Millsboro Bazaar celebrates two decades in business

Dave Mayer opened Millsboro Bazaar in downtown Millsboro two decades ago. Business, he said, is still going strong, and sales over the holiday season remained steady.

Inside his West Main Street brick-faced store marked by towering white pillars, Mayer recently stood among hundreds and hundreds of green-glass brooches, gold bangles, Hobe pendants and slinky silver necklaces.

A mile of accessories, and costume and vintage jewelry are packed inside a dozen display cases. Mayer said this year, sales have topped last year’s. Three floors of furniture, glassware, men’s and women’s clothing and knick-knacks fill the site of a former funeral parlor.

What sells the most, however? “Jewelry, jewelry, jewelry,” he said.

“In this economy, people are more likely to buy $20 items than $100 items,” he said. “Somebody can come in and spend $10 and be happy. A lot of these things you’re not going to see someone else has,” he said.

His customers are aged from 15 to 85 and mostly women, he said. But he does offer tie tacks and cufflinks for men. He says his jewelry – which makes up 60 percent of his inventory – is priced in the mid-range and affordable. Most pieces, he said, are below $100. Lea Stein, Boucher, Dior and Weiss are just a handful of the designers he carries.

A customer walked into his store, Dec. 11, saying she’s looking to buy some Christmas presents. As she passed a curio cabinet, she said, “Oh, no, I need to put blinders on.” “Can I help you?” Mayer asks. The shopper replies, “You can help me by kicking me out!”

Mayer said customers regularly stop in looking for gifts for others and end up leaving with clunky bracelets or rhinestone-encrusted rings for themselves. His customers come from all over the country, he said.

One woman flies in from Minnesota twice a year to buy jewelry that Mayer has snatched up, largely from estate sales.

Julia Carroll is a devoted Dover customer who wrote “Costume Jewelry 101,” he said.

Chicago Tribune columnist Ellen Warren is another customer and friend who also writes about Mayer’s many unique items.

While out-of-towners spend more money, it’s the Cape Region shoppers who are the store’s backbone, he said. “My year-round customers are locals. They keep me in business.”

Born in Baltimore, Mayer, 58, has lived in the Cape Region for 30 years. He bought the building in 1989, but antiquing and collecting vintage jewelry, clothes and glassware have been in the Mayer family for generations, he said.

In 1890, Mayer’s great-grandfather opened his own shop in Baltimore. His mother, Bette, also sells handbags at Millsboro Bazaar to benefit the restoration of the Lewes Presbyterian Church.

The first floor not only has rows and rows of jewelry, it also has china, colored glassware and furniture.

On the second floor are hundreds of hats, vintage menswear and women’s wear, and children’s clothes and books.

The bargain basement has junk and a mishmash of everyday household items and random trinkets.

But it’s the jewelry Mayer values most. “I like trying to figure out what women want and what they’ll want next year,” he said. Today, he said, skeleton key-shaped pendants are popular. “I love this business, I really do. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years,” he said.