10 Things NOT to Buy at Round Top (And What to Buy Instead)
10 Things NOT to Buy at Round Top (And What to Buy Instead)
Round Top, Texas, is one of the best places in the country to buy antiques, vintage furniture, and one-of-a-kind decorative pieces. It is also one of the easiest places in the country to make expensive mistakes.
Forty-eight venues, thousands of dealers, and more inventory than any human can process in a week. When you are four hours into walking open fields in the Texas heat, everything starts looking like a good idea.
We analyzed 116 YouTube video transcripts from Round Top shoppers — hauls, walkthroughs, complaints, post-trip reflections — and the same regrets come up again and again. Different people, different shows, different years. Same mistakes.
Here are the ten things not to buy at Round Top, and what to do instead.
1. Don't Buy the First Thing You Love
The scenario: you walk into your first venue, you see a gorgeous iron candlestick for $65, and you buy it because you are excited and it is perfect and you might not find another one.
Then you walk into the next venue and see a similar candlestick for $45. Then the venue after that has three of them at $55 each. By the end of the day you have seen a dozen candlesticks and yours was fine but it was not the best, and it was not the cheapest.
This is the most common regret in every Round Top haul video we watched. First-venue purchases that looked unique turned out to be common across the corridor.
Do this instead: Walk at least three or four venues before committing to anything over $500. Use your phone to photograph pieces you like, noting the venue and booth number — or better yet, use the Round Top Finder app to save venues and vendors to your trip plan so you can navigate back to them easily. With 48 venues across 11 miles, remembering "that blue rug at the third tent on the left" is harder than you think. The app keeps track so you don't have to. Most dealers will hold a piece for a few hours if you ask politely.
The exception: Truly one-of-a-kind pieces at well-trafficked venues during the first weekend of a show. If you are at Marburger on opening day and you find an 18th-century French commode in exceptional condition at a fair price, it will be gone in an hour. Experienced shoppers develop an instinct for what is common and what is singular. Until you develop that instinct, the photograph-and-return strategy (with the app keeping track of where you saw what) protects you.
2. Don't Buy "Farmhouse" Reproductions at Antique Prices
Round Top has a lot of new, factory-made "farmhouse" decor sitting alongside genuine antiques. Distressed wood signs, metal wall art with deliberately rusty finishes, "vintage-style" furniture made last year in a factory. Some of it is attractive and fairly priced for what it is.
The problem is when it is priced like antiques. A genuinely old pine bench with eighty years of natural wear is worth $300. A new pine bench artificially distressed to look old is worth $80, and you can buy it online for that. The YouTube transcripts are full of shoppers who got home and realized the "antique" table they bought was new lumber with power-tool marks hidden under chalk paint.
Do this instead: Turn things over. Genuine age shows in ways that are hard to fake: uneven hand-cut joinery, wood shrinkage creating off-square corners, patina deepest in areas of natural wear (handles, edges, feet) rather than uniformly applied. Buy the reproduction if you love it at a fair new-product price. Just do not pay antique prices for something that is not antique.
3. Don't Buy Oversized Furniture Without a Shipping Plan
"I'll figure out how to get it home" is the most expensive sentence at Round Top.
Shipping a large armoire, dining table, or sideboard from Round Top to your home can cost $500 to $2,000, depending on the piece's size, weight, fragility, and your distance from central Texas. That $1,800 sideboard is actually a $2,800 sideboard once you add $1,000 in freight charges.
The YouTube transcripts include multiple instances of shoppers buying large furniture and then discovering shipping costs nearly as much as the piece itself. Some rented U-Haul trailers on the spot. Some paid rush fees. Some left pieces behind, forfeiting deposits.
Do this instead: Know the shipping cost before you buy. Distinguished Transport and other Round Top freight companies are on-site during shows and can quote in minutes. A $2,000 table that costs $800 to ship is a $2,800 table. Is it still worth $2,800? That is the real question. If you drove a truck, measure your cargo space before you leave home and bring tie-down straps.
