Waves co-owner Charlotte Mager stands among her vintage wares (left), while a collection of classic telephones sits on display inside the antique store.
Chelsea vintage electronics store preserves, prospers
By Charlotte Cowles
Charlotte Mager, proprietor of the antique electronics store Waves LLC in Chelsea, speaks with a deep, rich smoker’s voice and a thick New York accent redolent of 1950s talk radio. Surrounded by the lovingly polished antiques in her store, she lit up a cigarette and flashed a Cheshire Cat grin. “Yeah, I smoke in here,” she said.
Waves, located on W. 30th St. between 7th and 8th Aves., boasts the “the finest and largest selection of vintage radios, televisions, windup phonographs and lots of other interesting items,” according to the shop’s Website. Mager began the business with her husband, Bruce Mager, in 1978, when they were both still in their 20s.
“We were at a garage sale, and we bought a radio for a dollar,” she said. “That’s how it started.” Thirty-seven years later, the once eager and ignorant youngsters are now tops in their field.
“Their name comes up very frequently, especially in the radio world,” said Steve McAvoy, of the Early Television Foundation and Museum near Columbus, Ohio. “They’re well-known, and their stuff is always excellent.”
The Magers, both born and raised in the Bronx, were living in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens when they began collecting antique merchandise. “This guy was selling his antique store, so we bought everything,” Mrs. Mager said. “We had all the stuff from his store in our tiny little apartment,” she added, gesturing around her head to mime the towering piles.
Bruce Mager, 58, said the couple has gone through phases of collecting. “At one time we collected microphones,” he said, laughing. “We’re kind of finished with microphones. For a while we collected ‘character’ radios—like, the dial is Mickey Mouse, or there’s some decoration theme of a cartoon character.” Now, he’s into what he calls “homegrown” radios. “They’re old radios that people have decorated—like, customized—themselves. I bought one recently that has those old travel stickers, the kind you used to get on luggage, all over it.”
Mr. Mager said that they also purchase a number of antiques for their home in Bergen County, N.J. “Usually when I see something, I know when it’s something we’ll want to keep,” he said. “Some things you just never want to part with.”
The Magers’ store has seen many of the couple’s different collecting phases, with almost as many locations. “When you’re young, how long are you going to stay in the same place? When you’re in your 20s, you move,” said Mrs. Mager.
They first opened Waves in Whitestone, Queens, but moved to Nyack before making the jump to Manhattan. “From ’78 to ’96, we were on 13th St., when Union Square was a drug supermarket. It was a little gritty down there,” she said, puffing on her cigarette. “Then it got nice, so we had to move.” She shrugged. “The city’s changing.”
Mrs. Mager can recall the time when they lost a number of their record-collecting clientele to the AIDS epidemic.
Fast-forward to today, and the Internet has revolutionized the nature of the business. With the introduction of eBay, smaller specialty retail stores like hers have faced competition from anyone with computer access.
“My favorite thing to say about that is, ‘The rent’s cheaper there,” she said, nodding toward her laptop, “than it is here,” she said, gesturing to the store.
The Magers’ experience in the business serves them well in the online world. “On eBay, buyers want to know how knowledgeable you are. That’s where reputation and experience come in, and we’ve got plenty of both. We’ve consulted on some books, and we have a good clientele.”
Regarding her computer knowledge, Mager is modest. “When you’ve got teenage kids in the house, it helps,” she noted, crediting her 19-year-old, Internet-savvy son.
Alan Vorhees, who runs the collectors’ resource Website Antiqueradios.com, met the Magers once and knows them well through their reputation in the small, antique radio community. “I’ve only heard good things about them,” he said over the phone. “They have a very good name.”
Vorhees’s Website hosts discussion bulletins where collectors can post questions, comments and friendly banter. Much of the discussion is dominated by queries regarding the reliability of specific online purchases or dealers—like if a certain dealer seems suspect, or if a merchandise photograph shown online appears to have been doctored.
Comments by “Waves” appear in many of the site’s discussion forums. “If [the Magers] had problems with other collectors, I would have heard about it,” said Vorhees, who monitors all his forums.
Mrs. Mager is just as spunky online as she is in person. In the Online Auctions Forum, commenter “Waves” complained sardonically about crooked eBay dealers:
Who needs a creative writing course [when] all one needs is to read a few eBay item descriptions[?] I have found some great pieces of fiction in some of the descriptions there. Sometimes I wish could be a bit more fanciful in my descriptions, but I don’t seem to have the knack for taking off into flights of fancy and waxing eloquently about the virtues of my items… Maybe I’ll start listing frogs.
When another member, named “Bullseyeguy,” posted in the same forum, “Mrs. Waves, where is Bruce?” she gamely responded:
Bruce is busy with the two collections we recently bought… cleaning, sorting and telling me what to photograph, and advising me on how to write accurate descriptions… without too much fanciful BS. Bruce has no interest in using the computer or doing the laundry. These jobs have been delegated to me. Also he is kept busy keeping up with our house. He is in charge of shoveling snow and raking leaves.
“There are some very good dealers, and there are some pretty bad ones,” said Vorhees. “There are only a half-dozen or so good ones.”
The Magers’ extensive knowledge was gathered from a hodgepodge of sources, including books, advice from older experts and years of experience. “We were self-taught. It’s not like you can take a class,” said Mrs. Mager. When they were just starting out, she said, “We read books. We were cute little 20-year-olds. The old-timers liked helping us out.”
A customer recently came into the store looking for records and spent close to an hour talking to Mrs. Mager about the specifics of a certain album. He finally asked, “Do you think I should just go and buy the CD?”
Mrs. Mager thought for a moment, and then answered earnestly. “Some people think CDs can be a little cold.”
She continued to chat with the customer, touting the benefits of a record’s warmer sound. “When my kids were little, I used to take them down here, and I would put on spoken-word records—‘Treasure Island,’ ‘Robin Hood’—so they could listen to them.” The customer ended up purchasing the record.
A large part of the Magers’ business consists of renting their merchandise to photo shoots and theaters and film producers as props. She moved easily through the dense forest of gramophones that crowded the floor, gesturing with her cigarette as she named an impressive roster of rental customers: Billie Jean King, Boyz II Men, “The Today Show,” “and Matchbox 20, whatever that is.”
She pointed to her left. “Ludacris did a shoot with antique microphones,” she said, then opened a case in the back of the store to reveal an old gramophone that J. Crew was renting for a photo shoot.
Inside the bathroom, a tattered poster hung over the toilet. “Channel 13 did a show on the history of TV called ‘From the City That Made Television,’ ” she said. The poster featured photographs of old televisions with the show’s title in large lettering. “Most of those TVs are mine,” she said.
“Woody Allen’s a stickler for detail,” she added. “He’s used some of my stuff.” She leaned against the counter, puffing away. “But I don’t get to meet anyone famous. Just production assistants.”
She pointed to a particularly elderly-looking TV with a large posterior and small screen. “Look at this one,” she said, flipping open a panel to reveal a row of dials. “This still works. You have to turn this knob, and this one, and then you have to adjust all of these. But it still works!” She tapped the thick leather casing. “Sucker’s heavy.”
Mrs. Mager isn’t one to glorify herself or her business. She doesn’t feel nostalgia for the 1930s or sentimentalize the antiques that she sells. “This is just a way to make a living,” she said. “I just like old things that function the way they used to. Each period of history has got something really cool.”
She shrugged, her trademark mischievous smile returning. “But I also live with my husband and my 19-year-old son, so we do have a 50-inch plasma-screen TV in our living room.”
