Jan and John Maggs Antiques

Conway, Massachusetts

Newsletter -- April 21, 2005

This Month

As the picture above suggests, we've just returned from our annual April buying trip in England. We had planned to post this newsletter last Tuesday, but have spent much of the past week on the phone with FedEx, attempting to get our shipment from Memphis to Conway.. All we can say is that, if the concerns of US Customs, the FDA, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife are any indication, this will be our most interesting shipment so far.

All kidding aside, this week has been one of the most discouraging of our business career. We've spent many hours on the phone, mostly trying to communicate with unseen guardians of the public safety -- people who believe that 18th century horn beakers are a threat to the national wellbeing. As annoying as the process has been, it's terrifying to stop and consider that these folks are entrusted with our safety.

Now that the crisis is behind us, we've continued to speculate on possible reasons for the inordinate delay of such an innocent shipment and to try to recover from the anger and frustration we've felt all week. The result is an imaginary news story describing one one plausible sequence of events. Click the link to read about The Great Horn Beaker Caper.

As we go to press we're busily cleaning, shining, cataloging, and pricing our new stock. Consequently, this month's newsletter contains no New Inventory section. But, we'll have everything ready for viewing in time for our Gala Spring Opening on April 30th and May 1st. More details will be found below.

At the end of our visit to England, after our last stop at our shippers, we drove to Cornwall for the beginning of a four-day sojourn in the South and Southwest of England. This month's newsletter contains a few of the best of the several hundred pictures we took. Click here for a look at springtime in one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

On the recommendation of our friends Bob and Barbara Bettcher, we visited the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, near Chichester. This remarkable collection of historic buildings spans seven centuries, and each has been reconstructed in an appropriate setting on a fifty-acre site in rural West Sussex. Capable staff welcome visitors in many of the buildings, and they appear to take delight in sharing the museum's history and atmosphere . We found our visit richly rewarding, both in terms of scholarship and beauty and recommend it highly. To visit the museum's website, click here.

UPCOMING SHOWS

Our next sales event is our Gala Spring Opening, featuring antiques purchased during our recent buying trip to England. For more information click here.

Just one week after our Spring Opening, we're off to Brimfield. As usual, we'll exhibit at two shows: Dealer's Choice on Tuesday, May 10; and May's Antiques Market on Thursday and Friday, the 12th and 13th. Click the highlighted text above for more information on these shows.

For those of you who still dream of attending Brimfield and would like a bit of guidance, an updated version of our personal recommendations on how to shop Brimfield. is still online. Click here for The Savvy Buyer's Guide to Brimfield.

On the weekend of the 28th and 29th we'll be at one of our favorite shows, Rhinebeck.

To see a complete listing of our show schedule for 2005, click here.

This Month's Feature

This month we offer the eleventh, and the most dramatic of our twelve-part pictorial series on the restoration of our home: RESTORING THE CUPOLA.
 

Tales of the Trade

Have you ever been at an antiques show on the afternoon of the final day and been dismayed by dealers packing their merchandise before the advertised closing time? Years ago we drove seventy-five miles on a Sunday afternoon to visit at a large antiques center. When we arrived around 1:30 we were informed that we had only half an hour to shop, as the shop was closing early "because of the Super Bowl."

This month's Pet Peeves Department tells of two recent incidents in which closing early was the wrong choice.

Links

Click to visit the Jan and John Maggs Antiques website.

Click for directions to our shop.

Click for links to all past issues of this Newsletter.

Click for links to businesses and places of interest, visit our Links Page.

Thanks for taking the time to read our little monthly. As always, we encourage you to e-mail any comments that might make the newsletter more useful to you. Just click the mailbox, or write to jmaggs@jmaggs.com.

And we thank you for being a customer.

John and Jan