Antiques Show & Vintage Market this weekend will showcase objects with stories to tell - Grand Island Independent

KEARNEY — Jason Combs calls his love of antiques a “genetic disorder.”

When he was growing up in Fairfax, Mo., his grandparents and parents took him to flea markets in places like Brownsville, Neb., and White Cloud, Kan., and antiques soaked into his soul.

“I like the stories antiques tell. I’m curious about what they have to say,” Combs said.

This weekend, he and Sherry Morrow will co-produce the Antiques Show & Vintage Market from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Ramada Inn at 301 Second Ave. The 28 vendors from Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas and Iowa will sell glassware, jewelry, toys, vintage clothing and more.

“Once people buy from a vendor, they come back to that vendor. Vendors often buy their wares with a specific customer in mind,” Morrow said. “We don’t want a whole room with the same type of stuff. The better the items we have, the more people we draw, especially if known vendors are going to be there.”

Combs owns Burr Oak Antiques and Appraisals here in Kearney. He appraises antiques on NTV’s “The Good Life” once a month. He said being at an antique show is “like being at a mobile coffee shop.”

“A year ago at a show in Atkinson, a man brought in a gypsy’s musical box that played music. It had straps and a crank and a big metal disc. When you opened it up, it was a little theater. It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. This man’s family were gypsies from Europe. That’s where he got this thing,” Combs said.

Another man brought him a pair of Buffalo Bill’s Remington pistols in a walnut case, with ivory grips carved especially for Buffalo Bill. “Remington had given Buffalo Bill that set, but I couldn’t appraise it because there were no others like it. I couldn’t be sure what something like that would bring in,” Combs said.

Morrow and Combs are producing the show for the third year. They do two shows each year, one the second weekend in November and one the last weekend in January. Combs said those weekends are “the bookends” at either side of the antique show season. “Before Christmas, people are looking for gifts. After Christmas, they’re getting rid of gifts,” Morrow said.

Combs, who also is a geography professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, loves sharing his avocation. In spring 2014, he wrote an article for Great Plains Research, “Junk Jaunt Geography: Buying and Selling America’s Cultural Past in Central Nebraska.” The Junk Jaunt is the 15-year-old, 300-mile late September garage sale stretching from Grand Island west to Halsey and back. “I noticed that for some people, the Junk Jaunt is just the thrill of the hunt. People get an ice cream cone and take off for the day,” he said. Other shoppers search seriously for quality antiques.

Morrow, a Buffalo County commissioner and assistant professor of industrial technology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, has a fascination for relics, too. She has a personal collection of items bearing logos of Kearney County, Buffalo County or Brown County. She has a fondness for Richardson Root Beer items, too, because her parents owned a drive-in in Atkinson, and her sister married a man from the Richardson family.

The show used to be held at the Buffalo County Fairgrounds, but Morrow and Combs moved it to the Ramada Inn because “people like the comfort of being inside,” Morrow said. She said the lighting and presentation are excellent and the floor is carpeted. A $5 admission per person covers both days.

“We just like to have people come and look around,” she said. “As for me, I enjoy browsing and saying, ‘Oh, I remember that!” or ‘I had one of those!’”

maryjane.skala@kearneyhub.com

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