Antiques, Furniture and other Curious Items

Now open in our new location.  We look forward to seeing you at 6780 Market St. beside Ruth’s Kitchen on the corner of Market St. and Station Road.  Can’t wait to see you.

“There is something delightfully vague about the term “Old Curiosity Shop”.  It may mean so much and so little.

-New York Times   Feb. 5, 1899

Baker Street Curiosity Shop is located in Wilmington, NC with a fairy tale like aura that is rich with history and a treasure trove of antiques, furniture and other “Curious Items”.  Our name comes from the London address of the world’s most celebrated detective, Sherlock Holmes and his dedicated companion Dr. Watson whose address was 221-B Baker Street.

The first curiosity shop was built in 1567 and immortalized by Charles Dickens in his fourth novel “The Old Curiosity Shop” and is considered to be the oldest shop in central London.  While most of the 19th century curiosity shops kept faith with the Dickensian model, none of these stores presented much awareness of period or style.  In other words, none of these stores dealt in antiques.  By 1876 local antiquarians became especially keen on collecting history at the county level and by 1889 these curiosity shops began displaying their merchandise with aesthetic clarity.  The advent of the modern antique store was announced by the New York Times on Feb. 5, 1899 with the straightforward title “How to start an Old Curiosity Shop”.  Though the article began with the usual aphorisms about the great collectors being born and not made, it immediately reversed itself with the claim that modern women’s knowledge of the cycles of fashion was even more essential than capital or connoisseurship in starting an antique business.