Alkyon Arts and Antiques — Local services in Charleston

Overall experience was off putting and scary. There was a sign on the door that they were open but to call the number to be let in. I saw some beautiful paintings inside so I called. The person who answered seemed annoyed that I called and asked me if I was serious about buying antiques/art. I said that I was serious but wanted to look around of course. They answered by saying "YOU HAVE TO BE SERIOUS" I was about to walk away when they said they were almost to the door. I could not tell the gender of the person on the other end but they sounded feminine so I said "thank you ma'am" they said "what did you say?" And I repeated myself, they answered with a "I AM NO MA'AM" I apologized and they came up to open the door. They let me inside and as soon as I got in I could see that the paintings were insanely priced. I told the man that I would probably not be buying anything. He then tried to get me to buy a $500 painting, put it in my hands, and when I said "oh this is beautiful but I can't afford it" he snatched it out of my hands and and said "this is not the place for you." I saw another review saying he shut and locked the door behind the person. He did the same for me because he had to unlock the door for me to get out. Again, overall a very...

My friend and I stopped here on a whim. Lots of very interesting pieces. However, when she and I tried to leave, the door was locked. Naturally my friend tried to unlock it because we wanted to leave, but she was scolded by the man who let us in. We tried to apologize for trying to unlock the door. We'd never been in a shop that locked the door with customers in it, so we didn't know how to handle this. When he let us out he told us he "didn't know why he let us in in the first place" and then slammed the door behind us. I don't know what we did to get treated in such a nasty manner. We went in, did not touch anything, didn't make a ruckus, and tried to leave. He was also insistent that you had to view the items in a certain way, telling the woman who headed in before us that she had to start in the room to the right. He literally would not let her go anywhere but the room to the right in the beginning. Just a very strange and unpleasant...

Rude. I find it (not) funny that I’m not the only one saying this. My daughter and I were curious, as she enjoys vintage paintings and unique findings. Once the door was open, the man clearly didn’t want us there. I asked if they were open for visitors, and he replied with a huff, “You’re here.” In other words, of course and you’re stupid for asking. We literally could hear him huffing and puffing in the near background like he couldn’t wait for us to leave. He basically pushed out the door, as he had to unlock it for us to get out. He was very stuck up and shouldn’t even own a store. OR JUST MAKE SURE YOU LOOK LIKE MONEY WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT THE STUPID LOCKED DOOR! Oh, and to own such expensive paintings and antiques, you’d think he could do a little better than pieces of cut up paper with hand written descriptions just stamped on the walls and stuck...