Linda Chase of Town and Country Antiques shares a comfortable nook with a “lucky” frog that, if found, gives antique lovers some extra value to treasure hunts in the lower level of the store.
Menomonie, Wis.—It’s green. It’s about 2 inches tall and 3 inches wide. And it has been hopping around the bottom level of Town and Country Antiques for almost two years.
If you are lucky enough to find the little plastic frog, it will leave more green in your wallet when you take your purchases to the register. He’s worth a 10 percent discount on items selected from the lower level.
Once, or sometimes twice a day, a customer finds the hidden frog.
“Regular customers, especially, will look for him,” Linda Chase, owner, said. “He’s a popular guy.”
Chase has operated Town and Country Antiques in downtown Menomonie for seven years. After outgrowing its previous spaces, the store is now in its third location at 244 East Main Street, where 25 dealers display their wares. One dealer specializes in coins, and the others sell antiques of all types.
“Antiques are cyclical,” Chase said. For instance, Chase explained, antiques that featured Scottie dogs were popular five to six years ago. Today, vintage clothes, hats and jewelry are trendy, along with period prints, furniture and pottery.
There is no typical customer, she said. Shoppers range from college students looking for hip clothing and apartment furnishings, to customers who reminisce over pieces from their childhood, and even to do-it-yourself customers looking to refurbish furniture—taking their cue from the multitude of magazines and television shows that demonstrate how it’s done.
Chase, who is a board member for the Dunn County Historical Society, is encouraged to see so much interest in shoppers appreciating older things and seeing a benefit in reusing or recycling items “that just aren’t made as well as they used to be.”
Chase points to the century-old chair in which she is sitting and to the hand-knit afghan that drapes over the matching sofa.
“You just can’t compare the quality of older pieces to what you find in stores today,” she said. “If these pieces have lasted 100 years, they just may last another 100 years. I think it’s important to appreciate craftsmanship and to keep in touch with our past.”
And that’s one of the reasons she located downtown.
“There is great history here,” she said. “Most of the buildings are still original and date back to the 1800s.”
So if you, too, love history, take a stroll downtown. Enjoy the architectural details of the buildings—with names like Arcade, Teare and Marion embedded in the ornate brickwork and moldings—and find a new-to-you treasure at Town and Country Antiques. Four dealers each month run sales in their area and twice a year there is a storewide sale. The spring sale is coming in April.
And don’t forget to look for the frog. He’ll be a lucky find.
Luck o’ the green, Dunn County News, March 7, 2010
