You never know quite what you’ll find at an antique show.
Remember the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s old, unusually shaped planetarium in Portland? It was demolished about 15 years ago, but not before Portland resident Mark Keppinger got five days alone with the building to salvage whatever he wanted. He made off with 235 of the blue or green triangular panels that gave the building its attention-getting angles; the planetarium was a dodecahedron, or 12-sided.
“I bought the salvage rights to the building, and I took just the shell,” he said, adding that it made him sad to think that the planetarium was simply going to be demolished. “I just wanted to save it.”
Parts of the shell were for sale over the weekend at the 11th annual Clark County Antique and Collectible Show at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds. On Sunday, Keppinger said he’d sold all four of the triangular panels he brought to the show, and he had about a dozen more sales lined up for panels stored on his property.
Keppinger said he’s had more buyers lately for the planetarium parts. Reusing building materials has become more popular. There also are plenty of nostalgists in Portland. Just look at the frenzy over the teal carpet recently torn out at the Portland International Airport.
Keppinger on Sunday swapped planetarium stories with guests at the collectible show. “Were you in the back row at the laser light show?” he said.
He sells a single panel for $85. People mostly buy them for yard art, Keppinger said, though one man recently bought 12 to line the landing strip at his private airport outside of La Grande, Ore. Another buyer, tired of seeing a neighbor’s ugly house, used a few to make a fence and block the view.
Keppinger still has more than 100 panels from the old planetarium to sell. Those interested can find him at the Portland Expo Center antique show on March 5 and 6, he said.
This year’s Clark County show drew 225 vendors selling a wide range of items, including vintage jewelry, model cars, furniture, clothing, artwork and toys.
The show included higher-quality items, in part because sellers from California decided to come north to attend the Clark County show and another show next weekend in Puyallup, organizer Christine Palmer said. Leonard Kieley of Northern California, for example, was selling original chromolithography prints, created between 1880 and 1930 and for sale for $50 to $2,500.
Experts also evaluated antiques brought in by patrons. Battle Ground resident Pamela Thomas learned that a carving she purchased a while ago was an Inuit life-and-death breastplate carved from a moose antler and embellished with whale bone. It was worth about $1,200.
The Clark County show draws quite a crowd, Palmer said, estimating that nearly 6,000 people would visit by 5 p.m. Sunday.
Vancouver resident Phyllis Farmer, 57, attends the show regularly with her mother. She left the event with a glass platter, a 1930s-era teapot shaped like a pig, and a 1960s-era doll called Baby Party, which came with a party hat and balloons. The doll was for her granddaughter, Farmer said.
