Stars & Splendid Antiques Mall — Local services in Portland

Fake product, poor service, poor interaction with management (rude, did not address problem).

I was excited on a recent walk through Stars to see what appeared to be a bunch of semi-framed (glass mounted) antique fruit crate labels in good condition at Booth 11. I spent $50 to buy 4 of them.

3 of the pieces were tagged as authentic 1920s-1930s labels, one was not. The untagged piece was clearly a reproduction of a famous label that goes for over $1000 on ebay, so I knew this one was a print and was fine with it. Upon getting home I removed the glass the labels were mounted on to allow for framing and was disappointed to realize that all 4 pieces were fake, though 3 were labeled vintage. Two obvious tip-offs: the paper was brand new glossy, not 80 years old, and if that wasn't enough the art had been taped to the backing board to make it impossible to remove. No real collector/seller would ever tape the collectible to anything.

So what you have here is a vendor who dresses up his fake product under glass and tapes it down to make it tough to get to. Seems like a lot of effort for $12. So here's an idea for him: Label your products as what they are: Reproduction prints. You'll probably sell just as many of them.

As for the management at Stars, be aware that there is a zero return policy here on everything and their motivation if you have a concern will be to get you off...

I have visited Stars several times over the years. Sometimes I found great items, and sometimes I didn't. It is the nature of antiquing. That said, I feel the need to address a couple of posts I have seen here regarding Nazi items for sale at Stars. First, it is absurd to suggest the Stars owners or vendors are Nazi sympathizers supporting the 'cause'. Second, if one wanted to, one could criticize a lot of items that are for sale at Stars and lodge complaints against them for a whole host of reasons. For instance, magazines from the 60's and 70's that have advertisements objectifying women (not to mention the occasional Playboy that comes up for sale). Black dolls or Mammy cookie jars that clearly have their roots in American slavery. World War II items that refer to the Japanese as "Nips". The list goes on and on. The important takeaway is that it is "history". People collect these items for numerous reasons (e.g., fascination with the period of time, quality of craftsmanship no longer found today, and even the shocking horror that certain events happened). Preventing the sale of these items won't change the past. If anything, they are necessary reminders of where we don't want to go again. Censorship has no...

My wife and I stopped in at 2 Stars locations. Both seemed to have the same atmosphere. It will be simple to describe. The customers that milled around us crowded the isles making it uncomfortable to shop. Several times in both shops I was kicked or bumped rudely. Now my wife and I are average people and I was puzzled. This happening in both shops I figured it was normal as I stood back and watched as customers seemed unhappy and for the most part rude to each other. The shop keepers could not tell me where I might find certain items such as pocket watches and other misc items. I noticed 80% of the items were new and new to make look old. These are not antiques. I am a collector; I have several booths in other shops in Vancouver. I will never shop the antique shops in that area again and tell everyone about my experience. Please don’t get me wrong. As both my wife and I meet outside the buildings we both had the same story about the rude and unhappy customers to both of our surprise. There was one lady in the West side of the street working who did refer me to the right location on an item I asked...