SEWARD - It's a prime retail location, just across the street from the Seward courthouse and just a few steps away from the busy town bakery.

But Jim Rosowski, now four years past indulging his first store renovation ideas, knows he faces a big business challenge in trying to sell a 6-foot-tall wood rendering of Kwan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy, and a watercolor depiction of Wa Baun See, Potawatami chief from the frontier era.

"In 2005," Rosowski said, "there wasn't any clue of what was happening in terms of the upcoming recession. In fact, things were looking very good."

Now, things look very different, and he's hoping that the Internet will be part of the answer to his burning retail questions.

The 71-year-old California native, retired from a long biology teaching career at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is preparing for the much delayed grand opening of his Blue Heron Antiques this week.

His is a specialized array of merchandise that caught his eye over many years of collecting. To get it on display, he had to fight his way past problems with fire walls and a sprinkler system in a former Chinese restaurant and a downturn in his own health.

Don't go to his store looking for a beer mug from a defunct brewery or a plastic Roy Rogers figurine.

Among his most prized holdings, all seemingly in mint condition, are hand-colored etchings and lithographs of bird and wildlife paintings by John James Audobon and British artist John Gould.

He has a Chinese cricket cage made of wood and a box for artist brushes made out of a yak horn. He has a territorial map that shows Nebraska stretching all the way to Canada and jade sculptures of a lion, a horse, and a dragon fish that might weigh as much as 200 pounds each.

What he doesn't have, so far, is a detailed marketing plan that will allow him to reach beyond potential local customers and other willing travelers from Lincoln and Omaha to a much bigger trade territory.

"I wanted to have something that would give me intellectual and physical stimulation and something that might even break even, too. So far, I've done at least two out of three."

The last one is likely to require a painstaking process in which he inventories his treasures, writes capsule descriptions and takes pictures. The next stop is the Internet.

How long might that take?

"I'd say probably a year."

For the time being, "I'm on a ledge, hanging by my fingertips. That's the truth of it."

Twenty-five miles away in Lincoln, Tom Davis is monitoring the Internet's increasing importance to antique dealers in cities large and small and all over the world.

Davis' Antique Directory is in its 37th year and, as far as he knows, "we're the largest antique publication in the country."

The online version includes an overseas section. Dimi Petrova of London, England, Crystal's Treasures of Nasaker, Sweden, and the Estonia Gallery of Tallinn, Estonia, are among those awaiting your attention.

"Most antique dealers in one area draw off of other areas," Davis said.

"People will drive a distance to a good shop," he added. "Over in Seward, that shop probably does 90 percent of its business out of town. It's something that you would see in Chicago and very big towns. It's specialized and it has specialty items and it's a very good shop."

Using the Internet to catch the eye of antique shoppers from far away isn't new, said Davis, but it's definitely in growth mode.

"It's just a sales tool," he said. "It's not going to be all of it, but it's going to be part of it. It puts you in the market.

"Somebody in New York that never gets out of town can find something in Jim's shop and deal that way."

However people want to deal, Rosowski is ready to deal at the Blue Heron.

"It needs to be a business success," he said, "or it won't be here in five years."

Rosowski expects his shop to be open daily this week for his grand opening. Normal business hours at Blue Heron Antiques are Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or at ahovey@journalstar.com