MILTON — Collectors, dealers and buyers came to the Santa Rosa County Auditorium March 2 to 4 to buy, sell and browse antique goods at the 32nd annual Pensacola Antique and Vintage Show.
Pensacola’s Wanda Knowles of Antiques by Wanda organizes the show each year. In business for more than 40 years, Wanda buys and sells estate merchandise — including antiques, gold, silver, china, clocks and furniture — and travels exclusively to shows like this.
Items on display ranged from fine jewelry to old toys. Some vendors even made their own goods, like Navarre resident Cathy Painter of Kaleidoscopes-N-More. Each item in Painter’s collection was one-of-a-kind.
“Going to these shows, I saw so much of this stuff not being used,” Painter said.
So she decided to integrate antique pieces into her kaleidoscopes. One piece she made from a French candlestick holder she bought at an antique show. Now, with a large marble attached to the tube on top, it’s a unique optical instrument.
While Painter worked on her next creation, the booth directly adjacent housed a Thomas Edison biography signed by Edison himself.
Kevin McCandless of A Fairhope Find is mainly a book collector, but many other knickknacks were available in the nooks and crannies of his booth. He discovered the Edison biography in Mobile, but its origins trace back to New York.
While McCandless has only been involved in shows for a little more than a year, he’s a long-time collector.
“Now, they collect dust,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Antique enthusiasts gather to browse treasures