By Ann Cantrell
Staff Writer

Quality is more important than quantity. This age-old lesson holds true when it comes to the Madison Antiques Show and Sale.
This year will be the seventh year that the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center has the hosted the Antique Sale. There will be 23 antiques dealers from across the Southeast exhibiting everything from furniture to linens.
The physical building that holds the show and sale limits the number of dealers who can be invited to the event, but Don Lane, co-owner of Saffold House Antiques and one of the founders of the Show and Sale, says that the small size is not necessarily a bad aspect.
Lane and Ted Martin, also co-owner of Saffold House Antiques, choose the dealers and both agreed that it was more important that they kept a reputation for bringing in dealers with quality antiques and no reproductions or imports.
“If they bring in things not in keeping with the quality of the show, then they are not invited back,” Lane said.
While the Madison Antiques Show and Sale showcases American antiques, it is also one of the few antique shows that also showcases Southern antiques, rarer in the antiques business.
All of the events hosted by the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center strive to emphasize education in some way, and this event is no different. Two speakers will discuss their areas of expertise at the event.
Grahame Long, curator of history for The Charleston Museum, will deliver a lecture titled “Suitable Only for Burning: The Survival of Charleston Furniture 1690-1865.”  Robert Leath from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts will also lecture at the show.
Martin said that they were lucky to get these two speakers, both of whom are renown in their fields. Their willingness to lecture at the event, within the budget of the Cultural Center, illustrates the reputation of the show, said Patricia DuBose, marketing director for the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center.
“That has to really speak to the quality of the show…for personnel like that to come to be apart of this without being compensated,” DuBose said.
The number of people who attend the Madison Antique Show and Sale has doubled from 400 people to somewhere between 900 and 1000 people over the past seven years. These attendees are mostly from the area but are beginning to come from around the Southeast.
The actual Show and Sale will be from February 22 to February 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. There will also be a tour of the Lehmans and Whitesides houses from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday. A bus will pick people up from the Cultural Center and take them to and from the two houses on the tour.
This year will be the first year featuring a tour of these antebellum homes. Paulette Long, one of the show's founders, said that they decided to provide this tour in order to show people what antiques can look like in a Southern home.
A preview party is open to the public on Thursday, February 21, at a cost of $45 in advance and $50 at the door. The party will take place between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.