What’s considered one of the world’s “Top 10 Antiques Travel Destinations” opens Friday in the southwest Iowa town of Walnut.
The 38th Annual Walnut AMVETs Antique Show draws some 350 vendors from 21 states to display and sell their rare collectibles. Gene Larsen, with the Walnut AMVETs, says the vendors take up about 15 city blocks in Walnut, in addition to three big halls for displays.
“There’s two gymnasiums in the old school which is now our community center, they’re full of dealers, and the AMVET Hall is full of dealers,” Larsen says. “This show is world renown, it’s not just a local thing.” Larsen says they make sure vendors have quality items for sale before they are allowed to set up.
“One of the things that we started doing a long time ago was weeding out people that bring junk, reproductions, new stuff, flea market stuff. We don’t let that in,” Larsen says. “We let only quality antiques and older collectibles, anything 25 or 50 years old.”
Larsen says first-time visitors are shocked at the amount and variety of antiques they’ll find. “If you haven’t been to the antique show in Walnut, Iowa, and you go, ‘I don’t care for antiques that much,’ I’ll bet you $100 that you will find something that you want to take home,” Larsen says. “It’ll be something like, ‘Wow, I had one of them when I was a kid. I remember Grandma having one of them. I remember my dad — he loved that thing that he had and I don’t have it anymore,’ and now, there it is.”
He notes, the event has been featured in almost every antiques-related magazine and newspaper in the country. Parking and admission are free. The event runs Friday through Sunday.
(By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic)