Tolland Antiques Show Draws Strong Crowds and Sales at 57th Annual Edition

The 57th Tolland Antiques Show delivered what the antiques calendar reliably promises but doesn't always produce: genuine crowds and genuine sales. Held in Tolland, Connecticut, the mid-March event drew strong attendance and produced steady transactions across categories, with jewelry among the areas seeing consistent buyer interest.

The booth mix ranged usefully wide. W.S. Korzick Antiques of New Haven brought what the show's coverage described as a well-balanced presentation: landscape paintings alongside an oval tilt top tea table and a Vermont Butter trade sign, the kind of combination that rewards browsers with range rather than depth alone. Karen Alexander Antiques, making the short trip from Somers, Connecticut, assembled a focused grouping of Shaker boxes, objects whose appeal to serious collectors lies precisely in their restraint.

Raven's Way Antiques of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, offered the show's most compelling study in contrasts: a circa 1905 hollow snakey-head premier-grade black duck by the Mason Decoy Factory, retaining strong original paint despite more than a century of actual use, displayed alongside a pair of contemporary hollow eider decoys with slightly turned heads by Mike Smyser Decoys of Mount Wolf, Pennsylvania. The Mason piece is the kind of object that stops a collector mid-stride: the snakey-head form is among the more expressive profiles in the factory's output, and original surface on a premier-grade bird from 1905 is not something the market takes lightly.

Donna Kmetz of Douglas, Massachusetts, anchored her booth in paintings and made it count. She showed "Sailing" by Francis Draper (1861-1935), one of the youngest members ever admitted to the Boston Art Club, where his Boston Harbor and Cape Ann coastal scenes earned him standing. "Jamesport Pier" by Walter Farndon, N.A. (1876-1964), a National Academician, completed a coastal pairing with genuine pedigree on both sides.

Kmetz reported selling two pencil drawings and a painting, and her account of the show carried the particular energy of someone who'd been away long enough to feel the return. "After a quiet winter it was great to be out again and a rare opportunity to reconnect with Connecticut friends," she said. "I've been mixing up my booth more these days with interesting objects as well as art, and I try to make the show experience fun for visitors. In-person events are still the best!"

That sentiment, expressed in the middle of a productive show floor, reads less like marketing than like confirmation: the regional antiques show, at 57 editions and counting, remains a format that dealers and buyers continue to meet halfway.