Some 1,600 dealers from 42 states and 17 foreign countries have registered for the show, the first ever staged off the Boardwalk.
The new Convention Center is located four blocks from the ocean, at the foot of the Atlantic City Expressway, and next door to the NJTransit train station.
Dealers will offer items ranging from Americana folk art, prints, toy trains, Disney items, movie posters, pinball machines, Oriental rugs, Coca Cola memorabilia, political buttons and posters, paintings and antiques from old general stores.
But these on-the-spot sale items will be getting a lot of competition for attention from the show pieces in ``The Wonders of Christmas Past'' presentation.
Turn-of-the century New York inventor Joshua Lionel Cowan's first toy train will be on exhibit, a gondola car nicknamed the cigar box on wheels.
Powered by tiny fan motors, it was designed to operate in pharmacy windows, carrying pills and poultice powders.
It will be in motion, too, along the original tracks Cowan laid for his car in 1900.
One of America's earliest artificial Christmas trees should garner lots of attention. Designed in 1910, it it constructed of dyed goose feathers wrapped around wire branches.
``It was built by Teddy Roosevelt, an ardent conservationist. Roosevelt wanted to slow depletion of the forests by keeping pine trees where they belonged, growing free in the wild,'' explained Schaut.
Be advised this is a big show in every sense of the word - as in BIG BUCKS! So bring lots of cash and be prepared for some serious bargaining.
Saturday fair admission is $17; hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday admission is $10; hours, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
For further information, 800-526-2724.
THE BILLBOARD If you're thinking about switching to a job where you can get a head, the Ulmer beer distributorship in Swampoodle will be sold later this month in a sealed bid auction conducted by Barry S. Slosberg Auctioneers.
