Paul Smith- the origin of a dealer

Iowa dealer, Paul Smith, sells a pretty broad variety of great things. If you’ve been to the Tailgate-Music Valley Antiques Show over the past seven years you probably know what I mean. Paul’s been dealing in antiques for 18 years and like most dealers, what once was his hobby evolved into a full time business. In his former life Paul was a chef who had two hour breaks during the day. He put that time to good use shopping for antiques. Back in his early days of dealing he began selling in an antiques mall, where he says he worked for free. There he would meet and talk to patrons and began to develop his own clientele for whom he would “pick”. We reminisced about the early days of “picking blind” for would-be customers. Those were the days before cell phones with cameras, back when we called a client with a description, snail mailed a photo or just bought a piece on the chance that the client would take it.
Paul sells a lot of antique advertising pieces, salesman samples, unique folk art, miniature sewing machines, assorted children’s items and kitchen things, like unusual old egg beaters, apple peelers and nutmeg graters. He’s also known for having all kinds of great stoneware: “red ware, yellow ware, blue and white decorated stoneware, anything stoneware”, as he puts it. You really never know what kind of treasures Paul’s going to pick up so, you’ve got to get to his booth at the Tailgate-Music Valley Antiques show this February 2nd-4th.