As long-time antiques collectors and dealers, we have seen first-hand as antique hunting ("antiquing") moved from visiting shops to going online. Ebay, of course, was the initial way in which collectors and dealers became hooked on using the Internet. We saw the hand-writing on the wall and created the Baker & Co. Antiques website in 1999 as one of the first independent American country and folk art websites. As collectors began using their fingers to walk the Web instead of walking through the shop door, we closed our shop in 2003 to concentrate on web sales and quality shows focused on our market.

Now, there are many wonderful websites offering quality country and folk art antiques and fewer quality antique shops still open. A search on Google or Yahoo will bring up thousands of pages - most of which are filled with "fluff" and not quality antiques. Country and folk art collectors have been forced to sift through individual antique sites and many non-antique sites looking for their next acquisition. This is time-consuming and frustrating.

Dig Antiques focuses specifically on country and folk art antiques. Our search engine only indexes websites that we have personally visited and verified are truly antique sites focused on country and folk art. No reproductions are included. Dig Antiques brings you Real Stuff without the Fluff.

The Shops at Dig Antiques were conceived when we heard antique dealers and collectors looking for an easy way to sell their items. They weren't interested in the time and cost associated with having their own website. By adding the Shops on Dig Antiques, we were able to offer them a quick and easy way to have an online presence. Dealers with their own websites quickly realized that having a Shop is a way of having another online location that could drive additional traffic to their own website. Now, the Shops are a vibrant way of adding to the online antiques community.

We have learned much over the 30+ years that we have been collecting antiques. Splitting our time between New York and California, we have met many dealers and collectors and know that sharing knowledge is key to a thriving market. Every month we produce a newsletter that we hope educates and entertains. We have guest columnist as well as write many of the articles ourselves.

We hope you find Dig Antiques valuable and visit often. Please spread the word. If you find an item through Dig Antiques, please let the dealer you purchase it from know that's how you found it. Thank you for visiting us and we hope to meet you online and maybe even in person!

Tom & Sheila Baker