News Details (Posted: October 4, 2005):

Antiques Week at the Exeter Historical Society

Contact Information:

Laura Gowing
603-778-2335

Full Description:

Join us at the Exeter Historical Society at 47 Front Street for a week focused on antiques and New Hampshire decorative arts. On Tuesday, October 4th at 7 pm, the Historical Society begins our 2005-2006 schedule of free programs with Thomas B. Johnson, speaking on the Decorative Arts of the Piscataqua Region, and we are holding an Appraisal Day on Saturday, October 8th from 1 to 4 pm, with prominent Seacoast antiques auctioneers at the Historical Society waiting to appraise your antiques and collectibles. Tom Johnson begins our week with his presentation on New Hampshire-influenced furniture. Mr. Johnson is the Curator of the Old York Historical Society in York, Maine. He has studied, written and lectured on Maine-made furniture for a number of years, with a focus on the colonial and federal periods. He currently serves as chair of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and on the professional advisory committees of the Black Mansion in Ellsworth and the Victoria Mansion in Portland, and is a board member of the Eastman Hill Trust of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is also currently engaged as an advisor on the restoration and refurnishing of the Folsom Tavern of the American Independence Museum, right here in Exeter. His lecture will look at the influence of New Hampshire and Massachusetts’ designs and workmanship on the production of furniture in southern Maine before 1830. Appraisal Day is an opportunity to bring antiques and collectibles to the Historical Society for appraisal. Dan Olmstead, of Olmstead Auctions in Portsmouth and Newfields, has been in the antiques business since 1973, and doing auctions since the early 80s. He has worked these mini road show appraisal days for nearly 15 years, and has seen a number of interesting items come through the door. Olmstead recalled, “A few years ago, a man brought in a carved wooden eagle that had been in the back of his closet for 35 years. I sold it for him at auction for $22,000. Though these are the exception, and not the rule, valuable things do show up and even if the owners never sell them, at least they know what they are and what they are worth—or in some cases, what they are not worth!” Our second appraiser, Tate Conkey, has a lifetime of experience in the auction business and a great love of antiques. Tate began his auctioneer career at the age of five, running at his father’s auctions, and he dropped the gavel on his first string of sales at the age of eleven. Mr. Conkey attended the Missouri Auction School (the “Harvard of Auctioneering” according to Newsweek Magazine) as well as the Yankee School of Auctioneering, here in New Hampshire. Tate and his wife, Meghan, currently own Trade Winds Auction Company and hold auctions in Dover, Epping and Portsmouth. The Exeter Historical Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the research and preservation of Exeter’s past. The Historical Society is open to the public on a weekly basis, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 – 4:30 pm, and on Saturdays from 9:30 am to noon. Exeter Historical Society, 47 Front Street, PO Box 924, Exeter, New Hampshire, 03833, 603-778-2335 exhissoc@verizon.net