It was advertised as an antiques street fair, which worked perfectly for me because I had items in my basement that weren’t exactly antiques but they were vintage. I gushed to an organizer that this seemed the kind of event for me because the items I had were way above flea market.
I was tired of going to flea markets where folks would spend time picking through a $1 box of junk while I had better items for a few bucks more on my table. Now, I thought, I’d found a place for the real stuff – the vintage items you’d give as a gift to someone who appreciated the past, or who loved something different and sustainable.
The rules for the antiques fair stated plainly that you would be sent packing if you appeared with flea market, yard sale or new items. They don’t want anyone selling tube socks, my auction-buddy Janet noted, referring to a familiar flea-market sales item.
So we signed up for the fair, which was located in a cute little town that billed itself as an antiques district (its main street was also a major highway crammed with traffic). I had gone there a few weeks before to see what antiques and collectibles were sold in its shops.
The prices and merchandise varied, from a building housing individual vendor booths with reasonable prices to a shop that offered lovely high-end furniture and accessories with prices I could not touch. Most were exactly the kinds of vintage items that I don’t bother to take to flea markets because I know they won’t sell for what they’re worth.
Once, I had tried selling some vintage dolls and cameras in an antiques mart where Janet has a booth, but where Janet got paid (she seems to know what people will buy and price it accordingly) all I got was merchandise damaged by people who handled it carelessly. So I pulled out.
But this antique street fair seemed to be the place for me. I assembled the best of the items that had been languishing in my basement for far too long, and priced them at vintage rates.
On the day of the sale, we were directed to our space in front an abandoned house with a beautifully carved wooden front door and stained glass window over the transom. Then Janet spotted a few vendors already set up across the street. And what she saw disturbed her: The folks were selling not necessarily antiques but the same type of glassware and other items that she normally brought to plain old flea markets.
She had fretted about not having enough antiques to sell and had left the flea-market stuff at home. Now, here, she saw that she could have brought more of it. She wondered if she should drop her prices because she didn’t want to drag the stuff back home.
That didn’t bother me because I didn’t want to just give mine away. I did wonder, though, if I might have overpriced most of it in anticipation of an antiques crowd – although I had included some items for 5 and 10 bucks.
As usual, Janet began selling items on her table. As usual, folks looked at my table – which was nicely arranged with like items together – picked up a few things, looked at the price tags and moved on.
That was how it worked for me for the rest of the day. I watched as young women out with friends, older couples, young couples, middle-aged women with girlfriends and families with children in this suburban neighborhood scouted for flea-market items. These were not folks looking for antiques; they were looking for bargains.
If anyone was selling tube socks, Janet said at one point, people would be buying them. She was so right.
I had spied a red doll carriage belonging to a male vendor close by. The carriage was noticeably out of place among what Janet calls “guy stuff” that he was primarily selling. He said he’d been coming to the fair for years. He’d been toting around the carriage – which he called a baby carriage, but it was much too small for a baby – for about three years. It was the one of only a few vintage/antique items that he had laid out on the grass lawn.
I don’t have anything against flea markets – I participate in several during the year – but I’d love it if folks would buy items of value, not some junk they got for $1 so they could brag about how they had talked the price down from $3.
I sold two items at the fair, one of which I let got for $2 less than the tag price. Surprisingly, no one else asked to negotiate any of my prices – which I would’ve been willing to do. So, I didn’t bother to drop any of them, figuring that I could sell the items on eBay for much more.
Like the Carl Sorensen copper bowl. I bought it when I first started going to auctions some years ago. I had not heard of Sorensen until I Googled, and found out that he was a named designer and his metalwork was popular. He was said to have worked in the Philadelphia area during the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century. His works were in copper and bronze, and he signed them. So I bought the covered bowl, paid too much for it and when I checked the price again, it had dropped. So the bowl has been on my fireplace mantle for years. I brought it to the antiques fair assuming that it would get sold. I doubt if anyone walking the streets had ever heard of Sorensen.
Or the J.T. Swann & Co. two-drawer jewelry box/sewing case made from old cigar boxes. It’s a sweet box with dovetailed corners. The box apparently once held Swann cigars; its bottom was a cigar box with an engraved seal of the city of Tampa, FL.
Or the wooden accordion-style sewing box that was in good shape (except for one missing handle and two missing feet). One woman admired it, looked inside it and handled it repeatedly, mentioning that she had a larger one at home. But she apparently wasn’t interested in paying the price for this one.
Or the brown travel case with the leather handle and inside tray. I heard one woman ask her husband to guess how much it was selling for. $50, I heard him say as they walked away. $75, he said. Then I lost their conversation. The case was in impeccable condition. Even if I had put $25 on it, I suspect that it still would have been too high for these buyers.
Or the large wooden mixing bowls – four of them for $25 to $125 – that I had cleaned up and rubbed with mineral oil. Practically everyone who passed them stopped to look, checked the prices and kept walking. I assumed that there were no gourmands or home chefs among the crowd. One of the bowls was a Munising, made by a company whose namesake was its hometown in Michigan. The company was in business from 1911 to 1955 , according to a Martha Stewart c0lumn, and made the bowls out of wood collected nearby. It was the largest of my four bowls, selling for $125, and I overheard one man telling his wife that it was a good price. An antiques shop was selling it for $150, he said. I suspect that it was selling online for more than that.
Or the perfume bottles, ranging from Lalique to Givenchy to a few decorative ones with no names, drew looks. Practically every woman picked up my silver beaded evening purse but none wanted to pay $10 for it.
Or the Eppelsheimer & Co. ice cream mold that was handled by folks who weren’t sure what it was or had not seen one before. I think the mold is a colonial man, a patriot, but it’s hard to tell.
Or the rolling pins with the well-known name of Springerle. I heard only one woman mention the name as if she recognized it. She explained to her husband how the pin was used to make shapes in dough (for German Springerle Christmas cookies). One of the pins still had its original label.
One of the most-handled items was a decorative feather quill pen and clear glass inkwell. It attracted a woman who told us a story of how her son had dressed up as George Washington for a school presentation. She was so proud that she showed us a photo of him in a Washington outfit they had cobbled together, including a white wig made by applying a cottony material to a shower cap. Her son had done exceptionally well, she said, answering questions expertly from his classmates. The son was enamored with the pen, since it was new to him and he did not include one as part of his costume.
Even though I sold very little at the antique fair/flea market, meeting people like her made it all worth it. Thinking back, I realized that I did not find many folks as engaging as her or as curious about the vintage pieces as at other flea markets.
Except for the woman who bought three Kodak folding cameras (which I showed her how to open and close). She picked them up from Janet’s table – the girl had done it again.
