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Vintage is in at collectible shows

Collectors of all stripes will have much to choose from

By Scott Hewitt, Columbian staff writer
Published: January 15, 2016, 6:10am
13 Photos
Event logo.
Event logo. (Steve Dipaola for the Columbian) Photo Gallery

Antiques get more modern all the time.

Christine Palmer doesn’t even care for the word “antiques” anymore. What her America’s Largest Antique & Collectible Shows franchise features in a big way these days, she said, is “vintage.” The show, featuring 400-plus exhibitors from all over the nation, is coming to the Clark County Fairgrounds Events Center this weekend.

“Our show touches on pop culture. We’re more vintage than antique, though we do have an element of that. But it’s not old-fashioned and stuffy. Those things don’t sell so well anymore. Our exhibitors have shifted to things that are a little more current,” she said.

Given the aging of eternally young baby boomers — and the nostalgia-stoking release of the new “Star Wars” film — Palmer expects vintage and collectible toys to remain among the most popular items at the show, along with G.I. Joes and comic books, movie and music posters, sports memorabilia and other mementos of the mid-20th century. (The mid 1970s is about as current as the show gets, Palmer said.) But never fear, if you’re interested in truly antique toys, you’ll still find plenty to enjoy: cast-iron and tin toys of the 1800s, porcelain dolls and wind-up cars and planes, mechanical banks and other playthings that probably predate the childhood of anybody reading this today.

Occupying a guest of honor position at this weekend’s show is one of the most celebrated and durable playthings in the world: the humble yet ambitious Lego brick. Portland Lego collector and connoisseur Scott Kirkland will be on hand to show off his massive collection of vintage bricks and kits. Kirkland will fill six tables and four showcases with original Lego sets that were manufactured before 1980.

In the beginning was the hollow block with bumps.

That was in 1949, and the bumps didn’t hold much together. Consumers still preferred wood to plastic, and they returned to the Danish manufacturer more sets of loosely attachable blocks than they kept. 

That Danish manufacturer, Lego, began as the woodworking shop of one man who resorted to toys, models and miniatures to ride out the Great Depression. (The name Lego is a homemade contraction of the phrase leg godt, meaning “play well.”) After World War II came the widespread availability of an early version of that newfangled miracle substance, plastic, but it still wasn’t right.

It wasn’t until the late 1950s that Lego perfected the physics of interlocking building blocks so that they really stuck sturdily together and could be assembled into all sorts of complex, durable creations. Lego had the vision to think not just in terms of selling those clever bricks but creating an entire system of compatible pieces and kits. The first Lego kit was a “Town Plan,” released in 1955; the formula for the right type of plastic came in the early 1960s.

And once all those pieces were locked into place, so to speak, Lego changed the world. A motorized Lego train kit became massively popular in the late 1960s, and the first Lego theme park opened in Denmark shortly thereafter. The first Lego minifigures — little people who could lock into your homemade creations — came out in the late 1970s. By then, Lego was already releasing “expert” kits featuring gears, levers, axles and other sophisticated equipment for grown-up builders.

There no longer seems any limit to what Lego can do. High school students regularly build and program Lego robots on wheels, while working engineers use Legos to brainstorm and plan. Astronauts have experimented with Legos in space; some pediatric therapists have even found them useful when working with kids on the autism spectrum. Plus, it’s important to note, girls and women have demanded kits aimed at their demographic — and the company has happily complied with female “minifig” scientists, astronauts, doctors and undersea explorers.

But Lego’s canniest move may have been hooking up with Hollywood, beginning in 1999. Since then, millions of young children’s first exposure to icons like Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter and Batman hasn’t been books and movies — it’s Legos.

— Scott Hewitt

“Talk about an iconic, long-lasting toy,” Palmer said. “People are in love with Legos, and it just never stops.”

A quick survey of antique market news and trends reveals that “mod” is hot these days. The celebrated television series “Mad Men,” a visually stylish look at the swinging, pre-hippie 1960s, has sparked a collector stampede toward the early Boomer era, when fashion and furnishing was sexy, streamlined, slightly Technicolor.

As a result, Palmer added, the styles and artifacts that are more reminiscent of your great-grandmother and “Downton Abbey” have become pleasingly affordable.

That’s generally true across the board, Palmer said. “Prices have dropped in the entire industry,” she said. “Now is a good time to buy.”

Or just go have fun, she added. Some collectors are serious hunters with checklists in their heads; many more folks come just to stroll the corridors of the past and make amazing, unexpected discoveries.

Palmer’s America’s Largest Antique & Collectible Shows has all that covered. “We range from the eclectic to the expected,” she said. Furniture and housewares, sterling silver and tableware, Tiffany glass, jewelry, artworks and art objects, restored vintage radios, gadgets and tools, first-edition books, and so much more. You name it, you can probably find it here.

Trash or treasure?

You’re also welcome to bring those maybe-treasures from home that you’ve always wondered about. For $5 a pop, experts from the International Society of Appraisers will examine and evaluate individual pieces; they’ll even take a look at photographs if your piece is just too big to bring.

If You Go: Clark County Antique and Collectible show

What: 11th annual Clark County Antique and Collectible show.

When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Clark County Events Center, 17402 N.E. Delfel Road, Ridgefield.

Admission: $6 for both days, plus $6 for parking.

Featuring: Antiques of every description, 400 vendors, special vintage Lego exhibit.

Get your item evaluated: $5 per item.

On the Web: christinepalmer.net

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