Jan and John Maggs Antiques

Conway, Massachusetts

Newsletter -- January 12, 2009

Mid-afternoon on December 20 - so quiet in Pumpkin Hollow that the deer think it's night.

Since last month's newsletter . . . .

An unusually harsh December made our pre-holiday shopping event virtually irrelevant. Although the first of our three projected weekends gave us cause for optimism -- a few shoppers came, and we had the feeling that momentum would grow as the holidays approached -- on the Thursday night preceding weekend number two, freezing rain started to fall as we went to bed, and on Friday morning we woke to forty degree temperatures inside our house. We were without electrical power and would be for the next three and a half days.

In retrospect, we consider ourselves fortunate. Although the outage seemed endless at the time, our little generator, purchased for our aborted Ashfield building project, saved our house from damage by the near-zero temperatures that forced many out of their homes and into emergency shelters that were quickly established in many area communities. While we were back on line on Monday afternoon, many friends further west and north of Conway were without power for as long as two weeks. During the emergency, of course, our shop was empty, as everyone was naturally more concerned with survival than with shopping. On the following weekend, our final opportunity to do some significant pre-holiday business, another heavy snowstorm again kept people close to their homes.

Despite these difficulties, we're grateful to be able to report an essentially healthy, though somewhat anemic, December. Our bottom line for 2008 was slightly lower than last year's, but the steps we'd taken through the year to streamline our operations, gave us a "good" year. (Let's all remember: "good" is the new "great.") Still, the antiques business is far from immune to the current economic crisis, and we're re-examining every aspect of our business. This Winter, we're open by appointment only, and so far, the shop has been as busy as when we opened for regular hours on weekends. We've also made some decisions about shows, the most significant so far has been our decision to drop Fall Rhinebeck, which had not been profitable for us and has prevented us from attending the two huge British fairs in October, Swinderby and Newark.

Unlike many, we stay at or near home during the Winter months, and our shop is open by appointment. We are always happy to turn on the heat and open our doors to customers. Please call ahead. (413-369-4256)

We continue to exhibit at a few shows during the Winter. Our schedule for the near future includes the following:

January 17 & 18 ++ Greater Boston Antiques Festival ++ Wilmington, MA

February 1 ++ Tolland Historical Society Antiques Show ++ Tolland, CT

February 15 ++ Concord Armory Show ++ Concord, MA

February 21 & 22 ++ The New Guilford Antiques Show ++ Guilford, CT

Click here for our complete show schedule for 2009.

As is our custom in recent years, we welcomed 2009 at home, with a dinner for two, which we prepared together. This year's meal was a simple series of small bites, blending personal favorites and recent discoveries. To see what we ate, click here.

This Month's Featured Inventory

And here are a few exceptional entries from our November Newsletter that deserve a second look.

Browse additional stock by clicking on any of these thumbnails.

       

Pippin's Christmas gift from Santa. Click here.

For this month's Back Page, click here.

Click to visit the Jan and John Maggs Antiques website.

Links

Click for directions to our shop.

Click for links to all past issues of this Newsletter.

For additional 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