Stephen Wagner: Caywood Antiques owner Stephen Wagner uses a jeweler's loupe for close examination.Feature Interview With Stephen Wagner

By Paulette Likoudis

"People buy back their childhoods, they say - anything that rings the nostalgia bell," explains Stephen Wagner, owner of Caywood Antiques. If that is the case, there is surely something to ring everyone's bell at Wagner's store of treasures. It may be the place to find that one-of-a-kind gift for the history lover on your list.

The wood frame store was built in 1895, about the time when the Lehigh Valley Railroad's nearby Caywood Station and associated track side buildings entered the picture. The station is no longer standing, but the Wagner Brewing Company - owned by Stephen's father - named Caywood Station Stout beer in its memory.

Brothers James and Charles Caywood are credited with the boom development of Lodi's hamlet of Caywood, where they built three magnificent homes around the turn of the 20th century. Later, Elmer G. Porter and his adopted son, Elmer J. Porter, became prominent land and business owners in the neighborhood. Stephen Wagner bought the building that is home to his antique business from the Porter family about 14 years ago.

Replacing the basic grocery items, dry goods, lumber and hardware originally sold in the landmark building are a variety of furniture, crates, glass objects, crockery, brass, china, toys, quilts, rugs, books, utensils, tools, assorted hardware and numerous small items of interest to collectors. There is even some architectural salvage like leaded glass, mantels and columns. The store's specialty is 19th century furniture and lighting of the 19th and 20th centuries.

What most interests buyers of antiques? "There's no predictable pattern," answers Stephen. "If I knew what would go fast, I'd be out looking for more of it," he chuckles. "It's kind of why I have such a general selection."

During this interview, the most expensive piece for sale was a Colonial Revival pier mirror, c. 1900, from an Auburn auction. Priced at $1400, the larger-than-life mirror framed in Mahogany and weighing several hundred pounds was designed for placement in a foyer or parlor entry point where visitors paused to "check out the way they looked" before joining the company of others.

There are bargains for as little as one dollar, such as door lock skeleton keys. Some people collect those, like others collect marbles. "Some people collect everything Burger King," offers Stephen.

Stephen is the son of Bill Wagner and Ruth VanVleet Wagner. His interest in collectibles began when he was about twelve years old. He gathered hundreds of the various styles of glass insulators used on telegraph and telephone lines in the area. "I had them lined up all over the place." Morse code was the railroad's means of communication, and the insulators could easily be found near the tracks. "The railroad would change them from time to time, and they just left the old ones on the ground," said Stephen.

Now that Stephen is "50-something," acquiring antiques is more complicated, with sources including individuals, auctions and shows throughout the Northeast. Ninety percent of the contents of his tightly-packed store are from this area, arriving in large and small quantities. "Sometimes people are selling a few things and sometimes they're selling a lot of things."

Customers travel to Caywood just to visit the store after seeing advertising, and others discover it while traveling the Seneca Lake Wine Trail. On a rainy Sunday afternoon, two shoppers were focused on the store's glass pieces. One bought a clear bowl ringed with swimming dolphins, while the other fancied a 1930s bowl colored green by uranium oxide, priced at $44. Stephen used a black light to confirm the compound used in the coloring of the bowl. The black light waves caused the dish to become distinctly flourescent.

Other tools of the trade include a ruler, flashlight, old newspapers and a jeweler's loupe. The loupe magnifies ten times actual size, and is used for reading fine print or assessing flaws.

Old newspapers, while of little value because they are usually in poor condition, are useful for the accurate dating of clothes, shoes and household objects, said Stephen. He unfolded a 1918 edition of the New York Times to illustrate his point.

Squinting into his loupe, Stephen closely examined a ball point pen distributed decades ago by the J.D. Lamoreaux and M.D. Close Gulf auto service station in the Village of Lodi, phone number 35. The pen, given to patrons as advertising, holds a removable capsule filled with a sample of Gulf Pride oil, still fluid. An attached, unused eraser is on one end of the capsule. The Lodi pen has dual collectible value. "It is a Gulf collectible and a Lodi collectible," said Stephen.

In the same genre, but of more recent history, are unused pencils embossed with the names of election candidates Eugen Baer, Harry Curtin and Lou Johns. Baer is presently a Lodi councilman and Johns is an organic fruit and vegetable farmer in Lodi. Curtin, a prominent member of the Lodi Historical Society, passed away a year ago. The vintage pencils will gain value as more time passes, said Stephen.

There is an array of little curios at Caywood Antiques, like Victorian era picture nails. Styled in different ways, the nails have porcelain or glass heads that can be unscrewed or slipped off for hammering. Photographs and paintings were hung on heavy, velvet cords held by picture nails.

Displayed on the walls and furniture of Caywood Antiques are old, unidentified photographs. Some are strange, to say the least, giving the buyer his or her chance to fill in the blanks of origin and circumstances.

When he is not being attentive to customers, Stephen can usually be found refinishing furniture in a back room at the antique store. "I've always liked cherry and walnut furniture," he said. Hundred-year-old shellac finishes can still be beautiful, but antique furniture buyers should expect the need for repairs. "Most people shouldn't be doing their own furniture restoration," cautions Stephen.

What antiques are scarce these days? "You don't see Victorian, walnut bookcases with glass doors or early pine cupboards," Stephen laments. "Early furniture is rare and expensive."

What is the best and the weirdest of what Stephen has seen in his business? The antique dealer answered that the dispersal sale at the Camp House in Trumansburg provided both. "It was the best auction this area has ever seen. Everything there was from one family."

Stephen reached for a zip-lock plastic bag that held one of his favorite acquisitions - a genuine, flint arrowhead. The projectile - just under two inches long - is carefully chipped to aero-dynamic precision, a tiny work of art with a glowing patina. "Indians traded flint as currency," he noted. There are "knock-offs," but collectors can verify the authenticity of real arrowheads, said Stephen.

As a husband and wife browsed quietly, Wagner leafed through a pile of cotton salt bags of five and eight-pound capacities, printed with the names of Watkins Glen, Elmira and Ithaca companies. One was stamped, "Have you seen any salt from anywhere to equal this?"

The salt bags found their way to Caywood Antiques because "nothing was ever thrown away" in the old days, explained Stephen. As he arranged a stack of crumbling, yellowed newspapers, he laughed, "And now I can't throw anything out."

(For many years, Stephen Wagner has shared his knowledge at the Lodi Historical Society's "antique road shows" where audience members bring items for appraisal and discussion.)