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Picek: ‘I love what I do ... why retire?’
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · July 23, 2015
And then there’s the story of the “stupid” value of an antique heart-shaped ice cream scoop.
When Lou Picek opened Main Street Antiques and Art more than four decades ago, Victorian and Country Americana gained popularity in antique circles when Jackie Kennedy gave a tour of the White House, showing many such items in its décor.
So Picek made sure he had it on his shelves, but not just anything — only what he liked, and only the unique and unusual.
And, on occasion, stupid.
Picek recently marked 40 years in business from when he opened June 20, 1975, right where he is now, at 110 West Main Street. He’s learned a few things about what customers like, and value. Bring in an antique, and he can tell if you it’s worth anything, or if it’s in demand.
Like the heart-shaped ice cream scoop.
Picek read about the antique scoop and happened to find one at an antique show for $25.
“I knew it was worth quite a bit,” he said, so he bought it, even though he had little interest. Later that day, at the same show, a couple people who saw him carrying it around offered to buy it on the spot for $500.
This reporter looked it up online, and someone on CollectorsWeekly.com said the scoops can sell for $500 to $600. LiveAuctioneers.com has one with $1,000 as the starting bid price, estimating it will sell for between $4,000 to $6,000.
Picek declined to sell his $25 scoop until he researched it a bit. He ended up putting it up for auction, and it brought in about $4,000.
Not a bad haul. But why does he call it “stupid”?
Because he also sold a rare, 1836 anti-slavery poster, something with vastly more historic and intrinsic value, for $7,500. In comparison, he thought $4,000 was far too much to pay for an ice cream scoop, no matter how unique.
“Four thousand dollars to blow on an ice cream scoop or, say, a Batman comic book? That’s stupidity. Compared to an anti-slavery poster?” he said. “There are too many people out there with too much money.”
Yet he will play the game of supply and demand, because that’s how business works, he said. Today, for example, one will not find Victorian and Country Americana items in his shop.
“That old stuff, you can’t give some of that away,” he said.
Now he looks for items from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, as well as “stuff you don’t see in every other shop,” he said.
“It has to appeal to me,” Picek said, through its design, “artistic redemption” and “redeeming qualities.”
Picek attended the University of Iowa, earning a masters degree in fine arts with a specialty in painting, as well as a teaching certification that allowed him to teach college classes, but there were “no jobs.”
He was drafted in September 1969 — one of the last — and sent to Fr. Polk in Louisiana for basic training. He got a job as an illustrator for the U.S. Army and was stationed at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. He was discharged in the fall of 1971.
His parents ran an antique shop out of their Iowa City basement in the 1950s and 1960s, which he helped operate, like buying furniture. That background and the need for work led he and Colleen to look into opening Main Street Antiques & Art, which led to a storefront in West Branch owned by Dr. Richard Stuelke.
There were five antique shops in West Branch at the time, but Picek said he did not see that as competition. Antiquers like visiting towns with several shops, he said, for more selection.
“The more the better,” Picek said.
They rented for the first year, then bought the property outright from Stuelke, complete with an apartment building in the back and three upstairs. They were the first small business loan signed at West Branch State Bank, Picek said.
The ground-floor apartment in the back of the store was converted into more square footage for the shop, and two apartments upstairs are still in use.
Part of the business name, of course, is “art.” Not only do they buy and sell, but Picek has always painted his own pieces. Some he paints on his own, others he paints on commission. Visitors to the Hoover Library-Museum have seen one of his paintings hanging in the hallway of a seated farmer looking right back at the viewer. He takes pictures of each one and keeps photo albums filled with them. His work has been sold to or shown in Houston, Denver, Muscatine, Cedar Rapids and Sioux City, among others.
He prefers acrylic paints and a “more narrative” style with “lots of color,” patterns and humor. He does not know the number of canvasses that have crossed his easel and left with paintings of people, animals and scenery. He’s painted the Hoover birthplace cottage — on display at the Hoover Complex — farmers, farm houses, Noah’s Ark and his parents, to name a few.
“I’ve done a lot of paintings,” the 68-year-old said. “I like to tell a story.”
Some paintings take as much as three weeks, and Picek jokes that “I’m probably working for 50 cents an hour.”
“But I love what I do,” he said. “I don’t get fabulously rich, but why retire?”
In his many years, he learned “good public relations” can help carry a business, as well as honesty.
“If (a customer) is not happy, we will take (an item) back within a reasonable amount of time,” he said.
Most of his business comes from tourists and other visitors rather than locals, he said, yet even that traffic is down this year. American Pickers’ Mike Wolf has visited the store, as well as politicians, Hoover Library-Museum researchers and, of course, traveling dealers who often say “You’re still here?”
He chats up visitors, asking them if they have “Been here before?” Or if they are “Hunting for something specific?” That gets them talking about where they come from, with some coming as far away as the Ukraine, Thailand, the Czech Republic and Australia.
Business practices need to change, though. He started a mailing list, for example, that grew to 250 customers trying to keep tabs on unique items. Today, he uses the Web to reach those same people.
“I used to send Polaroids to people,” he said. “(Now) I try to work social media.”
While Lou is the primary employee, his wife, Colleen, who worked for 37 years as a speech therapist, helps him mind the shop quite a bit. So do friends.
Yet Colleen and he and two other couples also run their own antique show twice a year at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids. The event includes both the Midwest Antiques and Art Show and the Collectors Eye. It’s been running for 26 years as it continues to help them market their items to specific crowds while also helping them find new items to purchase.
And they also attend other shows, like in Chicago, Rockford, Iowa City, the Amanas and Cedar Rapids. Picek said they once used to travel to Massachusetts and Nashville for shows, but no longer.
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