On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where duck hunting and oyster harvesting have shaped local culture for generations, Steven Dorrell runs Wye River Antiques out of a small shop attached to his home at 1302 Perrys Corner Road in Grasonville. Steven has operated the business since 2009, and the shop’s Better Business Bureau file shows more than a decade and a half of continuous operation under his ownership, a rare thing among small specialty antique dealers who often change hands or close within a few years.
Rather than trying to cover every antiques category, Wye River focuses tightly on the material culture of the Chesapeake Bay itself. The core of the inventory is wooden duck and goose decoys, hand-carved working tools that generations of Eastern Shore watermen and hunters relied on and that collectors now prize as folk art. Alongside the decoys sit oyster and crab tin cans, the printed metal containers that once shipped Chesapeake seafood around the country and now serve as colorful, regionally specific advertising collectibles. Old advertising signage more broadly, along with hunting and fishing gear tied to the area’s sporting history, rounds out the shop’s focus, giving Wye River a genuinely specialized identity rather than a general antique mall’s broad mix.
Because the shop operates out of Steven’s own property rather than a traditional storefront, it runs on an open-by-chance basis, meaning visitors are best served by calling ahead before making a special trip to Perrys Corner Road. That kind of arrangement is common among specialist dealers who deal heavily in higher-value, narrower categories of collectibles, where serious buyers tend to reach out directly rather than browse casually. Wye River also ships items, with a stated focus on getting authentic oyster tins, decoys, and Chesapeake advertising pieces into the hands of collectors well beyond Maryland, extending the shop’s reach far past what a small home-based operation might otherwise achieve.
Grasonville sits along US Route 50 near Kent Narrows, in the heart of Queen Anne’s County’s working waterfront country, giving Wye River’s inventory a genuine sense of place rather than generic antique stock. Collectors specifically hunting Chesapeake Bay decoys or vintage seafood-industry advertising often seek this shop out by name, since specialty dealers of this kind are relatively uncommon even in a region known for its antiquing scene. For anyone building a collection tied to duck hunting history, Eastern Shore watermen culture, or Chesapeake Bay advertising folk art, Steven Dorrell’s inventory offers depth that broader antique malls in the area typically cannot match, since a dealer working in these categories needs years of relationships with local hunters, retired watermen, and estate sellers to keep a steady supply of authentic regional pieces flowing through the shop. Wye River Antiques is a home-based, specialty antique dealer in Grasonville, Maryland, focused on Chesapeake Bay duck decoys, oyster and crab advertising tins, and vintage hunting and fishing collectibles, open by appointment.
