It’s spring, and as an avid antiquer, my dreams once again turn to… the Madison-Bouckville Show! The thoughts persist through the spring and early summer, until the third week of August, when the reverie comes true once more.

Bouckville is, for most of the year, a quiet town on Highway 20, about 40 miles east of Syracuse, New York. In August, we drive there on the third Monday, and for the next few days we prowl through fields of antique and collectible dealers and pickers – thousands of them – that settle like a cloud of late-summer locusts in the fields, parking lots, and front lawns that stretch along Highway 20 between Bouckville and her sister town, Madison, some five miles to the east. The show is formally called the Madison-Bouckville Show, but we find that most of the dealers – and the main show – are in the vicinity of Bouckville.

We book our room in Cazenovia at the Lincklaen Inn, a 200-year old coaching inn on Highway 20, about a 15 minute drive west of Bouckville. Good accommodation is in short supply for the thousands of buyers, and some of our friends have had to commute from Syracuse each day, a trip of more than an hour each way. That’s exactly why, each year before we leave, we book our room for the following year. We prefer to be 15 minutes away, and each day we make the pilgrimage to Bouckville, snapping up great stuff at great prices, in a ‘down home’ country environment.

What ‘great stuff?’ What ‘great prices?’ And what about this ‘down home’ environment? That’s what the rest of this story is all about.

Great Stuff

We collect “ocean liner stuff” including, but definitely not limited to, postcards, plus Cornell University memorabilia, mailers, and occasionally other “neat stuff” that as a curiosity or decorative item screams “Buy me!”

Last summer was a typically successful quest. One of the stars of the Cornell firmament was a bronze crest mounted on an oak plaque. It was buried in a mound of junk (recognizing that others might find treasures by their standards in the remainder that we regarded as trash) at a dealer who looked like an opportunist who would grab anything from anywhere. He was firm at $40 – until we put it back on the pile. Then he decided he could “do 30.” Deal.

Our principal concern was that the plaque might have been ‘liberated’ from a wall in a building somewhere on the Cornell campus. We later checked with the Cornell Archives and learned that these were sold to alumni some 90 to 100 years ago, so we were able to give it to our “Cornellie” son as a knockout present last Christmas. That’s what I mean by great stuff.

Other great stuff? How about two R.M.S. Lusitania interior real photo views on postcards? Torpedoed in 1915 with a tragically high loss of life, the Lusitania ranks with the Titanic and the Empress of Ireland as an iconic ocean liner disaster. We saw one of these rare and desirable views at a postcard show a few months ago priced at $225, so we were thrilled that we had grabbed both of these at Bouckville for $40 each.

If you want postcards, there are several specialist postcard dealers, just as there are specialized china dealers, glassware dealers, linen dealers, Americana dealers – you name it, there are people offering it. For those with eclectic tastes, there are also dealers where you can enjoy surveying a wide variety of goods, such as pictures, china, glassware, and a selection of other goodies.

Then there’s “Billy”. He’s a picker/collector/dealer from New Jersey. One of his collecting interests is knives, including ocean liner penknives. The quality is good, and the prices reflect the influence of a knowledgeable dealer. The R.M.S. Queen Mary penknife illustrated carried a price somewhat north of $150 but a little negotiating improved on the cost.

Great Prices

As a collector, if you lust after something that you have never seen before, any price is a good price. Where you already have the genre, variations on the theme can be evaluated in a more rational frame of mind. The milk glass plate illustrated is a good example. It appeared in a dealer’s hands from a box at her feet after I had expressed interest in another nautical item. When I asked “How much?” I steeled myself for a low three-digit quote. When the answer was “Thirty-five dollars” I didn’t take long to pull out the cash.

Early sports items are always fascinating. At one dealer, in one of the big Madison-Bouckville tents, I spotted a great piece of enamelwork on a medallion that appeared to carry a Chicago Cubs logo. On closer examination, it turned out to be a Chicago Athletic Association medal of 1890. With the loop at the top, presumably the prize could be worn by the recipient as a watch fob. The back of the piece told the story. It was marked as “”Peacock Sterling” and carried the inscription:

Western Amateur Championships, Aug. 31, 1895.

Second Prize

120 Yds Hurdle Race

Won by

J. J. Jackson

Is there a link to the Chicago Cubs? The Chicago Athletic Association website reports that “The history of the Club’s logo, often confused with the Cub’s logo, dates back to 1915 when CAA member William Wrigley bought the Chicago team, thus adopting our logo.” Success! It appears that this represents an early example of the genesis of the Cubs logo.

The cost for this silver slice of Chicago history? Only $35.



The Down Home Environment

There’s a special “something” about an outdoor show. There’s even more of a “something” about a big outdoor show. When that show stretches for a few miles along a two-lane highway in the picturesque countryside of northern New York State, there’s a charm and warmth that you don’t find in a more formal setting. Like country auctions, there’s even a booth where the ladies of a local church – “The Pie Ladies” – sell generous wedges of homemade pie, with or without ice cream.

The midweek photo shows a warm summer day, but because Bouckville is in the rolling foothills of the Adirondacks, the weather can be unpredictable. Over the years we have braved heat, cold and rain to attend this beloved event. A few years ago, when the deluge of rain would have made Noah feel at home, local farm tractors were pressed into service to tow vehicles out of the mud in some of the fields. It might sound dreadful, but the spirit of the people made it feel like lots of fun.

Dream on, John. Coming up soon is a week of antiques and collectibles, August 11 to 17, which begins with dealers along the roadside and in fields, and culminates with “The Show” on the weekend, adding a further reported 1,000 dealers. (Last year we learned in the local press that ‘The Show’ is for sale, but according to local sources in the area, there has been no sale up to the date of this article.)

The Madison-Bouckville Show people deserve credit for doing virtually all of the advertising for the venue, so the advertised focus is the weekend, but we really enjoy the heavenly week leading up to it, with the weekend as the peak of an antique-lover’s dream.

About the author: John G. Sayers is a member of the Board of The Ephemera Society of America and the Executive of The Toronto Postcard Club. He has been a keen collector for many years, and can be reached at jasayers@saybuck.com.