Junktique Search: Meredith, New Hampshire – Part 1
My husband and I spent the weekend up in Meredith, New Hampshire and I had a chance to look around the town to check out the junktique situation for the day while he spent the afternoon playing golf. Meredith is very pretty, by the way, and right on a lake. My plan was to check out a couple stores, take a walk along the lake, have a sandwich, and then hit a couple more stores.
My first stop was Etcetera, a consignment store that’s on Route 25 just before the center of town.
Upon arriving I got very excited because it’s big — two floors of a building that looks like a very long house. I started in on the racks of dresses wondering how I’d ever have time to go through everything and get to the other stores. I heard the woman behind the counter telling someone that more vintage clothing was upstairs (pulse racing at this point!) as well as craft items and kitchen stuff. There were also additional rooms of collectibles, antiques, furniture and books on the first floor.
The place was pretty busy with customers browsing but I don’t know that anyone was actually buying. Because the thing is, after checking out the price tags, I realized they weren’t exactly giving anything away. I didn’t see one bargain, and I saw lots of yucky 80s and 90s clothing. The vintage upstairs was totally disappointing; it hardly seemed any different from the clothing downstairs, both of which included a lot of frumpy labels like Cache, Maggie London, Liz Claiborne…
For some reason they had a big selection of wet suits and wedding gowns. It really was “pre-owned wedding central” with lots of shoes, veils, bridesmaid dresses…and probably groom outfits too, especially if he wants to wear a wet suit while “taking the plunge.”
After coming up empty on clothes I went back downstairs to look at the “collectibles and antiques.” Most of it was typical “goodwill,” but priced higher so that was a bust too.
Maybe I was there on an off day; in any case, my initial excitement turned out to be for nothing. Though I imagine someone out there would go for this Sylvester statue that stood up two or three feet tall.
(front view/back view)
Of course half the fun is experiencing that first adrenaline boost, so in a way it was entirely worthwhile.
In any case, I left Etcetera, which might be more aptly named “blah, blah, blah,” without buying a thing.
