A mother-daughter pair has opened a new antique store in the Monadnock Plaza in Jaffrey.
Angela Johnson and her mother Irene Ayer cut the ribbon for Endless Treasurers on July 1, after a soft opening two weeks before.
Johnson works as a middle school teacher at Boynton Middle School in New Ipswich – a job she intends to keep – but said the sharply rising costs of living, including a nearly doubling of her rent in the last year, required her to find a summer job. She started working with Ayer at her antique shop, Endless Treasures in Newport, which she has run for the past 10 years.
She enjoyed it so much that she and her mother began to talk about the possibility of opening a second store. Johnson, who now lives in Peterborough, was a longtime resident of the Jaffrey-Rindge area, and wanted to open a store locally.
Johnson grew up around antiquing from her middle school years on, as her father owned Colonial Antique Market in West Lebanon for 20 years. She said working for her mother last summer helped solidify it as a second career, though she intends to keep teaching in addition to managing the store.
“I enjoy interacting with people, and hearing the stories of their items. You see a lot of interesting and unique things,” Johnson said.
Some of the things Johnson currently has in stock include a handmade quilt, which was started by an unknown person in the 1930s and stored, unfinished, in a barn in Bradford until it was uncovered in 1991 and finished by Bunny Herman.
Another interesting find is a variety of uranium glass, which is, as it sounds, glass made from uranium in the 1900s, and glows florescent green under a blacklight. Production fell off with the use of uranium being funneled to the military in World War II, but the glassware has become a collectible.
Johnson finds some of her stock herself, and some is consigned to the shop, but about half her inventory space is taken up by rented vendor booth spaces where individuals can set up their own antiques, vintage items, crafts, upcycled furniture, plants, lotions or candles.
Some spaces are rented by individuals, and others by businesses, including Workshop Treasures, Butterfly Moon Crochet, 15 Sweetpea Lane, the Memory Hole, Idly Wild Dreams and Ruschioni Farm.
One of those spaces is reserved for nonprofits, where they can sell items and receive 90 percent of the profit. Local organizations, including Jaffrey Kitty Rescue and Adoption and the local Lion’s Club chapter have already used the space to sell items left over from fundraising yard sales.
The store is also offering estate sale services, house picks and public consignment.
“We want to keep a good variety of inventory – both with the variety of items we have, and the price range. We have some things that are very affordable, and then we have the higher-end items,” Johnson said.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.