SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The closure of a downtown Springfield antique shop is really about a change of seasons for the couple that owned it.

“They’ve been there for sixteen years, right next to Wild Rose,” said Springfield Business Journal executive editor Michelle Ownbey of Abe’s Old Hat, “and the owners, Mike and Trudy Naylor, said that they’re not retiring from the antiques business; it’s more of a full-circle transition, if you will.”

Ownbey said the couple started the Sixth Street business when Mike Naylor’s health curtailed his travel. Previously, the Naylors had been traveling the antiques circuit, and that’s where they will be returning.

“Now his health is doing better, which is great,” said Ownbey. “Antiques are not the kind of thing that you buy on impulse, not necessarily being the sort of foot traffic they would like, even being close to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. They’ve decided to go back to the traveling circuit.”

The last day the store was in business was Nov. 1.

Ownbey talks business Thursdays at 8:40 a.m. on the WTAX Morning Newswatch.