By: Emery Lay
Steven Gilmer, 73, has always loved reflecting on and preserving the past. This has revealed itself in his love for antiques. In 1971, Gilmer received a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Alabama.
“I thought, I'll use that degree,” Gilmer said. “It's been very helpful over the years. A history degree doesn't exactly cover antiques, but it helps put antiques in a timeline in different periods and that has been very helpful.”
Gilmer said that he did “a variety of things” before truly finding his passion – opening a shop of his own.
“I was doing my master's work in juvenile justice and working at one of the Alabama schools for delinquent youth,” Gilmer said. “And I woke up one morning and thought, ‘Dear God, you can't spend the rest of your life babysitting delinquents working for the state of Alabama.’ So, I quit my job and dropped out of graduate school that same afternoon and started selling antiques.”
It was the late 1970s – or early 1980s, Gilmer cannot remember which – and Gilmer was in his late 20s. He started his journey by setting up a card table at a quaint open-air market. The first day, Gilmer took in $50 – a hefty sum at the time. He was “hooked.” He said it was the easiest $50 he had ever made.
The next 30 years Gilmer spent on the road. He visited a different show every week and sold his goods at various shows, antique markets and flea markets. Yet, during his third decade selling antiques, the price of gas went up and so did the popularity of the internet. Gilmer took this as his sign to “come in off the road” and open a shop in Birmingham. The year was 2006.
“My goal was to reinvent the [typical] antique shop in Birmingham,” Gilmer said. “That’s one of my successes that I'm proudest of: having a shop young people love to come into. Most young people would rather eat live bait than go into an antique shopping mall. But I've got things that young people can relate to.”
Gilmer named his shop “What’s On 2nd,” which is now ironically on 20th. True to his word, Gilmer has primarily stayed away from selling furniture, glass, China, or “things of that nature.” Rather, he looks for oddities – or, in his words, “popular culture items.” These are brought in by his “army of pickers,” as he calls them, a term which encompasses anyone who walks in off the street looking to sell. Whether it be moving or downsizing that brings them in, Gilmer helps people know how much their oddities are worth and helps the pieces find a new home.
“I'm always interested in learning something new about the business and dealing in oddities keeps it interesting,” Gilmer said. “There’s always something new to learn. I still come into work every day, and I love coming into work.”
He said his favorite oddity is that he owns is usually “the next thing that comes through the door.” In fact, he said he has reached a point in his life where he is trying to live a more minimalistic lifestyle, while finding a way to preserve the antiques he comes across.
“If somebody doesn't hold on to it, you know, what happens to it?” Gilmer said. “We're constantly in a state of trying to preserve different things.
“Of course, the Alabama and the Lyric theatres are our treasures in our city that fortunately, we have been able to preserve. And I'm glad to have been helpful a little bit in that regard … I even donated a piece to the Lyric theater that sits in there [today]. It needed to be preserved locally, and that's what I did.”
The piece was a ventriloquist instrument, “1918” etched on its side. With the body of a guitar and the head of a puppet, whose eyes move with the strings, the piece was unlike anything Brant Beene, president and executive director of Birmingham Landmarks, Inc., had ever seen. From the moment he set eyes on it, Beene asked Gilmer, a decades-old friend, to hold it for him until he found the money to buy it.
“He priced it at $2,500,” Beene said. “I said, ‘Steve, I don't know how I'm gonna get the money, but do not sell that to anybody.’ After a year or two he walked into the Lyric one day and handed it to me. And he said, ‘It's yours.’”
Beene said the dedication of the piece was a “unique situation,” as they rarely have any decorum that was not already native to the building. In the Alabama, nearly every piece has been there since 1927. But the Vaudeville-era piece from What’s on 2nd was unique. Beene said he is convinced it was used in the Lyric when it was constructed in 1914.
Today, it sits in the lobby, encased in glass for every young, concert-goer to see, all thanks to the preservation work of people like Gilmer who are dedicated to putting the past where we can reflect on it and still enjoy it.
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