Feeling antique


A banker leaves her financial career to run a Redmond antiques cooperative.

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More than 40 dealers occupy stalls at the Farmer’s Co-op Antique Mall in Redmond, but the business has only two employees: the owner and the manager. Tiah Abbas left her career in banking to take over the antiques center in 2002. And she’s glad she made the change.

Where farmers once traded grain, feed, supplies and potatoes, more than 40 dealers now hawk everything from cowboy collectibles to furniture to country quilts, glass jars, guitars, dolls and antique toys.

Customers range from tourists to serious collectors to older hobbyists who sometimes like to walk around the store as a form of therapy, said owner Tiah Abbas, a former Portland banker who purchased the Farmer’s Co-op in 2002.

Read the full story in The Bulletin.