ANTIGO — For years now, whenever newlyweds John and Rhonda Christian have gone on a trip, they’ve planned a stop or two.
Or six.
They drop by estate sales, antique shops. Every so often, they drive to Minnesota, zig zagging — and thrifting — all the way to the border.
They’ve found full-sized Raphael and Da Vinci replicas. A wind-up record player in a mahogany cabinet. An at least 50-year-old spaghetti lamp, which, though blackened by years of cigarette smoke, John saw value in.
“I tore it apart and I soaked it down with Dawn dish soap in the tub, and inside and out washed it and replaced the chain because the old one was so gross,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Arguably more unique things, too, have caught their eyes, such as a collectible they discovered after riding the S.S. Badger car ferry across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc to Ludington, Mich.
“You go over there to Ludington — and even over there we’re looking for rummies — and at one of them, he had a set of grave rubbings from King George III and Antoniette on brass paper,” John said. “You go up to the gravestone and you rub them, so you get the whole imprint of all the writing on the gravestone on a piece of paper. That was five years ago, and I’ll never forget that.”
To both of them, these expeditions are not just bargain shopping, which is obvious both by the wonder in their voices as they talk about these memories, and by the fact that, as of today, they have opened up Christian’s Upscale Resale, a thrift shop of their own located at 815 5th Ave. in downtown Antigo.
“I read and watch a lot about resale shops, and some people say, ‘When you’re thrifting, you’re actually saving the world, because it’s like recycling,’” Rhonda said. “I thought, ‘Well, we’re definitely not saving the world, but we’re treasure hunting.’ And that is what people want to do. They want nice, good prices for any income and they want to just treasure hunt and go see, so that when they leave, there was probably only one of what they bought here.
If you go to a regular box store, there’s 100 of those. Here, there would be one of those. So it doesn’t matter how old or young you are: everyone wants to find treasures.”
The store’s inventory, they said, features a kind of menagerie: there are women’s accessories, household goods, yard decor, guitars (John collects these — both he and Rhonda used to moonlight as traveling musicians), carnival glassware, a 50s era poodle skirt.
Prior to their decision to open the store, Rhonda was the vice president of branch operations at CoVantage Credit Union, where she worked nearly 25 years. John already had worked in resale online, including resale involving the online sale of antique Harley Davidson parts. Both said opening the store was the realization of a dream.
“I worked literally half my life at a financial institution, which was a great place to work, but I needed to stop doing that and start working for myself,” Rhonda said. “And John has worked as an entrepreneur and doing resale for many years on his own. We just kind of combined those talents and then started the business. For me, I wanted something more like a boutique, something nicely decorated, with women’s accessories, household goods, fun things, but classy and welcoming. And then John wanted to have the resale part of it. So it all just came together really, really well.”
While excited to showcase their products, they’re also eager to showcase the building itself, which they have remodeled for the past seven months, all while simultaneously preparing for their wedding, which they held just last month.
“This new business is our honeymoon — building this together is our labor of love,” Rhonda laughed when asked how the experience of planning both the business and wedding proceeded. “We have found that we work better in separate rooms. So he does work in one room, I do work in the other room. Otherwise, I give him plenty of ideas.”
“I call them ‘distractions,’” John joked.
Both John and Rhonda said that while they decided to start Christian’s Upscale Resale to help community members find their own “treasures,” they also did it because they care about revitalizing the city’s downtown.
“We want to make sure we welcome everybody in the community to come and look and find something. Just because it says ‘upscale’ doesn’t mean the prices are high and fancy,” Rhonda said. “We love this community. This is our home. This is our community, and we want to make sure we offer amazing service and a welcoming atmosphere. It will be a place where you want to come each time you come to town, just to see if you find something new. It’s kind of decorated in a boutique style, and we want it to be elegant and welcoming, which is what this community deserves.”
Note: The Christians have several office rooms available alongside Christian’s Upscale Resale in the Chapman Professional Building. They both would also like to thank the Langlade County Economic Development Corporation, Chamber of Commerce, and business owners in the downtown business organization Thrive on Five for their help during the past months to make Christian’s Upscale Resale a reality.
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