Wilmington Ohio: Militaria in the Corn, June 15-16

[Shenkursk]

Almost time for the next OVMS Wilmington show!

 

http://www.sosovms.com/wilmington

[Ivydiv]

Getting ready to pack for the show. I have three tables at the show. Looking forward to seeing everyone again. See you Thursday. Dave

[MAW]

Looking forward to it, as always!

[Garandomatic]

Got the itch... and some money i'm mad at...

[JBFloyd]

I'll be along the back wall (next to the entrance to snack bar) with three tables of worldwide orders, decorations and medals. See ya there!

[BigDogMilitaria]

I'll be there with my normal crew, i have two tables. Packed and ready to go, way to much stuff than ill have room for!

[PVON]

Will be there with Ray Kling and 3 tables also

 

Across from Danny Liptak!!

 

PVON

[irish]

Will be there with one table Friday and Saturday.

[36-tex]

DANG!!! I am in Davenport, IA tonight heading to Dayton tomorrow. I will see if I can get to the show before 1p.m.

[tarbridge]

Folks...it's a Great show and well worth the effort.The Corn Field location is phenomenal...I was buying and selling with both hands.Many fellow dealers were also happy with the turnout and brisk business.

I have included an image of a Marine statue I bought the other month in Mesa, of course; I was loaded down.

But one of the kindest and most courteous gentlemen in our collecting field hauled my statue from Arizona to California...then to Missouri and finally to Wilmington Ohio.After all that and working the show he helped me load it into my truck.

So, Thank you Jeff Schrader for your help and kindness, it will not be forgotten. Thank you also for falling out of the back of the truck without injuring yourself...never let anyone cast doubt about those extra prehensile toes.If you can call this man your friend you are lucky.

In honor of all this I have named my Marine...Sgt.Schrader

[Shenkursk]

It was a less than elegant dismount, but happy for the butter-side up landing! No worries Robert - your Marine was quiet, polite, didn't eat much, and never got in the way. What's the use of having a 15-foot box truck if you can't do the occasional favor for a friend?

[Shenkursk]

I missed Thursday set-up and all but the last hour or two of Friday - was up in Rochester, Michigan for the AR event. (Saw some wonderful stuff, by the way - be sure to tune in next year when they start running season 23 to see what we found!)

 

Anna had our AGM setup at Wilmington, and sent me a text early Friday indicating that it was pretty slow and she was a bit disappointed; heard that from other dealers as well. Figured it was negatively affected by the fact that the MVPA had their big show in Louisville at the same time. Apparently not - by the time I got there at the end of Friday she was doing a brisk business, as were the others I had heard from.

 

Didn't talk to everyone of course, but a number of the dealers including Jim McDuff, Daniel Liptak, and of course Robert made a point of telling me that they had done quite well. My AR colleague Tim Prince (College Hill Arsenal - great place for Civil War guns and edged weapons) was set up there for the first time ever. He caught a couple of hours of sleep after our season wrap party in Rochester, and drove down to Wilmington in time to get set up before the public was admitted on Friday. As we were packing up on Saturday afternoon, he informed us that this was his best militaria show EVER!, and for this reason insisted on buying our little gang a delicious BBQ dinner to satisfy both hunger and karma.

 

Our sales were a bit down from what we normally do there, but I think that was largely because we were very low on fresh merchandise - the shows this spring have been fantastic: SOS, Baltimore, TMCA in Franklin, Minneapolis / St. Paul, Mesa, Pomona, and we have not had time to get many new items into show stock. Even so, we exceeded our goals and expectations by a wide margin; pleased with both sales and purchases.

 

You might have noticed, there were quite a few families walking around with "FRIDAY" and "SATURDAY" admission badges, and young children in tow. A great many of these are brand new folks; people we have found primarily through Facebook. They are interested in history, and many of them had absolutely no idea that there was such a thing as a military collectibles show that they could attend! Because of the location of the Wilmington show, we are drawing such people from Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus. I was pleased to see that a lot of our members were taking extra time to visit with them, and went out of their way to be generous with the kids. THANK YOU! You never know; sometimes it will be just a 5 or 10 minute conversation with a kid, or allowing them to handle an interesting artifact that will lead them toward a lifelong interest and appreciation for history.

 

Thank you very much to everyone who came out to set up as a dealer, or to shop for their collections as a customer, and especially to all who went out of their way to make our new guests feel welcome.

[MAW]

This was a very good show....for buying and selling. Attendance is definitely on the upswing over the past 1 1/2 years. Social media advertising is bringing people in.

 

I spoke with one man, who was ther with his wife and kid, who drove from Licking County/Newark just to check it out. He said he was real interested in WWI, but had never been to a show like this before.

 

I have no official idea about walk-in attendance numbers, but there were a lot of admission stickers being worn.