Meet the Dealers
Brian Bindig, owner of Our Old Stuff Antique Mall, began collecting at a very early age. “I was just a kid,” reports Brian. “I started with baseball cards and have collected thousands of them over the years.” He scoured local flea markets and soon enlarged his scope to include a little bit of everything. “My room was lined with shelves loaded with miniatures. Ramp-walkers, Smurfs, you name it.”
He haunted the local shops and became particularly interested in art: paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture. This led to a lasting friendship with the former owner of Our Old Stuff Antique Mall, Jerry Johnson who took Brian under his wing as his protégé. We are sorry to report to our friends who knew and loved him that Jerry succumbed to cancer this winter after a long battle.
In addition to an extensive Tiki collection, Brian’s main areas of interest today are Hawaiiana and Floridiana in addition to art and anything with the mid-century modern influence. He has a thriving eBay store, thegoods2131. Recent sales there include Bakelite jewelry and a wooden Danish surfboard coffee table.
“The mall has gone through some changes since January, but we still have the best choices in the area for tropical and mid-century furnishings and collectibles. If you can’t find what you’re looking for on your first visit, come back often. Our dealers bring in new merchandise every day.”
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Bill Bruce moved to Daytona Beach from his native Ohio more than twenty years ago. “I was the last one in my family to arrive. All of my relatives had migrated so it was time for me to come down, too.”
“I have been collecting since high school. My first collection was phonographs – not record players, phonographs. But they are so big and take up so much room that soon I had too many!” Bill enjoyed taking pictures and soon began collecting antique photographs. “The ‘hard images’ from cameras. Daguerreotypes were printed on a copper sheet with a highly polished silver surface, tintypes, which are not really printed on tin at all, but on steel, and ambrotypes that were printed on glass. By the way, tintypes are called ferrotypes in Britain because ferro is another word for iron.”
Bill has been a dealer with Our Old Stuff for six years, but has been selling at antique malls in the Daytona area for more than ten. He became acquainted with the Our Old Stuff owners while both were operating at Gamble House and made the move to his present location with them. His current collections offered for sale include antique furniture, jewelry, lighting, art and glass.
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Diane and Lee Chapell, the owners of BLUE DOOR ANTIQUES have been with Our Old Stuff Antique Mall for five years. They came to be antiquers through very different avenues. Indeed, their antiquing styles remain very different. Diane explains, "I'm hooked on selling and Lee is hooked on buying."
"I started collecting in 1993 when I went to my first show in Mt. Dora. I fell in love with a little antique Band Aid box for $6. It was the first and only antique I had ever had. In 1995, Lee and I were watching TV and a commercial came on for an upcoming show in Mt. Dora and I said to Lee, 'That's the show! I want to go there!' Lee had never been to a show or bought an antique in his life, but we went. By the end of the show I was the one standing at the end of the aisle saying, 'Come on, let's go,' and he was saying, 'Next time we have to come at 6 in the morning, you can't see everything in one day, we have to stay for the whole weekend, etc.'. It was hysterical."
Diane and a friend started selling their finds on eBay a few years later. "We started with $50 each and turned it into $5000. in six months. I knew I wanted to do this for a living right then. My friend couldn't commit to doing it full time and it took me awhile to get started full time, too."
Lee's brother and sister-in-law had a booth at Our Old Stuff and Diane and Lee decided to join us, too. They maintain a brisk business on eBay as "gottagosale" and bring a mixed collection of primitives, mid century and Floridiana to the mall.
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Linda and Dave Chapell have been collecting glassware and pottery for almost 30 years, but Linda’s favorites are blue and white pottery and ceramic dogs. After retiring from teaching Linda needed an outlet to keep busy and Ebay fit perfectly with her skills.
“We started selling on Ebay almost 10 years ago and found a need to find good stuff to make it worthwhile,” says Dave, “Then we just got hooked on finding hidden treasures.”
“We like Danish Modern, anything tropical and jewelry that SPARKLES, “ adds Linda.
