make the extra walking on my poor old arthritic hips and ankles etc. a bit too much to handle for one day.


Driving south on US 1 from Sanford, the first exit at a caution-lighted intersection to Cameron will bring you around to the bottom of the hill as you cross the old railroad tracks. Driving north on US 1 from Southern Pines, the first old-fashioned narrow-lane "cloverleaf" will bring you into Cameron in the area of town which has a lot of private homes as well as homes converted into antique shops. Always look for small, subtle, tastefully done signs in the yards and on the front porches of what appear to be private homes that indicate they're actually antique shops instead. You'll miss many interesting shops if you don't take your time and look for these signs.


Once at the beginning of the old downtown such as it is area proper, shops will be closer together and more easily identifiable as such. I'm trying to be very careful not to mention or accidentally recommend any by name, since they all have similar inventories at similar fair market price points and all are a part of a greater gestalt organic happening. Some shops are larger square-foot-wise and some do have, say for example, more antique furniture because they have more display area to show it off, or because the owner simply likes antique furniture, but every single shop is worth your time at least cursorily wandering through, promise.


Prices tend to be precisely at market to a hair cheaper. But don't be afraid to haggle! The proprietors of all the shops at Cameron are professional dealers, not professional prima donnas, are as eager to make a sale as you are to find a good deal. Being fellow sardines in the same pleasant antiqueville can, they all know each other, know each other's prices and inventories, and the friendly but real competition keeps prices where they should be.


The inventory ratios in most shops tend to run around 80%/15%/5% for antiques/collectibles/new stuff.


Forgeries and fakes are not a problem in Cameron. What very few reproductions you'll find are clearly labeled and more importantly priced as such.


All in all, you'll find visiting Cameron and its respective collection of antiques shops a very relaxing and enjoyable trip. If Cameron's so great, then why did I give it a "B" rating as opposed to a slightly higher "A" one? Because, while I have bought a number of items from the different shops, bargains are simply harder to find that at "A" places. If you don't mind paying a true street market price, and again don't be afraid to attempt to haggle price on a given item on principle if nothing else, then the prices on most stuff at Cameron will seem very fair to you, because they are. But, if you're like me and anything less than a steal doesn't seem like much of a deal, then the price paradigms at Cameron might seem a tad high to you. Keep in mind we're talking single to low double digit splithairs, small increments of price and value, not magnitudes.


There is one tea room, one sandwich shop, and one espresso bar located inside different shops in Cameron (and I think the the convenience store at the bottom of the hill might sell hotdogs and such, too), but I'll leave it up to you to discover where they are, that's part of the fun. If you want barbecue or a steak or seafood larger meal, you'll have to drive to Sanford or Pinehurst to find a more formal restaurant that serves same, but there's enough nourishment replenishment stations in town where you won't starve to death on your day trip to Cameron, Smile. Happy antiquing!


Footnote addendum ~ On August 8th, 2004, Kevin Wall sent me the following email message that's very interesting about the history of Cameron: "Isabelle Thomas, who owns Miss Belle's Tea Room, started the Antique shop(Greenwood Inn) and put Cameron back on the map."



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