Review of the Wilson, NC, Antiques Area
by
H. Kent Craig
©2000
If you're on your way to Wilson to partake of one of the
Holy Shrines of Eastern-NC-style barbecue located there or
on your way sell your tobacco at one of the many auction
houses there, and there is really is no other reason to
drive all the way to Wilson from anywhere else save seeing
the boyhood neighborhood of News &
Observer
columnist Dennis Rogers, and if you also like antiques,
then definitely stop one of the many good but never great
places in Wilson that sell antiques.
Driving in on East Highway 264, you'll stumble across an
eclectic mix of shops, from converted old school buildings
to standalone commercial structures, and there are more
shops in and around town from pocketshops in commercial
districts to boutiques in private homes. The best way to
find the 15-20 or so shops in Wilson is to: 1) ask dealers
whose shops you stop in to recommend fellow competitors, 2)
look in the local Yellow Pages, and 3) just ride around
Wilson some and see what you stumble across; you never know
what you'll find until you actually do.
Most shops in Wilson offer a good mix of about half true
antiques and half collectibles. Some are more specialized
in antique furniture, especially if they have the floor
space to show suites off, while others are more oriented
towards antique silverware and giftware and similar
less-bulky items.
The one thing you won't find in Wilson is a bargain. All
the dealers are hardened professionals who know exactly
where the market prices are and the tagged prices are
always reflective of such. They also aren't too keen about
being bargained with, either. Unless a single item or group
of items is priced over four figures plus, don't even think
about making a counter-offer, even on principle, even if
it's just twenty-five or ten percent less than the tagged
price, unless you want to waste your breath and often be
shot a disapproving frown in the process.
One might wonder how a small town in the effective middle
of close to nowhere like Wilson accumulates such a
reasonably large grouping of antique shops. The answer is
simply money, old tobbacy' money. The smallest
full-service Merrill Lynch brokerage office in the world is
in Wilson; does that kinda tell you how much old money is
buried in tin cans and offshore annuities in and around
Wilson? Nothing like the presence of a well-heeled
large-land-owning class of feudal gentry to support both a
two-person full-service financial services broker as well
as a random collection of shops selling bits of other
people's past family history and heirlooms to fill out the
gaps for those who lack such.
The universal aggravation of perfectly-hit market pricing
and the reluctance of those setting said prices to bargain
aside, running through a few shops picked by whims still is
worth your time, especially if you're a narrow-focus
collector and are perpetually on the hunt to fill out gaps
in a collection. Antiques aside, making the drive to Wilson
to eat at one of the many barbecue "temples" will be worth
your energy and time in and of itself, your spent energy
being refreshed and renewed by the caloric infusion of one
of the many examples of poached porcine perfection.
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