After starting up Backwater Antiques, their Ebay business, they tried a booth at the old Gamble’s Antique Mall for a couple of years and used to shop for treasures here when it was Clary’s.
“But I fell in love with Our Old Stuff when I met Jerry and Denny, the former owners. We’ve been here now for six years and limit our efforts solely to this endeavor.”
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Even though she was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Kathy Cooley doesn’t know where she calls home. “I spent all my summers in Virginia from the time I was a little girl. I went to college in Texas, spent my married life in Louisiana, then moved back to Virginia before moving here to Florida three years ago.”
“I love anything that’s supposed to be big so I guess you could say I collect miniatures.” Her earliest memories are of collecting. “I remember following my Uncle in Virginia as he was tilling his garden. I had a Prince Albert can that I filled with civil war bullets as he uncovered them. I was so little, when that big can was full, I could hardly lift it!”
Some of the collections Kathy sells in her shop at Our Old Stuff are banks, Campbell’s soup, Boyd’s bears, vintage children’s’ books and toys and, of course, anything Civil War much of which she has hunted up using a metal detector on trips back to Virginia.
“I’m actually a collector of collections. I am very selective in what I like to sell. It’s got to be different.”
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Peter DeLuca came to Florida from Long Island, New York in 2003. “I got tired of shoveling snow,” he laughs.
Peter’s background is as an artist. He has a wood carving studio, but also paints. These interests lead him to doing business in antique furniture restoration, but he is a relentless collector. Peter began selling via the “Toy Box”, a defunct trade journal that advertised toy shows, but he has been actively collecting antique and vintage toys, collectibles and gumball charms since the 70’s.
When asked how he got started collecting antiques Peter says, “How does anyone get started? I had a nickel.” Currently, in addition to selling at Our Old Stuff, Pete has a booth, PJD Designs, at New Smyrna Antiques where he sells toys. To see examples of his paintings and woodcarvings, as well as interesting furniture and a great selection of vintage and retro toys, visit his booth at Our Old Stuff.
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Brenda Edwards has been acquiring a little bit of everything since she was a child. Her earliest collections? Breyer horses and the Beatles. As an adult her tastes run the gamut of the tactile arts. “I love hand made pottery, metal and wood bowls or boxes and wall art. Especially nautical art. Old paintings and photos that are water oriented. I collect old glass floats, turtle shells and bones. Mother Nature’s art,” she laughs.
Brenda has a special connection to old nautical things. “My grandfather was William Franklin Miller who was the inventor of the Miller-Dunn Diving Hood. Right now Brenda does not own a Miller-Dunn Hood, but is always on the lookout for one.
Ms. Edwards joined the Our Old Stuff family in 2004. After owning Beach Street Canvas and Rigging in downtown Daytona for 19 years, Brenda and her husband sold that business. She was invited by the former owner of Our Old Stuff Antique Mall, Jerry Johnson to come aboard and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
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If you visit Our Old Stuff on a Saturday you will more than likely be greeted by Lynn Heustis. "I have been collecting all my life," says Lynn. "First in Kentucky where I was born, then as I moved from there to Naples and on to St. Croix, I continued to collect." Lynn has a fine eye for and appreciates primitives.
When she finally landed in Daytona Beach, Lynn met the founder of Our Old Stuff Antique Mall, Jerry Johnson, at Gamble's Antique Mall. "When Jerry moved out of Gamble's I panicked until I found them again", she recalls.
Lynn has been part of the family at Our Old Stuff for seven years. When asked how she got started selling antiques, Lynn laughs. "Jerry could sell snow to an Eskimo. I had accumulated so many pieces over the years I realized it was time for me to start selling! I've been here on the weekends ever since."
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Elizabeth Lloyd moved to Florida in the 1980s. “I came because of the climate,” she says. “I prefer warm weather, sunshine, palm trees and beaches.”
For over thirty years she has been collecting “little things”, but when those little things began overloading her house, she knew she had to begin selling. “I had a very lively, high volume business on Ebay in the 1990s. Back then I divided my time between Antiques shows all over Florida and a booth at Gambles Antiques Mall.”
