LEWISBURG — Not everything old is new again, but when it comes to jewelry and watches, Barry Knauer can usually make it so.

Knauer is a fixer. He’s one of those rare people who can take the broken, downtrodden no-longer-worn pieces from our jewelry boxes and turn them into items we can wear again, heirlooms that can be seen, and great conversation pieces.

Knauer and his partner, Lucie Rivoire, own Antiques at 221 in downtown Lewisburg. Both had other careers first, his as a teacher and salesman, hers as a travel agent, but gravitated to antiques because they love them. In restoring items that are beautiful and functional, they found their calling.

“Chances are every woman has a box of pieces she likes, but can’t wear because something is missing or broken, and she can’t get rid of them because of the emotional attachment,” Rivoire said. Her partner can end that frustration. Even if it’s a watch.

The secret is expertise and a little bit of the pack-rat mentality. Knauer collects parts, from gemstones to winding stems.

He has hundred and hundreds of movements — gears, wheels and the like — because if it’s from the 1950s or earlier, you can’t order parts for it anymore.



Adapting old to new

Knauer has been tinkering with watches for about 30 years, learning more all the time. He understands and loves their inner workings. Holding a pocket watch in his palm, with the back opened, he invites you to discover the work of intricate art that it is inside. Yet he can, he says, repair 99 percent of all mechanical watches for about $75.

For those don’t have a candidate for repair, but want some bling with character or historic pedigree, Knauer and Rivoire sell estate jewelry and antiquarian watches.

In their shop at 221 Market St. — the address is in the store’s name — one can find period pieces like cameos, cuff links, hat pins, and pocket watches, and timeless items like rings and bracelets and necklaces in the style of the recent past and long ago, formal to whimsical.

Intriguingly, at 221, one can find historic pieces adapted to modern use. Men’s watch fobs, the artistic end of a watch chain, become elegant ladies necklaces; assorted Victorian cuff links, missing their mates, become fascinating bracelets. If a customer has a piece, Knauer can accommodate his or her imagination.

He recently bought a lot of 400 Victorian cuff links. Those missing their mates are candidates for bracelet groupings. Knauer takes off their back posts and solders seven or more of them onto chains. They’re made to last and no two are ever alike, he said. He sells them for $395. Dealers buy them and double the price for sale in cities like New York and Boston, he adds.



Work watch, dress watch

Despite battery-operated and digital watches, Knauer said, even today, the finest watches are mechanical. Many people want them because they are the best.

Pocket watches are a favorite choice. In the Victorian era, they were symbols of wealth and position and they’re still elegant today.

Before World War I, Knauer said, most men had pocket watches. They would be attached to a chain with a T-bar on the other end. The chain would be draped across the front of a vest and the T-bar hooked on the other side through a button hole. A fob of varying degrees of ostentation could be attached at the T-bar end.

“If a man had the means he’d have two watches,” Knauer said. “First, he’d have a work watch. It was usually open faced and took quite a beating. Then, if he could afford it, he’d have a dress watch. Something to wear with his best suit. Usually more ornate, with a covered face.”

The popularity of the pocket watch came to an abrupt end when the Doughboys of World War I came home wearing wrist watches, he said.

Now, the pocket watch is a quaint reminder of a bygone era, a nod to the past, and can be fun to own.



What’s it worth?

Browsers at the shop will find other items to intrigue the eye and tickle the fancy, from gems set in precious metals to costume jewlery by some of the most well-known makers: A bejeweled grasshopper broach by Coro; a metallic belt by Sarah Coventry; and assorted pieces by Trifari, Hattie Carnegie and others.

“Every piece in these cases, I know intimately because I’ve worked on every piece,” Knauer said. His reputation as an expert is well known in the area.

“People are constantly bringing things in and saying ‘What do I have?’” Knauer said. Often by that they mean, “What’s it worth?” Knauer can tell them in terms of the local market, but he doesn’t make insurance appraisals. That is usually a replacement value, he said, and that is very difficult to know with an antique. “You can’t just go and order the same stone or setting,” he said.

Rivoire said she hates to disappoint people, but sometimes, to no fault of their own, “that gift from grandma came from Aunt Lillian Vernon.”

Sometimes people don’t want to sell, Rivoire said, but need to know values. “Maybe they have two nieces and want to give each something of equal value,” she said. “For a lot of people, they just want to know what to keep, what to pass on, and what to put out at the yard sale,” she said.



Expert advice

Knauer, 64, grew up in Shamokin Dam and his love of antiques was probably fostered by his father. “He was interested in antiques. When I was a youngster he’d take me to flea markets and antique shows.”

Now Knauer and Rivoire go to antique shows as sellers. They just returned from a show in Bloomsburg and go three times a year to the Brimfield, Mass., show. “It’s huge, more than 5,000 dealers,” he said. “If you collect anything, it’s bound to be there.”

Antiques at 221 doesn’t sell online. Knauer enjoys dealing with people face to face in the shop. “It’s fun,” he said. “I look forward to coming in each morning.”

Knauer is especially wary of foreign transactions online, which can often be swindles, he said. As a resource, however, eBay will give you an idea what people are paying for a certain item.

He said television’s “Antiques Roadshow” often gives people the wrong impression. “They pick out only the rarest and best to appraise,” he said. “Then people watch it and think if they have something like that they’re rich. It falsely raises their expectations.”

Often, Rivoire said, value is in the eye of the beholder, the price what the market dictates. And it fluctuates as items go in and out of fashion.

For instance, when people found out pop art celebrity Andy Warhol liked cookie jars, the prices for them skyrocketed. Now, thousands languish in warehouses, unsought.

Reproductions are another thing the antique shopper has to look out for. “If it was ever desirable,” Knauer said, “somebody out there is going to copy it.” It’s the reason, he said, he stays away from cast iron banks and the like. Glassware styles, too, are often copied from earlier eras.

No dealer can be an expert in everything, and even experts can be fooled. But when it comes to jewelry and watches, Knauer has confidence in his knowledge. And he’s going to be available right there at 221 Market.

“I have no intentions of retiring,” he said.