When a new customer tells you “This is the store I’ve been looking for all my life,” you know you’ve come up with something special. At Kabinett & Kammer, an unusual antique shop in Andes, owner Sean Scherer seems not at all surprised at that distinction.

Born and raised in Miami, FL, Scherer landed in New York City in 1989 for the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program. “The reason it comes so easy to me is I have a background in design,” says Scherer, adding “I bought my first antique when I was 16—a brass art deco clock (not working when purchased, or since). I started showing my own paintings and artwork right after college when I was 20 in New York City.”

“I was hugely successful,” says Scherer. “I was living in Tribeca and showing in the Stux Gallery in SoHo,” he says, adding that he lived exclusively on the proceeds from sales of his work for about a decade before moving to this region. He opened a shop he co-ran before venturing out on his own Kabinett & Kammer in 2007.

“As well as starting collecting at 16, I’ve always been interested in art and the aesthetic beauty,” he says, adding, “My interest in antiques started early.”

But just what sorts of antiques are we talking about? You won’t find any Louis XIV at Kabinett & Kammer. You will find old anatomical charts, shells, stuffed critters, tin boxes and more.

“I sell antiques to people who don’t buy antiques—hip city kids,” says Scherer, adding, “The big key to my success is it’s a very masculine vision. This is a guy’s kind of aesthetic. I don’t do chintz or Victorian. It’s all very clean. They’re looking for cool, beautiful things.”

Objects dating through the 1950s are arranged throughout the two rooms of his corner store in vignettes: a tall lamp, atop a sideboard, between wrought iron tools in front of two near life-sized charts (front and posterior views) of man’s musculature; metal boxes in varying stacks beside a probably hand-tinted poster of a camel; a raccoon comfortably riding a baby carriage just inside the door and poised atop what could be Andes’ answer to the Odessa Steps. “Everything is there for a reason,” says Scherer.

When elements leave the shop with customers, he finds something else to complete the revised vignette. “That’s part of the challenge and the fun, creating the next display,” he says.

Scherer describes his pricing, from $10 to around $1,800 as “competitive,” a practice made possible in part by the way he comes by the items in his constantly changing inventory. His buying method has been described as that of a “picker.”

“The traditional pickers were people who knocked on people’s doors out across the country, and out in the countryside, and said ‘I’m looking to buy furniture, what have you got,’” says Scherer, adding “Those were traditional pickers and they would go to peddle their wares at antique stores like mine. … A picker is someone who would find things—fresh to market, not from another market or another dealer.”

While Scherer says he’s not necessarily knocking on people’s doors, his model is still that of the picker. He’s not buying at auctions. “Many people buy exclusively from auctions and that drives the prices up,” he says. “They have very slim profit margins, plus they have to charge more.”

When he’s on a buying trip, traveling frequently throughout the Northeast, Scherer may buy one or two pieces at a time or land a “big score.” “I buy individually and sometimes people do come with collections,” he says. “Some of those charts (the anatomy of flowers, man and more) did come with a collection. Many others did not. You definitely have to find more to replace what you’ve sold.”

Look into the corners of Kabinett & Kammer and you’ll find all kinds of natural objects, from shells and antler sheds to emptied-out eggshells from emu, ostrich and rhea. Note: Gunther (the taxidermied goose on the counter) and that raccoon in the baby carriage are not for sale. “People are so fond of him, I think he’s popular,” says Scherer. “Just like the antique shop signs, there are certain things that add an ambience to the store that are important,” says Scherer. “I think it’s important that there are a few things that always remain constant in the environment of the store.”

But sometimes items are one of a kind. “I had a pretty amazing pheasant and quail taxidermy display case, four by five feet with an original hand-blown glass front. It looked like it came out of the Natural History museum, definitely institutional and never meant for a private collection,” says Scherer.

“I sold a pair of charts, the anatomy of a shark and the anatomy of a sea turtle, each about four by five feet. Those charts I’ll probably never come across again,” he says. “So little is out there. Maybe in Europe they hold on to things a little longer, but I think it’s the same philosophy everywhere. It’s easier to throw it out than to deaccession it.

While Scherer says he always has a great selection of 19th century tin boxes, priced between $10 and $20, he often has one-of-a-kind items like the metal box made from an old Planters peanut can. “What I really love is the complete utilitarian homemade object—a guy needed a box … and made a box,” he says. “It’s the same with the furniture. It’s great design in the end, but it wasn’t made for the design. It was made to serve a purpose and the design kind of happens.”

“It’s folk art in a more primitive sense, not in the form of a horse or something decorative,” he says, adding, “He wasn’t most likely making aesthetic choices, he was most likely making useful choices.”

Kabinett & Kammer also carries a line of unscented beeswax candles made in Stamford. “I think it’s important to have something for every price point,” says Scherer. “Plus (the candles) are sort of clean, modern, masculine candles. They’re not frilly, and fit with the aesthetic of the store.”

“Every object or print is really chosen for its special qualities. That’s not what you would find in most other stores,” says Scherer. “Basically anything beautiful or extraordinary. … Collectors come to me because they want something unusual. My clients, who I’ve turned into collectors, they keep coming back. They’ve become addicted in a sense—the way I did many years back.”

The question people ask is “Where do you find this stuff?,” and Scherer’s answer is “anywhere and everywhere.” “These are things they never knew existed. I don’t deal in nostalgia. I am not a typical country store. I’m not interested in you rediscovering your childhood. I’m interested in you discovering something you never knew existed,” he says. “If there’s a sign that says ‘sale’ I’ll stop everywhere, no matter how junky it looks.”

So what about that customer, the one who set Kabinett & Kammer apart from every other shop he’d ever visited?

He arrived in an unlikely wrapper, according to Scherer.

“A guy pulled up on a motorcycle and got out of all this motorcycle gear, and I wouldn’t have expected him to like the store,” says Scherer. “He said ‘this is the store I’ve been looking for all my life’ and ended up spending over $400 on a selection of prints.”

Of course, whether that visitor could carry his purchases off on the motorcycle mattered not—Scherer ships.

Kabinett & Kammer is located toward the western edge of Andes’ commercial center at 7 Main Street, and is open weekends, from about 11 am to 5 pm. A Web site is under development at www.kabinettandkammer.com. For more information, call 845 676 4242.