That’s where she met the former owner of Our Old Stuff Antiques. “Jerry invited me to join his new business venture, which I did. Jerry was a wonderful person and a good teacher.”
Elizabeth’s favorite things are Swarovski crystal, Royal Copenhagen and, ”Well, a little bit of everything!” She has a special soft spot for wall pockets and has an entire wall in her home covered with them.
“I will never forget Jerry and all the other wonderful people I have met in the antiques business, they have enriched my life.”
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When asked how long she’s been collecting, Lora McClintock responds, “About 25 years,” then smiles and adds, “Or all my life if you count all the things I dragged home as a kid that people had thrown away!”
Lora the Liquidator, as she’s known around the Daytona area, has been a professional antique dealer for nearly 20 years “Back home in Indiana we used to go to farm auctions and home auctions for entertainment. We loved it, but when my husband got involved, we moved to a whole different level of collecting. Eventually we ran out of room in our house, but still loved hunting for and finding treasures. We rented a booth for awhile, then got our own shop.” She had her own store for 11 years before moving here.
“I’ve loved Elvis Presley’s music since I can remember and I’d say I’ve got a pretty good collection of memorabilia.” Besides Elvis, Lora’s personal collections include Depression glass, cow creamers and Flow Blue dishes.
“As Lora the Liquidator I meet so many nice people, both clients and shoppers. I love that aspect of my work, too.” Running estate sales lends an eclectic edge to Lora’s merchandise. From vintage hats and handbags to jewelry, glass and pottery or a good old Hoosier cabinet, you just never know what you’ll find.
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Rhoda Morgan got started buying antiques because she needed things to set up housekeeping. "I was raised with parents who bought furniture at auctions. I've been collecting since my college days." She laughs and says, "I started in with selling in 1996 when my house was overflowing with the stuff I had collected!"
Rhoda lived in Bismarck, North Dakota until moving here in 1977. When asked why she moved to Florida she responds in the way many of us would, "Because I didn't know how hot the summers would be!"
At Our Old Stuff Antiques many customers come in looking for original bark cloth. When they do, they are sent directly to Rhoda's booth. "My sister calls me the Bark Cloth Queen, but I prefer Princess. It sounds so much nicer." Besides bark cloth Rhoda specializes in Bakelite and Catalin. Many of her pieces are one of a kind art jewelry made from collected pieces and constructed by Rhoda.
Besides being a dealer at Our Old Stuff, Rhoda also has a booth at the Mystic Mall in Deland.
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Donna Day Rose washed ashore here in Daytona Beach from the metropolitan New York area. She spent 25 years “down the Shore” in New Jersey, then the next 25 in Nyack, NY. “We’ll see how long we anchor here”, she says. “We came down for my husband Jack to attend school, motorcycle school at AMI. When we saw what kind of house we could buy here we decided to stay. Our house near the water was a fraction of a Hudson River view house.”
She remembers driving around in the station wagon after dark with her mother scavenging, when she was little. “It would have been embarrassing to be seen and was kind of a secret. Now I make a u turn in broad daylight to pick up a great find or take the legs off a table or knobs from a dresser.” Donna got started collecting in her early 20s. “I read an article about ‘Pre-collecting’ for people who couldn’t afford to collect. So I hit garage sales and thrift shops looking for nice things. In the 90’s I’d go down to New York to the Chelsea antiques flea markets - 4 am, flashlights in our teeth rummaging boxes of tools or paintings. So much fun.”
Donna sells mid century modern and retro modern furniture and art in her store, “Mermaid Ave.” at Our Old Stuff Antiques. “And lamps…Mostly. I love archaic electronics so there are always radios, cameras, TVs and blenders in my booth as well.”
Going to NY City to sell at the flea markets is part of the draw of antiquing for a living. So is travelling to shop for merchandise. “I thought I’d better find something I loved to do that I’d still be able to do when I’m an antique myself. This fits perfectly for me.”
