My goal is to publish new posts twice a week — Mondays and Thursdays. However, if you don’t see a new post on Thursday, it’s because I was too busy, so please look for a new one the following Monday.

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Hello from the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC, where we’ll be opening the National Arts & Crafts Conference tomorrow.

The Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show finished Tuesday with a whimper, not a bang. We made a couple of small sales the last two days, but we still finished with a loss. Lots of time, effort and money, with no reward.

The show attracted many attendees partly because the PBSG gave out thousands of free tickets, but also because they did a good job of advertising. The problem was the show attracted thousands of the wrong people. The purpose of spending a lot of money to exhibit at a fancy show in a wealthy neighborhood is to attract qualified buyers, but that didn’t happen. This is the second year in a row that we either failed to make expenses or barely eked out a profit. Extending the show to six days made the problem worse. I can think of much better ways to spend my time and money.

Unfortunately the expenses killed my show. Remember I took a smaller booth to trim my expenses. Good thing I did or I would have had an even larger loss.

The business of exhibiting at shows has become really tough. As a result, we will not be exhibiting in Palm Beach next year. Many shows have failed, or will fail soon, leaving very few where we can make a profit. I’ll be beefing up my Internet presence in the hope of attracting new clients. If that works out well, there will be even less incentive to travel to marginal shows.

Mondays blog will have the results of the National Arts & Crafts Conference in Asheville, NC.

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Our next show is not until April 15th, when we’ll be at the Chicago Botanic Garden, in Glencoe, IL, for the Garden, Antique & Design Show. It’s one of our two remaining shows in the greater Chicago area. We really like exhibiting in Chicago and look forward to seeing all of our old friends.

If you’re selling, please let me know. If you have what I’m looking for, I’m paying the highest prices. My decisions are quick and my payments just as quick. Just snap a photo and email it to me.

I always strive to offer the finest objects for sale on my website and at every show. I will continue to list more as often as possible. Please click here to take a look.There are many items for sale, sold items with prices and free lessons about glass and lamps. And remember to keep reading my blog.