Episode 56 | Liberty Buys, Fishersville Plans, and One Last Look at Benny Carter

About this episode

Matt discusses his experiences at the Liberty auction and the upcoming Fishersville Antiques Expo, highlighting the differences in material and history between the two events.

Matt returns to the auction gallery after Liberty with the buys still sitting behind him and another show already on the calendar. This time, the conversation picks up in that brief window between antique shows, when the dust from one trip has barely settled and the next one is already starting to take shape. Liberty had the feeling of a final chapter, but not necessarily a dead end. After months of questions about what the last Liberty show would mean, Matt came away with a different impression. Dealers were still buying, still selling, and many were already talking about setting up again when the show moves into its next form. For Matt, the proof of the show was sitting right there in the room. He bought steadily, stayed late, and even kept working the field during pack up, coming home with pottery, baskets, canes, quilts, and a late day monkey jug that sends him into a full dealer’s breakdown. From there, the episode turns north toward Fishersville, Virginia. The Fishersville Antiques Expo sits in the Shenandoah Valley, and Matt talks through why that region changes the kind of material you expect to see. Virginia brings a different layer of age and history into the hunt, with…

People in this episode

Host: Matt Ledbetter

Topics covered

• antiques
• auctions
• collecting
• history
• folk art
• regional differences

Keywords

• Liberty auction
• Fishersville
• antiques
• collecting
• Benny Carter
• folk art
• Virginia history

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Benny Carter

Places: Fishersville, Virginia

More episodes of House of Folk Art

• Episode 57 | Van Side at Fishersville Antique Expo · May 25, 2026 · 24 min
• Episode 55 | Riding Out to Liberty with Matt Ledbetter · April 27, 2026 · 49 min
• Episode 54 | What Matt Bought at the Catawba Valley Pottery Festival · April 13, 2026 · 38 min
• Episode 53 | 10 Picks Inside a 15,000 Sq Ft Folk Art Warehouse · March 30, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Episode 52 | Are Quilts Folk Art? Collecting Antique American Quilts with Laura Saville · March 16, 2026 · 1h 34m
• Episode 51 | Mary Proctor: Called to Paint · March 2, 2026 · 1h 6m