Merchant's Corner: Eileen Burns talks about Treasure Keepers

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Merchant's Corner: Eileen Burns talks about Treasure Keepers

Erin Joy Gentry • Feb 03, 2021

She loves to be the hunter and to watch the hunting

by Erin Joy Gentry

Treasure Keepers is one of those rare places that lives up to its name.

Though the sign along the building’s edge advertises its contents - New, Used, Collectibles, Antiques - one has to experience it firsthand to understand how apt the name really is.

Eileen Burns, owner and curator of Treasure Keepers, good-naturedly admits that there was a small lack of oversight on her part as she chose the name, fitting though it may be.

“The Casino is right up the road from the store, but it didn’t cross my mind until after,” she said. “Firekeepers, Treasure Keepers. It works out, though! Make your money there and spend it here!”

Though it has been two years since the business relocated from its former spot next to the now-closed Louie’s donuts just a few miles away, customers still express surprise and delight when they realize that their former favorite secondhand shop is still in business, but in a “new” location - the building formerly owned and operated by Rubles Furniture.

“Pam Ruble and I are good friends,” Burns said. “She knew I’d take care of the building.”

Of the 11,000 square feet of available space in the building, Burns estimates that 9,000 square feet is used for merchandise. Thanks to her business savvy and preference for quick inventory turnover, no two visits are ever the same to her store.

“I like to think of my inventory as eclectic,” Burns said. “I love colored glass, so I always have a lot of that on hand, but I also have a soft spot for diecast cars still in the packaging, early 1800s wood furniture, costume jewelry, and teddy bears.”

The store is laid out in a way that encourages browsing and wandering around at one’s own pace, with spacious, well-lit rooms and items grouped by kind wherever possible.

One room has garden fixtures such as birdbaths and birdhouses, while another contains vintage kitchen items such as colorful Pyrex bowls and stoneware crocks.

Several areas are used for furniture display, and though the pieces are often large - armoires, grandfather clocks, dressers - it never feels crowded.

An 18-foot display case in one of the back rooms contains items Burns selects for her male clientele - jewelry, knives, “cast iron things”.

“I’d say my customers are pretty evenly split between men and women,” Burns said, adding that the age of visitors to her store is also evenly divided between older and younger.

“I get a lot of millennials lately,” Burns said.

The estimated hundreds of visitors to Treasure Keepers each week are often overheard making exclamations over the store’s content, quality, cleanliness, and layout - something deeply gratifying for Burns, who joked, “It’s wonderful for my ego! I work hard so don’t have time to ask for compliments.”

Despite the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions and shut-downs, Treasure Keepers enjoyed its strongest year yet last year. Though she acknowledges that some of that is sheer luck, Burns sees a deeper significance to her success.

“When there’s a depression, people still need to buy pretty things,” she said. “For example, in the last two weeks I’ve sold over 200 pieces of colored glass.”

Though Treasure Keepers has its fair share of regulars, all of whom Burns has grown to know well, she makes a point to allow people to find the treasures on their own.

“I don’t want to kill the hunt,” Burns said.

She spoke of one of her regulars, Brad Peake, and how he had been in “half a dozen times in the last month” in the hopes of finding the perfect table for game night.

Though she knew that a recent addition to her store - a large, ornate conference and card table from the 1800s - was right up Peake’s alley, she held back and let him find it on his own.

“His face was priceless,” she said with a smile. “I watched as he found it and just kind of stood there, staring at it with this look on his face.”

She took a relaxed take-it-or-leave-it approach to the sale, aware she’d have no trouble selling it as it was a rare find. “The last time I saw something like this was in the early 80s,” Burns said.

In the end, Peake purchased the table.

Burns’ business acumen and uncanny ability to read her customers is something she has carefully honed over the 45 years she has spent dealing in antiques and resale.

She jokes that when she first started out in the business as a 21-year-old in Massachusetts, it was with a bad check.

“I prefer to think of it as a ‘temporarily uncovered’ check,” Burns joked as she described buying a piece with a personal check, racing to flip it for a small profit, then running to the bank to deposit the money later that day, putting her back in the black.

After moving to Battle Creek in the 70s, she spent more than 25 years maintaining a booth at Grant’s Antique Mall in Galesburg.

Over the years, Burns has also dabbled in estate sales - as in, purchasing entire estates - and did realty for a short time as well.

When she was able to move Treasure Keepers from the rented space next to Louie’s Bakery and purchase the Rubles Furniture property, it was with an eye toward retirement.

Just two years later, she now has an eye toward possible expansion within the next two years. “11,000 square feet just isn’t enough for what we’ve got going on here!” she joked.

Burns is still surprised when she considers how far she’s come from that nerve-wracking first sale with the “temporarily-uncovered” check all those years ago.

“When I began in this business 45 years ago, I never dreamed it would grow this big.”

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Treasure Keepers is located 1368 E. Michigan Avenue in Battle Creek and is open daily from 11am-5pm. There is an active Facebook account for the store as well.

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