Raven Antiques & Military

If I could give it 0 stars I would. My husband and I went in (my husband is a police officer and like this type of stuff) and the owner is just an awful human being. he was rude, unwilling to help anyone, and just sat there and grumbled and watched tv. Friends and other posters have told us he is racist, hates any gay people and calls them the worst names in the book, and I know he has been harassing his next door neighbor to the point where he attacked her and her son with a chain saw. He should be in prison… STAY AWAY FROM THIS BUSINESS!!!

I have been here three times, and never spent a penny. The owner prefers to sit and watch tv, usually with one or two of his friends, and he is very reluctant to help his customers.
Nothing is priced. If you ask for a price, he will be annoyed, and then quote a price twice or three times what the item is worth. His stock almost never changes, and the place is so dark that you need a flashlight to look around. Most of his inventory looks as if it has been there for years, because it has.
There are piles of things scattered around, but I doubt that he ever tries to organize them.
As I said, this was not a «bad day» for the owner. It’s always this way.
Don’t bother going in unless you want to watch a war movie. For someone in this type of business, he sure has a poor aptitude for selling.
Strong «do not recommend.»

This place is a joke. Nothing is priced. When you do ask a price for something he gives a ridiculous number. Plus he’s a complete dick. He insulted me in front of his friends because I asked if he had something that I did not see. And that’s not the first time I’ve seen him be a jerk. One day he was talking about how he didn’t want ni@@ers to come into his store. I’ll never be back and I recommend that you don’t go there either.

Cool place. Always had a cat sleeping in the window but she seems to have gone missing. I grew up in sellwood Im 4^th generation in fact and the little memories like this place will always be cherished. I finally went in one day since I never do antique shopping but always wondered what the mystery on the inside was. I see other reviews about the men talking at the counter and I guess that could be a negative experience but I found it kinda cool that they were just hanging out and enjoying their life and day letting customers come and go as they pleased. I never felt like they wanted me to hurry and buy or needed to babysit me they just left me alone and that was fun to explore the store.
I didn’t go in there to buy anything or think I would and liked the swords on the walls and all the arrowheads they would be a great gift idea I haven’t seen on Ebay.
Before I left a mug caught my eye. It was a beautiful white with gold trim across the top mug with two German Shepherds on it. I was excited finding it because you cant go into walmart or target and find that. I asked the guy how much since there are no price tags on anything and he smiled and said five bucks. I thought from my perspective it was cool to not have prices I felt like maybe we were making a deal. There used to be a pawn shop in sellwood when I was little and I would go in at a very young age and always bug the guy for vcrs and other items and I remember him getting annoyed at me always trying to bug him with the prices but he had a smile and sell me the dang vcr and it made it fun.
Just a place full of memories Sellwood is. Everyone will take from it what they will but I thought Id share a view from someone walking down the street all my life and finally one day stopped in because I always took it for granted and at least I have a fun memory of this Military Antique shop too before its gone.

I stopped in this store on Sunday afternoon, ³⁄₃₀ and found group of elderly looking men near the back counter talking. The prices on items were not listed anywhere, nor on individual items. A simple sign that read, «post cards, $ 1 each» would have been helpful. When I asked how much for 3 old b & w photos, the owner was cranky, seemed that I’d interrupted his social hour with the boys, and said, «$ 5.00»
Ouch! Random and expensive prices.
The men at the counter, including the owner were speaking loudly about Gresham, the Sellwood neighborhood, crime, gentrification and the fact that «Blacks» (African Americans) try to come in the store and steal things. The owner of the store went on and on into a very uncomfortable racial discussion about how blacks in Portland have brought down the city, the world and that he will no longer let ‘them’ into the store. He claimed that blacks were bringing in backpacks and bikes but that his policy is now to bar blacks entirely from his store.
Needless to say, I didn’t make a purchase. I felt sick to my stomach after hearing the discussion and left. I walked to one of the many other antique shops on SE 13^th and found exactly what I was looking for and the price was reasonable and marked.
The Sellwood neighborhood is up in arms about the new (opening soon) ‘Moreland Farmers Pantry’ owner’s anti-​gay views, but they should also take note that the owner of The Raven, Paul Vanderpool has some extremely discriminatory views as well.
I won’t set foot in The Raven ever again. There are so many nicer antique shops in Sellwood to check out.

This visit will be my last after putting up with years of on again, off again treatment from the owner. He must seriously be bi-​polar. Sometimes he’s super chatty and pleasant, but 80% of the time he makes you feel like you walked into his private home unannounced, but on my last trip I couldn’t even buy a shotgun from this man. I come in about every two months and we have bought all kinds of items from him including antique toys, pins, and of course MIL items. I have always loved old hunting items and saw a double barreled shotgun he had sitting on a rack. I really enjoy Fabbri (Italy) and Holland and Holland (England) shotguns and while this was clearly not a piece built to the same standard, I was intrigued when he told me it was English. Good enough for a wall display we were doing. I asked if I could pick it up to have a look, noting it’s $ 800 price tag before I even asked to be sure it was within my budget, to which he replied «there’s really no reason for it… unless you’re gonna give me $ 500 for it.»
Really? Sure why not, let me pay you BEFORE I even see the gun. I stared in disbelief before leaving the store, which happens to smell like cats and trashes my allergies every time I walk into this dusty, dirty hovel. Did I mention there is an open kitchen in the store often with dirty dishes in the sink or old food laying around? Now all the stories he told me over the years about how he can’t stand any of the other dealers or shops in the neighborhood started to make sense, they can’t stand this guy either!
My word of advice is if you MUST shop here, realize that his prices are from the glory days of a thriving economy, anything you see in the shop you can search on your smartphone and buy for much, much less on eBay, craigslist or an army surplus store. I will never give this «dealer» another cent of my money and I regret I ever did.

This isn’t one of your sparkling clean antique stores. But there are a lot of random treasures in here. Just be prepared to ask for the price on everything because nothing is marked with a price tag.

Sellwood is notorious for «Antique Row,» the stretch of SE 13^th Avenue crammed with antique stores on either side. While one could spend an entire day digging through old junk, my personal favorite is the unassuming Raven Antiques and Military. Shopping at Raven is like pawing through your grandfather’s dusty junk, including old family photos, heaps of military memorabilia, old cameras, and an unused kitchen sink full of «antiques». Adding to the voyeuristic feeling that you are in someone’s crowded home, there are a dog and a cat lounging on the floor and two mustached men watching a small television while talking shop. Unpretentious, dusty, and full of possible treasures.
open 11 – 5 7 days