By Chris Faulkner
Roger Nevling retired from the medical profession a few years ago. He expanded what had just been a hobby into a small business venture.
He bought the former Laws Jewelry store at 319 Jefferson St. and made it Laws Antiques and Jewelry.
In an era when so many things can be, and are, done online, Nevling’s appeal is to make it easier to sell to him than any of the online options.
“When you try to sell something on eBay, that’s work,” Nevling said. Instead, “they come to me, and they bring me this stuff, and they say, ‘How much would you give me for this?’ ”
For the consumer, Nevling sells a variety of antiques in addition to traditional silver, gold, and jewelry items.
“A lot of this stuff that’s in here, I didn’t buy it to sell it,” he said. “If it sells, great. But I bought it because it’s cool.
“It’s the cool factor. I don’t want to have an antique store that’s like going to a garage sale.”
He said he wants people to walk by the store and say, “What the heck?” and that will draw them in.
He showed an old brass whirligig, an object with at least one part that whirls or spins and that can be used as a toy or garden ornament.
“People bring me a variety of things here,” Nevling said. “I’m probably one of the only people, other than a pawn shop, that people can bring vintage jewelry and antiques down, and I’ll buy it.”
He Gets the ‘Bug’
“I kinda started getting the bug back when I was in my 30s,” Nevling said of his interest in antiques.
“I don’t know why. Who knows why you like something?”
At the time, he was working as a medical laboratory technologist in Tulsa, Okla. He would take his family to garage, antique, tag, and estate sales.
“Some of the stuff just intrigued me,” Nevling said. “That’s when I bought my first piece of silver. “
He still has that first piece.
“I didn’t sell. I was a collector,” he said.
However, Nevling said he wasn’t making much money, so in 1990, he got his physician associate degree at the University of Oklahoma.
After practicing medicine in Colorado for a couple of years, he was recruited to work in Burlington at the Medical Center when it was downtown.
He then worked with Health West Clinic at the Mercy Building in West Burlington and set up his own practice in a clinic in the North Hill building for 13 years. So, many of his customers know him from that part of his life.
As for his hobby, “over the years, my interest, especially in antique silver, continued to grow,” Nevling said. “I began to collect and purchase antique silver.”
He bought books about what he had so he could understand the history, and he has about 30 books now.
“All along, I was not only doing silver, but whenever I could, I dabbled in jewelry and tried to learn about jewelry too.”
Having remarried, he said his wife got a job in Oklahoma, so they left Burlington and later moved to Colorado. But because she had family here, they returned to Burlington.
About 3 ½ years ago, Nevling decided it was time to retire after COVID hit.
Around that time, the Laws Jewelry store went up for sale, having sat idle for about eight years, Nevling said. He had purchased watch batteries there in the past.
“When we came in and looked at it, it was a horrible mess,” Nevling said.
“The roof had been leaking for years and years. The walls were coming in, and the drop ceilings were down, and the carpeting was a wreck.”
Through the wreckage, however, “I could see that a lot of my stuff, my silver, would display well in here. I’m retired, so, what the heck, what do I got to lose?”
So he bought the place, fixed it himself (except for the electrical work), and kept the previous owner’s name.
After displaying his silver and jewelry, he set out to fill the other shelves with antiques.
Nevling sums up a successful transaction as follows: “I’m making a few bucks, you (the buyer) got something you like, and they (the seller) got a couple of bucks rather than taking it down and selling it at a garage sale.
“I don’t have to make a fortune,” he said. “This isn’t my livelihood. There’s not a ton of pressure on me for how much I have to make.”
Younger Generation
Young adults are interested in antiques, but only sometimes in the literal 100-year-old meaning of the word.
“What kids like” — and, by kids, Nevling means adults in their 20s and 30s — “is anything from mid-century modern, from the 60s and 70s,” he said.
He showed a painting of a child with extra-large eyes, the specialty of artist Margaret Keane in the 1960s.
“Some of these large ones sell for two, three hundred bucks,” Nevling said. “That’s their antiques.”
Tupperware containers and Pyrex serving dishes were staples in the middle of the last century, and today’s young adults likely saw them at their grandparents’ homes.
“I sold a set of those (Pyrex) bowls for $800,” Nevling said.
His most unusual item is a frame containing hair weaves. There are pictures of family members.
“When they passed,” Nevling said, “they would take their hair, and many times they would braid that hair and put it in a ring or put it in a locket.
“This (the framed weaves) just happens to be the piece de resistance.”
The oldest thing he has is from 1704, a silver spoon. “You can eat your soup from it,” Nevling said.
The Importance of Integrity
One of the pieces in Nevling’s store that’s not for sale is a plaque that quotes Proverbs 28:6: “Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.”
“I want people to see that,” Nevling said, “and I want them to know I’m not cheating them. I try to pay people a fair price.”