A stone’s throw from Orange Town Hall, two brick buildings that once housed the New Home Sewing Machine Co. still sit on either side of South Main Street.

A stroll inside will make you figuratively go back in time, as each structure greets you with a labyrinth of goodies from yesteryear stacked high and as far back as the eye can see. At 57 South Main St., antique Greyhound bus toys rest near collectible lunch boxes, and taxidermied animals watch over everything from antique radios and televisions to stained glass windows and breweriana (beer-related memorabilia).

And it all belongs to Gary H. Moise, owner of the Orange Trading Co., who has kept a treasure trove in the two 15,000-square-foot buildings across the street from the Post Office for roughly 20 years.

“If I could get a dollar a piece, I’d certainly be a millionaire — twice over, probably,” the 65-year-old says. “I cast a pretty wide net.”

That may feel like an understatement as one wanders through the six-floor gold mine of artifacts he has assembled in his two buildings. Old canes and lamps wait for a new home, while vintage posters and paintings are kept company by 60,000 vinyl records.

Moise says he has been buying and selling antiques nearly his entire life, and as a teenager he worked as a runner in an auction house, retrieving items up for bid and holding them up for potential buyers to see. He says that before moving to his current locations, he rented from Aubuchon Hardware, working out of three floors in the building that now houses the Orange District Court.

Exploration is key at the Orange Trading Company, because a walk through the first floor of 57 South Main St. won’t reveal what Moise calls “probably the largest jukebox junkyard in the universe.”

Moise estimates 90 percent of the building’s second and third floors are dedicated to storing about 500 jukeboxes, not including loose miscellaneous parts, with some dating back to the 1930s. The machines are the property of Durfee Coin-Op, a company Moise owns with John Durfee. They used to restore old jukeboxes but now just sell parts.

Jukeboxes are lined in rows like a vintage musical cemetery, locked and loaded with tunes by artists ranging from The Honeydrippers to Willie Nelson.

Charissa Kleinkauf, who works part-time at the Orange Trading Company as a supervisor of sorts, says there is no better way to learn about antiques and collectibles than working in a warehouse chock-full of them.

“That’s what I like most about it, that it’s hands-on,” she says.

Kleinkauf says she and Moise have become close friends during her few years of employment there. She also says she would love to have a larger stake in the business when Moise retires.

Moise rents space in Quechee, Vt., and frequents antique fairs, like the famous Brimfield Antique Show.

Flood in Orange

He also sells from his South Main Street locations, though only by appointment now, as he is still recovering from a devastating flood that struck almost two years ago.

On that day, Moise says he got a call from the police at 5:30 a.m. to inform him his business was filled with water. He explains a flood had undermined the ground beneath 57 South Main St., causing the building to sink. This resulted in a sprinkler system breaking and adding to the flood, destroying some inventory. It cost $45,000 to stabilize the building, and Moise says it took a year to get any money from the insurance company. But Moise has kept dealing through it all.

“It doesn’t stop me from buying, and it doesn’t stop me from selling,” he says. “We hope to be up and running again by spring.”

“A Real American Picker”

Even if you’ve never stopped by Moise’s buildings, you may have seen his truck around town. The white vehicle features red lettering reading, “A Real American Picker 978-544-6683.”

The wording is a reference to “American Pickers,” a show on the History Channel that features antique pickers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz traveling the country in search of “rusty gold.” But Moise says the industry isn’t exactly how it’s portrayed on that show.

“They leave so much money on the table. I mean … they have resources beyond anything that anybody in the trade has, being on television and having some corporate entity,” he says. “They’ll go into a place with 10 old slot machines and they’ll buy two, whereas anybody in the trade would buy 10. And it’s all pre-arranged deals. They’ve been there before. They couldn’t do that kind of filming without staging all that stuff.

“Under a staged environment, it’s not like when you’re really hawking things out of the attic and trying to make a deal spontaneously,” Moise says. “For me, it just seemed like a good television program.”

He says, however, he gets many great leads thanks to his truck.

“I guess I was sort of poking fun at them, but good-naturedly,” he says.

Moise says shows like “American Pickers” and “Antiques Roadshow” both help and hurt businesses like his. While they often give viewers unrealistic expectations, they shine a spotlight on an entire industry.

“The only positive part about it is the fact that after 40 years people actually recognize what I’m doing for a living, where I’m trying to buy something for $300 and sell it for $400, so I can pay my bills and buy groceries,” he says. “You never know where the next deal is coming from, but you can be sure they’re like trains and they’ll be another one. They just keep coming.”

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