Appleton, WI - Fox River Antiques

About two months ago I ventured to Appleton, Wisconsin on a Saturday. Never attempt this on a Green Bay Packer home game! Anyway, I visited the Fox Rover Antiques mall and was pleasantly surprised. I saw pleasantly surprised, because rarely now when I go to antique malls am I happy with the trip. Now that gas prices have dropped, I am more lenient, but when the word "antique" is in your name, I want to see antiques - not collectibles! Anyway, the mall is separated into two sides. To the right is a bunch of booths. A really nice booth was a rare book dealer. Lots of pretty books in glass cases that I could drool over. Word to the wise, just because it is in a glass case doesn’t mean it is valuable folks. I do find that people overlook the glass cases and I find some interesting ephemera showed in the corners or buried under items. Not sure if I ever mentioned one such find at the now closed Middleton Antiques Mall (the building is soon to house the Mustard Museum). This mall was right down the street from work and I would go in just about every week for a break from the frenzy of the law. I started look more closely into the glass cases. Upstairs in a case that was sort of tucked away down a hallway at the very bottom pushed up against the inside wall was a program for Grand Duke Alexis visit to Milwaukee back in the 1872. I was in a hurry to get back to work and the price tag said $28, so I passed it up and the next four days of busy work I could not stop thinking about it. I finally was able to spirit myself away from work and rushed over to the mall crossing my fingers the item was still there. I rushed upstairs to the case and my heart sank, I didn’t see it. Then I got on my hands and knees and sighed with relief when I saw it poking out from under a book! Yippee!! What I ended up getting was a menu for the banquet held and the invitation to the ball. I will post pictures tonight. I made a very hefty profit on ebay with this item.

Anyway, back to Appleton. Again, nice mall lots of really nice things. Still has a lot of collectibles, but has good balance with some other items. Recommend a stop over there if you are ever in that neck of the woods. I remember specifically two nice framed Hood's Sasparrilla Puzzles - several hundreds of dollars for each. There was some board games there - a few older Parker Brothers card games (talking Geo. Parker & Sons vintage - not the Pit, Rook etc that you see everywhere). Some ephemera, but not a lot.