Today we’d like to introduce you to Filip Musat.
Hi Filip, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My friends and I started a community outreach group in the early 2000’s. We all grew up poor so we wanted to use our time and talents to change that reality for others. Our aim was to create businesses to fund our charity work so that we wouldn’t be controlled or influenced by those who would fund our work. One of the businesses we created was “Penn Antique.” The business was designed to gather old items (often slated for the landfill) and rehab and/or resell them. Since the business required many smaller jobs to be performed in order to operate, it was ideal because it could employ many people. The business blossomed and employed about 20 people. Although the business was thriving, there were internal issues within the main group that caused everyone to go their separate ways. Since I started, “Penn Antique,” I stuck with it and now it is my family’s business.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No success is earned without struggle or difficulty; there have been lots of struggles. The first obstacle was surviving through the internal struggles within our community outreach group. The next biggest obstacles was dealing with greedy and/or inept landlords. Since our initial start in North Scranton, we have moved 5 times. The smaller but still substantial obstacles included dealing with the online selling sites like eBay and Etsy and shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, and a slew of freight companies.
We’ve been impressed with Penn Antique, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We specialize in architectural antiques (mostly doors and hardware) and old furniture. Our business started with a few old doors that I acquired and a friend and I stripped and restored. In the beginning, we stripped, repaired, and outfitted every old door with old hardware before making it available. Although we still offer customization services for our doors, we no longer strip and put hardware on every door we sell. If a customer wants us to modify a door and outfit it with old hardware, we will do so. That’s what sets us apart from other antique sellers: we repair and modify what we sell. We’ll take an old lamp that has outdated cloth-covered wires and rewire with new wiring; we’ll take a lock missing parts and fix it and can even modify an old skeleton key to work with it; we’ll take a door that’s too small for an opening and make it bigger; we’ll take a bench that’s missing a leg and add a leg; etc.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Everyone who has worked with us has contributed to our success to whatever degree that they contributed. All of our customers deserve credit for supporting us for almost 20 years.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pennantique.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennantique/
