Antique chair a rare find for collector

In Ray Stokes’ Lynchburg home, antique furniture isn’t something that’s displayed in an off-limits, roped-off room.

It’s lived in. It’s used every day.

One particular source of pride for Stokes is an imposing secretary cabinet that sits in the entryway to his home. It was made in Lynchburg between 1815 and 1817.

A few feet away in the living room, there’s a white Chippendale sofa, which dates back to the 19th century.

A couple of 18th- and 19th- century Louis XV chairs, with their original needlepoint seats and finish intact, sit nearby.

Stokes plops down into one of the chairs as if it’s an old couch and not a chair that’s worth thousands.

“We have lived with this old stuff all our lives, and it’s gotten the same treatment as anything else has,” says the avid antique collector and dealer, who recently discovered an interesting history behind one of his finds: a chair that once belonged to John McCain Jr., the father of Sen. John McCain.

He found the chair, another Louis XV, over a year ago at an antique store in Kilmarnock.

As he was loading it into the back of his car, Stokes noticed a paper label on the back of one leg, but didn’t pay it any attention.

When he got back to Lynchburg, he put the chair in the basement with his other inventory until a few weeks ago, when he brought it up for a local antique show.

“I was going to knock the dust off of it,” he says. “There was the paper label (again). I peeled it off.

“It said, “John S. McCain, Jr.,’ with a Honolulu address.”

It isn’t exactly an “Antiques Roadshow”-type windfall — Stokes says it was valued at about $1,400, a price that didn’t go up because of its history — but it’s about more than the money.

For Stokes, a former history teacher, the appeal of antiquing lies in the hunt, in scouting antique stores in search of items that speak to him.

“It’s a passion. It’s a disease for which there is no cure,” he says, laughing.

“It just sort of happens. There’s no science to the antique business, (on) either the selling side or the buying side. It’s an emotional thing.”

Stokes traces his fascination with antiques back to his childhood in South Carolina.

“My family didn’t spend a lot of money on home furnishings. They used what they had. They sort of cherished the stuff they had, that’s been handed down (through the family).”

His wife’s family was the same way, and now many items from both families have been passed down to their children (Stokes and his wife, Martha, have a daughter, who lives in Lynchburg, and a son, who lives in Munich, Germany).

“Three families have greatly enjoyed stuff for little expense,” he says.

Stokes likes to point out the eco-friendliness of antiques.

“Antiquing is probably the oldest form of (being) green,” he says, because you’re basically recycling furniture.

But he understands why some people might not be interested in it.

Maybe it’s the word itself and its associations, he speculates.

Antique. Expensive. Old.

“It (sounds) musty and stuffy,” Stokes says.

But plenty of items are affordable and a good option for young people just venturing out on their own, he says.

That’s how Stokes began collecting in the early 1960s, when he and Martha were engaged and trying to furnish an apartment. The first piece they bought was a walnut, drop-leaf dining table for $35.

“It’s still with us today,” he says, though it’s now used as a TV stand in his bedroom.

“We often talk about the great times we’ve had around that table.”

Their collections grew over the years. Martha favored porcelain figures, while Stokes was always interested in furniture.

“Your furnishings create the environment in which you exist,” he says. “It’s kind of an extension of who you are.”

The couple opened their own antique shop in the 1970s.

At the time, Stokes was working in E.C. Glass High School’s guidance department, and Martha, who has a degree in design and art, was teaching.

“We started thinking about how (we could) turn something we really like into a source of income,” he says.

They started small, operating out of the ground floor of their home for a few years before opening the shop, Langhorne-Stokes, on Main Street.

They closed the shop after 15 years, but remained in the antique business. Stokes, who retired from Glass in 2006, buys and sells antiques and promotes antique shows, which provide a venue for dealers to display and sell their merchandise.

“We go to every antique show within four hours (of here),” he says.

Stokes keeps some of his purchases for his own collection and stores the rest in his basement to later resell. He usually has an inventory of about 8 to 10 pieces at any given time.

“Part of the hunt is finding deals,” he says. “I’m not looking to buy something for $10 that’s worth thousands. I’m looking for good quality merchandise that’s undervalued.”

He says the country’s financial crisis has affected the industry, but it’s not stopping him from indulging in his passion.

“It doesn’t deter me in the least,” Stokes says. “It’s like everything else. If you’re willing to wait it out and (if) you live long enough, you will recoup your investment. In the meantime, you get the pleasure of ownership.”