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The South’s the site for some sublime antiquing. West Tennessee is especially enticing. Here’s the plan: book a flight to Memphis, rent a car and head out. The Tennessee Antique Trail points the way to tempting treasures, and Delta Air Lines’ Memphis hub gets you to the general vicinity. The carrier offers a full 147 peak-day departures from MEM to a total of 54 destinations.

The first place you’ll want to stop after checking into your hotel is Memphis’ Antique Warehouse Mall. 55 vendors set up shop here, purveying vintage furniture, collectibles, cans, jars and just about everything in-between. The Mall’s owners aren’t novices to this business. They’ve been buying and selling antiques in the Mid South for a decade-and-a-half now. The result is an extraordinary aggregation of sumptuous stuff.

From Memphis, head by car to Alamo, Tennessee. That’s where you’ll find High Cotton – literally. High Cotton & Co. is an antiquer’s antique store, with a neat selection of architectural items, old tools, painted furniture and items in the rough. It’s the latter that are especially intriguing.

Selmer, Tennessee is the site of J & S Antiques, an aggregation of historic buildings filled with vintage and antique bookcases, dining sets, chests, bedroom suites, side tables and such. To show you how good Jeff Goodman and Scotty Goodrum are at stocking their store, J & S is a favorite of antique dealers too.

The area in and around Jackson is rife with good antique shops. One of them is Yesterdays Antiques. Jesse Byrum has been in business a quarter-of-a-century. He will help you find that perfect wedding or anniversary gift.

The neat thing this writer and wife Kathy have found is that antique exploration can turn up some unique, amazing, and comparatively inexpensive Christmas gifts. It’s never too early to start shopping. In the case of antique shopping, that exploration is the gift to you.

Story by Jerry Chandler

(Image: Kecko)

About the author

Jerry ChandlerJerry Chandler loves window seats – a perch with a 35,000-foot view of it all. His favorite places: San Francisco and London just about any time of year, autumn in Manhattan and the seaside in winter. An award-winning aviation and travel writer for 30 years, his goal is to introduce each of his grandkids to their first flight.

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