Michel Quintal turned a decades long fascination with antique furniture into a full time business the moment retirement gave him the time to do it. Interested in antiques since 1990, he made the leap from collector to dealer in 2001, and Antiquites Michel Quintal now operates out of his own residence in Sherbrooke, where visitors can browse a collection built around a genuine personal eye for period furniture rather than a warehouse stocked for volume. Because the showroom shares space with his home, hours are flexible rather than fixed, and Quintal is upfront that it is always best to reach out and arrange a visit before showing up, a practice common among small owner operated antique dealers who would rather give a serious buyer real attention than keep posted store hours nobody checks.
The collection itself skews toward North American furniture styles from the oak era through the early twentieth century, with particular depth in Victorian, Eastlake, Mission, and Queen Anne pieces alongside a selection of pine furniture and smaller decorative objects. Those five style categories represent distinct chapters of furniture history, from the heavy ornamentation of Victorian design through Eastlake’s geometric restraint, and Quintal’s stock reflects a dealer who has spent over three decades learning to spot and evaluate pieces across that whole span rather than specializing narrowly in just one look. Beyond furniture for the kitchen, living room, bedroom, and home office, the inventory extends to dishware and other decorative and miscellaneous objects, giving shoppers a range of entry points whether they are furnishing a whole room or hunting for a single accent piece.
Quintal also maintains a second, more public facing outpost at the Bazar de Stanstead, a multi vendor antiques market at 14 Rue Notre Dame in Stanstead, near the Vermont border. That booth keeps regular weekend hours, open Saturdays and Sundays from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, with the schedule extending to include Fridays during the summer season through October, when tourist traffic through the Eastern Townships picks up. Splitting his business between a by appointment home showroom and a scheduled market booth lets Quintal reach two different kinds of buyers: serious collectors willing to call ahead for a private viewing in Sherbrooke, and casual weekend browsers passing through the Stanstead antiques market during the region’s busy season.
For buyers concerned about the cost of investing in quality period furniture, Quintal offers interest free payment arrangements, a detail that signals confidence in both his pricing and his relationship with returning customers, since financing terms like that are typically reserved for dealers who expect repeat business and word of mouth referrals rather than one time transactions. Combined with direct phone and email contact information rather than a faceless storefront, the business carries the personal, relationship driven feel that many antique buyers specifically seek out over big retail alternatives. In short, Antiquites Michel Quintal is a Sherbrooke based antique furniture dealer specializing in oak era, Victorian, Eastlake, Mission, and Queen Anne pieces, reachable by appointment at his home showroom or in person at his weekend booth in Stanstead.
