COLLECTIBLES : Pros Know Ins and Outs of Shows

Ellen Liepkis of San Clemente quickly scanned the advertising signs at one of the 500 booths set up at the Outdoor Antique and Collectible Market in Long Beach.

“I collect RCA Victor signs, the ones with Nipper, the dog,” she said, her eyes darting up and down the rows of signs before shrugging and hurrying on.

Liepkis is a veteran of many a collector show and knows when to move on to the next booth, the next row of goods, the next chance to find that elusive sign.

She was joined by thousands of other collectors and bargain hunters at a recent special holiday show of the outdoor market at Veterans Stadium. Regular shows are held the third Sunday of each month, including this Sunday.

What makes the market different than other flea markets and swap meets is that there are no new items allowed--everything for sale is a used collectible or antique.

Just as with a regular swap meet, each booth has one or more themes. But instead of T-shirts, plants or sunglasses, it’s old radios, toy guns, dolls or advertising signs.

At the recent show, it was easy to tell the more knowledgeable visitors from the novices. The veterans rifled through stacks of paper items or scanned the merchandise with a practiced eye, while many others leisurely strolled from booth to booth, not looking for anything in particular.

Several vendors suggest arriving early: Veteran collectors and dealers line up before the gates open, hoping to get to the best deals first.

The selection runs from the predictable (coins, baseball cards and a lot of glassware) to the surprising (a box filled with “1940s U.S. Army underwear” on sale for $3 for a set of three).

It was the first time Scott Cheely of Santa Ana had put his collection of tin wind-ups and other toys up for sale at a show. His colorful items caught the eye of a little boy and his parents, who asked to see how a wind-up train on tracks worked.

At 23, Cheely was one of the youngest dealers at the show. He said his mother got him started collecting when he was 5, taking him to flea markets and garage sales.

“My mom would be a little heartbroken if she found out I was selling this stuff,” Cheely says.

Paul Maher and Michelle Regan were selling off part of their personal collection of children’s television memorabilia, including a car with Mr. Magoo driving, a Mrs. Beasley doll from the old “Family Affair” TV series and Woody Woodpecker and Huckleberry Hound figures.

They both work at Children’s Television Archives in Burbank, a museum that specializes in such memorabilia and serves as a reference facility for researchers.

“We have four storage facilities filled with this type of stuff, and it was time to start selling off some duplicates,” Regan said. “We are mostly buyers. We spend all of our spare time at shows like this, toy shows, other sales. . . . I recognize a lot of these people (here at the show) by face from other shows. It’s a very small world that collectors live in.”

Sherrie Stockdale of Vista in San Diego County, a veteran dealer at the Long Beach shows who specializes in garden collectibles such as signs and tools, said she gets a lot of requests from customers at the shows for hard-to-find or unusual items, and the interaction has helped her in choosing items for her booth.

“I guess you could say I’ve found my niche,” Stockdale said.

One benefit of buying something at a show is that the owner of the item is present, unlike at an antique mall, where only the dealer’s name and phone number is available in most cases. This means you can question the dealer about a particular item in person.

But the major advantage of buying an item at a show as opposed to an antique mall is that you can bargain. Most items have their prices clearly marked, but the savvy buyer knows that that price isn’t written in stone. More often than not, a little bargaining goes on before the sale is made.

One drawback is that most of the dealers at the show take personal checks but not credit cards.

About 80% of the dealers return each month to the Long Beach show, and there is a long-waiting list for the spaces left up for grabs, says Donald Moger, co-owner of Americana Enterprises Inc., which produces the show.

The Outdoor Antique and Collectible Market, at Veterans Stadium, Conant Street and Clark Avenue in Long Beach, takes place Sunday, Nov. 15, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (and the same hours the third Sunday of every month). Admission is $3.50. Information: (213) 655-5703.