SALTCOATS, Sask. Ñ Stacked rows of refinished dressers and tables fill the weathered building, allowing visitors just enough room to squeeze into the store.
Built around 1905, the building that was once a bank and post office is a fitting home for antiques from desks to washstands to salt and pepper shakers.
Dave “Trapper” Liepert, owner of Trapper’s Trading Post in Saltcoats, Sask., emerges from the dusty basement to talk about his business in a voice more suited to the broadcast booth than a woodworking shop.
The lower level is the workshop, while the second storey provides storage for some of the more raw pieces, he explained.
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“It’s a piece of junk until you spend three weeks working on it,” he said of the antiques he often acquires.
Liepert’s willingness to invest the time in restoration combined with his woodworking skills separate him from many dealers.
Admittedly, antiques is a tough business, said Liepert, standing beside a sign that says “bang head here” for stress relief.
“The furniture end is the harder end of making a dollar in this business,” he said.
The Travelling Antiques Road Show,eBay and increased access to antiques information through the internet have changed the business, he said.
“It’s making people think their stuff is worth gazillions and it isn’t,” he said.
The dealer also wants a fair price, noting, “I gotta pay my bills too.”
His wife handles internet sales, while a daughter helps with the “bull work” on furniture needing restoration.
Liepert cleans house each year by rotating items into his Nanton, Alta., store called Sentimental Journey, or by selling them at auctions or antique shows.
“You’ve got to turn your stock.”
He returned to his hometown of Saltcoats in 1986 to start this business. The town offered him a good place to raise his three children and the community yielded many fine antiques.
Business is slow in the winter in Saltcoats but picks up in the summer with tourists drawn off the Yellowhead Highway by a store painted on three sides with the word “Antiques.”
Collectors stop in or call looking for items as common as tables and glassware, and as unusual as barbed wire and baby pictures. One came looking for coffins and funeral-related items, he recalled.
Most people will pick up an antique for a couple of dollars, but the serious collector will pay a few hundred dollars for a special piece.
Stick with wood
Retro is red hot now, especially chrome tables from the 1950s and service station paraphernalia.
But Liepert has no desire to cash in on that trend, preferring to stay the course by focusing on recycling and refurbishing wood products.
His cool, cramped showroom includes cabinets he created from tin ceiling panels from a 1920s era home and hardwood floors from a Yorkton, Sask., billiard hall.
While the area has yielded many antiques over the years, Liepert said it’s getting harder to find ones still in good shape that aren’t priced too high.
He was initially drawn to antiques out of a personal interest but doubts he would choose the business today.
“Looking back, I’d probably never do it,” said Liepert, who puts in long days and weeks.
His advice to those wanting to restore a piece is to leave the ones in good shape as they are, adding only a little varnish to clean them up.
“You want to keep things as original as possible.”
Battered pieces that have seen several different colours and coats of paint can be refinished.
Liepert said a good antique holds and increases its value over time. A 1920s dresser with oval mirror picked up in good shape for $6 can become a $700 piece in certain markets, he said.
Antique prices tend to be higher in Vancouver and Calgary than Nanton and Saltcoats, he noted.
“It’s what someone wants to pay for it.”
