The Rust & Relic Vintage antique store, in Suite 5 at 1030 Lawrence St. in Port Townsend, will soon say farewell to Jefferson County.

Co-owners Corrie Matthews and Michelle Masterson said they would love to return someday to the community that has supported them so much.

The duo became best friends as college roommates in Montana during the early 1990s, but they didn’t become business partners until 2021, when Masterson, who’d been collecting antiques for years, persuaded Matthews to leave the restaurant industry and follow in her family’s footsteps. Matthews’ mother and grandmother were both antique dealers.

Matthews admits that starting a business in the wake of the COVID pandemic presented its challenges, but they’ve been more than offset by working in a field that’s tied so intimately to people’s positive feelings and memories, especially since she’d grown weary of the challenges she was facing in the restaurant industry.

“It started out as a way out for me,” Matthews said. “And now, I can’t imagine not doing this.”

As much as Matthews and Masterson would love to stay in Uptown PT, however, a mutual friend presented them with an offer they couldn’t refuse, as the owner of Saltwater Antiques in Poulsbo offered them the chance to take over her storefront.

“She’ll stay on as a vendor there, a couple of days a week,” Matthews said. “We’ve been friends for years, and she knows this business as well as anyone. We love antiquing in Port Townsend, but Poulsbo offers more foot traffic, since it’s located between two ferries.”

Matthews and Masterson even attempted to hash out a credible scenario for them to maintain storefronts in both Port Townsend and Poulsbo at the same time, but the numbers didn’t add up.

“We need to be able to proceed at a pace we can handle,” Matthews said. “I’m so grateful to Port Townsend for being the home of my first business. I’ve learned so much from being here, and compared to working at restaurants, this has been a cake walk. I’ve enjoyed every minute.”

Regardless of where they operate, Matthews acknowledged that antiques dealing is a field where “you get back what you put into it,” by attending everything from estate sales to yard sales in order to “find treasures,” not to mention anticipate what customers will be looking for.

“The hustle is the cool part,” Matthews said. “You’re constantly pivoting to meet shifting demands. We’ve already been searching throughout not only the Olympic Peninsula, but also eastern Washington. We’re hoping to expand that to Oregon, the East Coast, even Europe.”

Indeed, those plans to expand give Matthews confidence that she and Masterson will eventually be able to reopen a storefront in the town where their dream became a reality.

“Port Townsend has supported us every step of the way, so we’d like to return that favor down the line, if we can,” Matthews said. “Every region has so many interesting things. The East Coast doesn’t currently care for mid-20th century furniture, but there’s significant interest in it in the Pacific Northwest. We stay active on social media to keep up-to-date on those trends.”

Antiques are subject to as many fleeting consumer whims as the latest fashions, but Matthews has embraced the opportunity to learn about subjects she’d never previously encountered, while getting glimpses into people’s personal lives through the items they cared about enough to collect.

“We wound up with a collection of old Navy ship photos, and I learned about Navy history by looking them up online, so I could identify them for our customers,” Matthews said. “We have all sorts of original artwork, and even if it’s not painted by famous artists, someone still painted it and signed their name to it. People were passionate about these things.”