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{retailer profi le} Old is Gold


The gift shop’s Americana emphasis is a strong part of its marketing strategy.


Revolutionaries forced the surrender of General Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia, thus securing the dream of American Independence.” Holden returns to this theme often: the idea of the Old Country Store being a place where history informs the present, transforming the gift shop into a unique shopping adventure. In fact, that “museum” that’s tacked on to the name?


ou can’t miss it. At the intersection of Highway 25 and Route 109 in Moultonborough, NH, lies what is likely America’s oldest gift shop: The Old Country Store and Museum. The store’s co-owner, Stephen Holden, discusses


Y 28


the gift shop’s long and storied history with the air of a passionately approachable scholar. “The building was fi rst opened in 1781,” he says, quick to point out the signifi cance of the date: “This was the year the American GIFT SHOP n Fall 2013


It is housed upstairs and features artifacts as diverse as the building’s original post offi ce boxes, axes and saws used in local lumberjack competitions, an 1847 issue Concord Coach Company stagecoach, and working 19th-century iceboxes.


Past perfect Stephen Holden, along with his wife, Cecile, and another investor, Jo Hayden, purchased the store way back in 1973, and celebrated their fortieth anniversary


GiftShopMag.com


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