Man likes to 'preserve history'
RIMERSBURG — From antique televisions to ham radios, Tim Yeany is tuned into the past.
Yeany, 56, runs the Rimersburg Mercantile Exchange, an antique shop that specializes in electronics.
He buys and sells old radios, telephones and televisions, as well as various antiques, including Victorian furniture, war memorabilia and fine china.
“People collect antiques because it reminds them of a time in their past,” Yeany said. “They want to relive that. They want to buy that item that they remember their grandma had.”
Yeany's own past cultivated a love for antique items. He grew up in Rimersburg in the 1960s without a television in his house, and an elderly neighbor gifted him an Admiral radio.
Each Friday night, he tuned into the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. He also made a habit of trying to tune in far-away stations.
“At night you could hear farther than in the day time, because of the propagation,” Yeany said. “The signals traveled at night. And then I became interested in how that radio worked, so I started tearing it apart, putting it back together. It just kind of morphed into anything electronic.”
Yeany eventually acquired a CB radio, and then a Ham radio. When he was around 18 years old, he started selling radios through classified advertisements in a monthly electronics magazine.
“One thing led to the other,” Yeany said. “I expanded.”
For years, Yeany sold radios and other antique electronics online via eBay, and also sold them face-to-face out of a trailer near his home.
This lasted until 2005, when he bought Western Auto on Main Street in Rimersburg. Yeany had a personal connection to the store; he shopped there as a boy for fishing equipment, and his father bought the family's Christmas presents and auto equipment there.
Yeany was friends with the owner, Rich Buzzard, and when the shop went up for sale, Yeany made his purchase and moved in his antiques.
“I just thought I was going to use it for a warehouse to house stuff,” Yeany said.However, he ended up selling antiques out of the store, a practice he continues to this day.“I like to preserve history,” he said. “It's history, it's the past, and young people come in here and I show them stuff, and it's hard for them to comprehend.”Yeany said young people who come into his store are taken aback by the televisions of the 1940s and '50s, some of which have screens that are just a few inches wide.These antique electronics aren't just for show, many of them are still functional.“I can restore them if I want to, if they're worthwhile,” he said.Yeany still sells antiques online on his website, rimersburgmercantileexchange.com, and gets much of his merchandise from Butler.“I've bought lots of attics and basements full of radios out of Butler,” Yeany said.Once, he made a deal to buy the contents of a morgue, including old embalming equipment and caskets. In the attic of the morgue he found the first chewing gum baseball cards ever, from 1888. He sold them to a man in California for a hefty price.Yeany has an employee, Dustin Anglin, who is just as enthusiastic about the business as his boss.“I like the thrill of the hunt,” said Anglin, 30, “looking for the next thing.”Yeany and Anglin will continue to buy and sell antiques, and Yeany is optimistic that, even in today's digital age, antiques and old memorabilia will continue to be treasured.As Yeany put it, “There will always be people trying to remember and glorify the past.”
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