Geelong 2007 Antique Fair

The Geelong 2007 Antique Fair was held in the Geelong West Town Hall over 18-20 May. I was looking forward to this fair because the last few years have been pretty good, and, while I didn't go last year, I was reliably informed that it was excellent.

It was a disappoinment.

We went on the Sunday to find mostly junk (what is described as "object d'art" or "collectables"), some furniture and lots of pottery. Lots and lots of Australian pottery, some of it optimistically marked as "Art Deco" when it was clearly 1950s-60s in design. There was a smattering of local art and crafts, jewellery and pottery. There was very little (antique) jewellery and almost no silver. Most of the dealers were local but it seemed that most of the high-end Victorian dealers had stayed away (waiting for Williamstown or Camberwell, perhaps?). There were a couple interstate dealers but certainly not as many as in previous years.

Another issue I noticed at the fair was the practice of dealers breaking up sets and selling them as individual items. This most happens with plates, cutlery and teasets. I understand they make more money this way, but it's very disheartening to see the sets being broken up, particularly the complete sets, as it's almost impossible to put them back together again or find enough of the same set. It's particualarly galling when the single item-set of a teacup, saucer and cake plate are sold separately even though they themselves have been split up from the general set already. This practice seems to be increasing and will do nothing to attract new buyers or collectors to an already weak antique market.

So the verdict: easily missable, very disappointing after a number of good years, I will have to think about whether it is worth going next year.

Bendigo Easter Antique Fair

The Bendigo Easter Antique Fair was held over the Easter long weekend in Kangaroo Flat, just outside Bendigo. It featured dealers from all over Victoria and some from South Australia and New South Wales. The majority of the dealers had small items like small silver, jewellery and porcelain. There was not much furniture. While there were a few stalls with very high-quality products, most of the stalls had a mixture of junk and better-quality, meaning a fair amount of digging was required to find anything of value. There was one stall of second-hand clothing which had some neat things from the 1940s and 50s and a couple of stalls with asian antiques, including some satsuma-ware and jade.

All in all, it was a decent fair for its size (two rooms; a circuit could be done in 30 mins easily) and was mostly reasonably priced, although I thought some of the interstate dealers were quite high. However, I do wonder about the viability of this fair so close to the (much larger) Ballarat Antique Fair which had many of the same dealers. I would not put the Bendigo Fair on a list of "required fairs to attend" but it was enjoyable, all the same.