Stopped in here with my girlfriend on a meandering drive back to Memphis from Martin on a lazy…read moreSaturday afternoon, and wasn't expecting much beyond a brief diversion from the Rt. 51 bypass. The exterior of Bill Walton's is thoroughly unassuming and you wouldn't feel like you'd missed something if you checked it out from the highway and decided to keep on driving. Unless, of course, you've actually visited it before.
Bill Walton's is of the rare breed of antique stores that a man might enjoy more than a woman, even if he's not particularly interested in antiques to begin with. The sizable main room is rife with toys, militaria, advertising, tools, and - much to my delight - an impressive collection of cufflinks. Most everything is in great condition, as well, but not so great that everything looks like a reproduction. The patina, especially on the beverage advertising, is in just the right places and to just the right extent. No one wants to hang a sheet of rust in his man cave, but if you want something that still looks like it's been around the block and has some good stories to tell - Bill Walton's delivers. And even though I got the impression that several dealers were represented here (although I'm not sure), everything was very well-organized; toys were in one section, jewelry in another, militaria in another, etc. A few oddities that I thought were great: a set of vintage glassware from Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans, a collection of miniature fuzzy baby chickens (why?), and a tie bar with a terrifying painted clown face on it. It's definitely not the same old junk that you see every day.
And that was just the main room. The "warehouse" in the back is the stuff mantique dreams are made of. Several vintage Coke machines, walls plastered with advertising, racks of tools, a huge old popcorn machine (!), a couple game machines that could very well have sat in your grandfather's favorite bar, and not one, but two pedal-driven merry-go-rounds. If it wasn't so hot (there's no a/c or heat back there, as a sign on the door warns) I could have dug around back there for hours.
Prices on everything here were very reasonable, and it wasn't the kind of place where everything was prohibitively expensive. They certainly have their share of $500 Coca-Cola signs and so on, but you could go into this place with nothing but a twenty-dollar bill in your pocket, walk around for an hour, leave with change, and feel like you got some really neat stuff. I did.
If you're a fan of places like Antique Warehouse Mall in Memphis but you've been there so many times that you have the entire contents of every booth memorized, Bill Walton's is more than worth the drive. Check it out.
