Upstairs Downstairs Antiques

I love antiquing… but this place just seemed a mess. Sure, there are always gems to be found in stores like this, but it generally requires too much digging and too much reliance on luck to be worth much time. The staff was friendly but the poor organization and overall feeling that the items for sale were general discards and not well preserved vintage or antique items just put me off.
And for the record, for an item to be considered antique, it needs to be over 100 years old. Most of these items would be better termed as «vintage.»

I didn’t realize it until this trip to Fredericksburg, but I’ve become a person I kind of hate… I’ve become one of those people that go «antiquing». Not that there’s anything wrong with antiquing… no, I take that back, there really is something wrong with antiquing. Let’s review what antiquing is — it’s the act of purchasing something USED and OLD and paying MORE then what it would be, brand new.
I hate antiquers… yet, I’ve become one. Damn my love of vintage!
And Upstairs Downstairs Antiques is the kind of antique shop that I hate — one that thinks that «cluttered» equates to «good selection», and that «old» equates to «expensive».
Now, don’t get me wrong… I get it. It’s old and thusly rare… so you have to pay a premium for it, but considering there are several other antique/​collectables shops within a stone’s throw of this place with much better deals, I was disappointed. While the store was *massive*, things were stacked and piled together in clusters (were these individual vendors/​collections? We couldn’t tell), which would make sense if the store wasn’t so large (and there was definitely space to organize and display things properly).
Finally, we couldn’t find a sales person to help us with a lovely turn of the century wood inlay barcart that we were interested in purchasing (we didn’t end up buying it because we couldn’t find anyone to ring us up)…even though we were one of the only customers in the store.
Eh. Not impressed — which is unfortunate, because I REALLY wanted that barcart!
And yes, I’m filled with self loathing for becoming an antiquer.