Along the Lighthouse Route just outside Halifax, ABC: Antiques, Books and Collectibles has spent close to two decades filling a storefront in Tantallon with old and interesting things worth a second look. The shop, located at 12723 Peggy’s Cove Road, first opened its doors in 2005 and has built its identity around three overlapping specialties rather than one narrow category. The antiques and vintage side of the business covers decorative furniture and objects carrying real historical provenance, often a century or more old, while the books side leans hard into regional interest, with a particular focus on Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canadian titles alongside Canadian military history and general antiquarian volumes that are hard to track down elsewhere. Rounding out the shop’s name, the collectibles selection spans comics and graphic novels, postcards and paper ephemera, coins, vinyl records, militaria, jewelry, and folk art, giving browsers with very different interests a reason to spend an afternoon working through the shelves.
Tantallon sits on St. Margarets Bay just west of Halifax, a community many visitors pass through on the scenic drive out to Peggy’s Cove, and the shop’s location on that same Lighthouse Route corridor makes it a natural stop for travelers combining a lighthouse day trip with a bit of treasure hunting. The storefront keeps regular weekday hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with Saturday hours from noon to 5 p.m., giving both locals and weekend day trippers several windows to browse in person.
What distinguishes ABC Antiques, Books and Collectibles from a single fixed storefront is how far its reach extends beyond that one Tantallon address. The shop maintains booths at three separate regional antique malls in addition to its own storefront, spreading its inventory across multiple physical locations around the area, and it sells through eBay.ca, the specialty book marketplaces ABEBooks and Biblio.com, and Facebook Marketplace. That combination, a used and antiquarian book dealer active on the major book marketplaces alongside a general antiques and collectibles storefront with multiple mall booths, is an unusual footprint for a small Nova Scotia shop and reflects a business built by people who treat both the book trade and the antiques trade as serious, side by side specialties rather than picking one.
For anyone searching Nova Scotia for a shop that pairs genuine antiquarian and regional book dealing with a full range of antiques, vintage furniture, and small collectibles, all in one place on the road to Peggy’s Cove, ABC: Antiques, Books and Collectibles in Tantallon has built exactly that reputation since 2005. Whether the goal is a rare Atlantic Canadian history title, a piece of vintage furniture with real character, or an afternoon spent flipping through vinyl, postcards, and militaria, the Peggy’s Cove Road storefront rewards a slow browse. ABC: Antiques, Books and Collectibles in Tantallon, Nova Scotia is a multi-specialty shop combining antiques, regional and antiquarian books, and collectibles under one roof along the Lighthouse Route.
