Old Glory Antique Mall in Vancouver has new owner

You won’t find an ancient grandfather clock anywhere at Old Glory Antique Mall.

You will find plates, vases, hand tools, cameras, telephones, phonographs, toys, sewing machines, ceramic ware, paintings, posters, buttons, jewelry, glassware, fishing creels (more on that later) and hundreds of other mostly vintage and kitschy items among the nearly 50 booths on the 5,000-square-foot display floor.

But those old clocks and other old furniture?

With rare exceptions, there’s not enough demand to devote precious floor space to them, said Old Glory owner Georg Castro.

“The Victorian stuff, it just really doesn’t sell any more,” said Castro. “There’s no interest in the younger crowd. They’re more into the vintage stuff that, you know, was in grandma’s house, or something they’ve seen along the way.”

So as he settles in as the new owner of the longtime corner retail site at 2000 Main St., in Uptown Village, Castro is keeping in mind his clientele and their current preferences.

Castro purchased the business from the previous owner, Juanita Aspaas, who’d operated Old Glory for 22 years. Neither Castro nor Aspaas would reveal terms of the sale, which took effect Oct. 1. But Castro said he planned to retain elements of the business that did well and refresh the scene with some of his ideas and that of his business partner and girlfriend, Kristine Gordon.

The prevailing antique mall business model, which cuts overhead for multiple dealers, will be retained. Most of the booths are in the 6-foot-by-9-foot range, and rent is $3.50 to $3.75 a square foot. But Castro has removed the material that covered many of the large windows facing Main Street, bringing what he hopes is a more open feel. And the overall interior is getting spruced up.

Castro and Gordon both had been selling vintage items at Old Glory when they learned Aspaas might be willing to sell and retire.

Aspaas, 67, had noticed how customers’ tastes had changed since she took over the business, which four years previously had been known as Vancouver Antique Mall. Before that, it was a thrift store. The building started as a sales floor for Jeep dealership selling iconic Willys.

“We used to sell a lot of real antiques,” Aspaas said. “And now it’s more collectibles, 50s, and so-called vintage.”

The business is one of the oldest if not the oldest antique stores in Clark County, said Clark Crawford, vice president of Camas Antiques at 305 N.E. Fourth Ave.

Camas Antiques, a fixture in a 1920s-era former department store building for nearly 15 years, is celebrating a milestone of sorts. Owner JoAnn Combs Taylor and new co-owner Kristen Danis recently reached an agreement with the building’s landlord to continue the antique mall that has nearly 70 vendors on a 10,000-square-foot floor. Crawford also noted that antique furniture sells briskly at Camas Antiques.

At Old Glory, Castro, 52, who works in the shipping department at Hawthorne Gardening Co. in Vancouver, has modest expectations for his new acquisition.

“We’re not going to get rich,” said Castro, who, after leaving his daytime job, worked until 12:30 a.m. Thursday at Old Glory. “But it’s, you know, it should turn out to be fairly profitable eventually.”

Castro will be depending on new customers as well as those who return to see longtime vendors, including Gary Estabrook. His corner toward the back of Old Glory is a virtual museum of fishing equipment, with ancient rods, reels and — his specialty — creels.

“I’ve got 400 of them,” Estabrook, a retired Tektronix engineer who lives in Hazel Dell, says with a chuckle.

He said he’s been collecting fishing gear for about 40 years. “I sell a lot of stuff that’s usable as well as collectible,” said Estabrook, 78, who has more than 10,000 books on fishing, a fraction of which is on display.

He said that eBay has cut into collectibles as a business. “The collectibles market is kind of hanging on,” he said. “It’s softened to some degree.”