4. Don't Buy a Rug Without Flipping It Over
The back of a rug tells you everything the front cannot. Hand-knotted rugs show individual knots on the reverse — irregular, slightly uneven, clearly made by human hands. Machine-made rugs show uniform, perfectly regular patterns on the back, often with a visible mesh or fabric backing.
The difference in value is enormous. A hand-knotted Turkish Oushak might be worth $2,000 to $8,000 depending on size, age, and condition. A machine-made reproduction of similar size and appearance might be worth $200 to $400.
Round Top has excellent rug dealers — The Arbors in particular is known for its rug vendors — and most of them are selling genuine hand-knotted pieces at fair prices. But the corridor also has vendors selling machine-made rugs, and not all of them are forthcoming about what they are selling.
Do this instead: Flip every rug over before buying. Examine the back. If the knots are individually visible, slightly irregular, and clearly hand-tied, you are looking at a hand-knotted rug. If the back is smooth, uniform, or has a synthetic mesh, it is machine-made. Ask the dealer about the rug's origin, age, and construction. A knowledgeable dealer will answer confidently and specifically — "This is a 1960s Turkish kilim from the Antalya region" — not vaguely: "It's from Turkey, I think."
5. Don't Buy on Opening Morning at Marburger If You're Price-Sensitive
Marburger Farm Antique Show is the flagship venue on the Round Top corridor. It has the best selection, the most prestigious dealers, and the most professional presentation. It also has, on average, the highest prices — and those prices are at their firmest on opening morning.
Opening day at Marburger is an event. Designers fly in. Serious collectors arrive at the gate before it opens. The energy is electric. Dealers have fresh inventory and high confidence. Nobody is negotiating.
This is exactly the wrong time to buy if your primary concern is value.
Do this instead: If you want the Marburger experience at better prices, come back on the last two or three days of the show. Dealers who have been there for a week start doing the mental math: pack it up and pay to store it until the next show, or sell it now at a discount. Markdowns of 10-30% are common in the final days.
Or skip Marburger for your primary shopping and find comparable pieces at other curated venues. Blue Hills, The Arbors, and several smaller venues along the corridor carry similar quality at somewhat lower price points, because their overhead is lower and the Marburger premium is not built into the sticker price.
Visit Marburger for the experience and to educate your eye. Buy there when the piece justifies the price. But do not default to buying there because it is the first major venue you visit.
6. Don't Buy Anything You Can Easily Find Online for Less
Round Top prices on common, easily identified items are sometimes two to three times higher than online prices for identical pieces. Depression glass, common pottery marks (McCoy, Hull, Fiesta in standard colors), mass-produced vintage items — these all have well-documented price points on eBay and Etsy. A McCoy planter that sells for $30 online should not cost $75 at Round Top, but sometimes it does, because venue overhead and show atmosphere inflate commodity prices.
Do this instead: For any item where you can identify the maker, pattern, or era — check your phone. A quick eBay search for "sold" listings gives you the actual market price. If the Round Top price is at or below market, buy it. If significantly above, negotiate or move on.
Buy things at Round Top that you cannot find online: one-of-a-kind pieces, oversized furniture, items where you need to see condition and texture in person, hand-knotted rugs where authenticity matters. These are the purchases where Round Top's physical marketplace genuinely delivers something the internet cannot.
7. Don't Buy Damaged Goods at Full Price
Chips, cracks, stains, loose joints, water damage, missing hardware. Every antique market has damaged goods. The question is not whether damage exists — some wear is expected and even desirable — but whether the price reflects it.
Do this instead: Inspect everything. Open drawers, check undersides, look at backs and bottoms. When you find damage, point it out politely — "I notice there's a crack here, is there any flexibility on the price?" Most dealers will offer 10-20% off for visible damage without hesitation. Some will not, and that is their right — move on. The important thing is to see the damage before you buy, not after you get home.
8. Don't Buy VIP/Early Access Tickets Unless You're a Serious Buyer
Several Round Top venues offer VIP or early-access tickets, typically ranging from $25 to $75. These tickets get you into the venue one to three days before the general public, giving you first pick of the inventory.
