Chadds Ford Life: Americana, preserved
01/15/2025 09:56PM ● By Richard GawPhotos by Jie Deng
Text by Richard L. Gaw
We have become a nation that has been romanced by the growing spectacle of transience – the promise that there is always something better and newer and upgraded just a click or an app away. With each passing delivery to our doorstep, transience has ambushed permanence and rendered the physical reminders of our past obsolete. In short, we are riding in the fast lane on a superhighway of consumerism, where there is not time to be absorbed in the beautiful amber of our yesterdays because we must keep up with the demands of today and tomorrow.
Upon entrance to the Pennsbury-Chadds Ford Antique Mall in Chadds Ford – whether you’re a first-time visitor or a long-time customer – there is clear evidence here to suggest that the heart of the nation that resides in the dusty archives of our history is, in fact, treasured, preserved and honored by the many vendors who tend its booths. It is a stunning portal passage for the curious, a please touch museum of artifacts that you can soon display in your home and proof positive that there indeed was an America before the advent of the iPhone.
Throughout its two levels are found toy trains of various types and sizes, tin soldiers from World War I, period costumes and hand-crafted furniture dating back to the 1800s, porcelain Santas and trinkets and doodads from what may have resided in your great grandmother’s childhood toy box. There is fine glassware from the time when Roosevelt was in the White House – Teddy, not Franklin – and of course, Andrew Wyeth signed prints that when framed and arranged in a home just so, create a distinct and lasting signature of place.
In a world where time accelerates furiously, the Pennsbury-Chadds Ford Antique Mall is American, preserved -- an invitation to discover, appreciate and perhaps own the timeless tapestries that define who we once were.
The Pennsbury-Chadds Ford Antique Mall is located at 640 Baltimore Pike, Chadds Ford, Pa. 19317, and is open Thursdays through Mondays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. To learn more, call (610) 388-1620 or visit www.pcfantiquemall.com.