The YouTube consensus on VIP tickets is remarkably consistent: not worth it for casual shoppers.
Yes, the best pieces do get snapped up during early access. Yes, if you are a designer buying for a client with a specific brief and a $20,000 budget, getting in early can be the difference between finding the piece and missing it. But if you are a general shopper with a $500 budget looking for interesting decorative items, the selection on regular opening day is still excellent. The pieces that sell during VIP access are overwhelmingly the high-ticket items — the $5,000 armoire, the $8,000 rug. The $65 candlestick and the $120 vintage lamp are still going to be there when you arrive.
Do this instead: Save the $50 to $75 and spend it on actual inventory. The math is simple: a $75 VIP ticket buys you early access to look at things. That same $75 buys you a genuinely nice piece of vintage pottery or a set of antique prints that you will enjoy for years. If you are spending $5,000 or more and need to compete for specific high-end pieces, the VIP ticket might make strategic sense. For everyone else, it is an expensive way to walk the same venue you will walk on opening day.
9. Don't Buy From a Vendor Who Can't Answer Basic Questions
"Where is this from?" "How old is it?" "Is the finish original?" "Has this been restored or repaired?"
These are reasonable questions for any antique purchase. A knowledgeable dealer will answer them confidently, specifically, and without hesitation. "This is an 1890s American oak icebox, the hardware is original, the finish has been cleaned but not stripped." That kind of answer tells you the dealer knows what they are selling and has done the work to authenticate it.
A vague answer — "It's old." "I think it's European." "Not sure, I got it at an auction." — tells you the dealer either does not know what they are selling or does not want to commit to a claim.
This matters because a significant part of what you are paying for at Round Top, especially at the curated venues, is the dealer's expertise and implicit authentication. When a respected Marburger dealer tells you a piece is 18th-century French, their reputation backs that claim. When a field vendor shrugs and says "it looks old," you have no basis for evaluating the price.
Do this instead: Ask questions before you buy, especially on pieces over $200. The quality of the answers tells you as much about the piece as the piece itself. Knowledgeable dealers are a resource — use them. They can teach you about what you are buying, help you understand value, and steer you toward pieces that are worth their price.
If a dealer cannot or will not answer basic questions, consider that a red flag — not necessarily that the piece is bad, but that you do not have enough information to evaluate whether the price is fair. Move on to a dealer who can give you that information.
10. Don't Buy Something Just Because It's "a Good Deal"
This is the most insidious mistake at Round Top, and it accounts for more cumulative spending regret than any single bad purchase.
"This vintage crock is only $12." You do not need a crock. You do not have a place for a crock. But twelve dollars. Repeat this logic forty times and you have spent $500 on things you will eventually donate to Goodwill.
The YouTube haul videos confirm this: shopper after shopper shows a pile of small purchases and says "I don't know what I'm going to do with this, but it was only $25." The camera does not follow up three months later when that pile is in a closet.
Do this instead: Before every purchase, no matter how small, ask yourself two questions. First: where will this go in my home? If you cannot name a specific room and a specific spot, put it down. Second: would I buy this if it cost twice as much? If the answer is no, you are buying the price, not the object.
The most expensive thing at Round Top is not the $15,000 armoire. It is the $40 thing you bought because it was cheap, multiplied by twenty, across a lifetime of shows.
The Best Purchase at Round Top
The best purchase at Round Top is the one you are still glad you made five years later. The vintage mirror that perfectly fills that spot above the credenza. The hand-knotted rug that gets a compliment from every person who walks into your living room. The 19th-century farm table where your family eats dinner every night.
Buy fewer things. Buy better things. And if you are not sure — walk away, grab lunch, and come back. If it is still there, it was meant to be. If it is gone, something better is coming.
That is not just a platitude. At Round Top, with 48 venues and thousands of dealers refreshing inventory across multiple shows per year, something better is always coming.
For venue maps, show dates, and dealer information to plan your next Round Top trip, visit Round Top Finder.