Paris is a great place to go antique (or junk) shopping on the weekends. All year round, you can find brocantes (professional antiques sales) and vide-greniers (neighborhood "yard" sales that professional dealers also frequent) all over the city. In our quartier this weekend, we had the semi-annual vide-grenier on Rue Caulaincourt, which is one of the bigger events (as the street is quite long). So, we took a walk through it yesterday to see what was there.
The first thing we noticed was: fewer people selling, and more professionals than usual. Also, the authorized spots where people were set up to sell their junk/antiques seemed to be spaced further apart, which made me wonder if that was in response to complaints from the people who live on that street; this is the 17th time this event has been held and we've heard that some of the locals want it cancelled altogether, claiming it's too "disruptive" for them. But it only happens on a Saturday in September and anothe Saturday in the spring, so how "disruptive" is it, really? It sure came in handy when we moved a year and a half ago, and we needed to unload all manner of things we had no room or use for.
While the bulk of the sellers were offering the usual used clothing, toys, old pottery and kitchen good, and family relics from the far corner of the cave, there were also some things that were rather unexpected, ugly or flat-out strange. Before long, we ended up making a game of what sort of kooky things we could find... because it certainly seemed like this time around, it was a brocante of the bizarre. So here are a few of the oddities we spotted:
I was interested in finding a magazine rack of some sort that we could put next to the piano, to store the pile of sheet music that we're all working on at the moment (with four out of five of us playing piano, you can imagine the growing stack!) I wasn't interested in these Mad Men-era ones, though. Not my style, and they looked like someone made them out of colorful coat hangers.
I actually quite liked this 1940s armchair, but the frame appeared to be leaning, they were asking too much... and we have no space for it anyway. Look at the old leather photo album, though. And behind the chair was what I assume was a child's bed because it was far too short and narrow for an adult, but oddly, it had what seems to be a "secret" fold-out end table built into the foot of the bed!
An array of antique French door pulls, made from brass, iron and ceramics... and some old advertisements for "no more rheumatism/no more gout"? Strange display.
One professional dealer had these two First World War-era GAS MASKS (one of them complete with its original canister) for sale! This dealer wasn't specializing in war memorabilia, either; most of what he had were old (or not so old) signs, vintage ashtrays, and assorted junk. These gas masks look so flimsy, not as sturdy as pictures of the ones I've seen for the Second World War; I wonder if they actually worked? Just not the sort of thing you'd expect to see at a neighborhood sidewalk sale in 2013, but they are now about 100 years old! (PS Interesting signage for the National Lottery: "The winning number is perhaps here; don't let it go to another!")
Speaking of WWI, here's someone's grandfather, or great-grandfather, or even great-great-grandfather in his war uniform. He reminds me of Gomez Addams. Love the 'stache.
Here's something useful, if your goal is to pick up some French vocabulary about insect-eating animals. But why is the nose of the hedgehog called the "groin"?
Everything you never wanted to know about French vintage pig farming, but were afraid to ask.
There seemed to be quite a proliferation of dead animal souvenirs at this sale. Between all the animal antlers (several sellers had them, including one who had them all displayed on the hood of his CAR parked next to his stall) and the real fur jackets, stoles and hats (no PETA representatives were picketing or throwing red paint here), it was a bit grotesque. I couldn't get a picture of it but one woman, who had a very nice collection of vintage 50's furniture for sale, also had some sort of stuffed animal I couldn't quite identify -- a marmotte perhaps? -- that was posed standing on his hind legs. What a surprise that it hadn't sold. (Ahem.)
And... ew. Just... ew. Move along.
There are always camera dealers at these things. Mostly they have tables full of old Polaroid cameras, point-and-shoot cameras, and the odd antique Brownie or medium-format camera, all neatly displayed; this person just had them all tossed uncermoniously in a plastic bin. I found it ironic that I was taking a picture of old film cameras by using the new photo technology, and in less than 30 seconds I was able to tweak the image in ways that would have taken me hours upon hours in a dark room, back in the "dark ages" of photography -- less than 20 years ago. I own a lovely Nikon FG-20 camera, my first 35mm darling with a wonderful zoom lens, and frankly I'm torn about what to do with it: I will probably never use it again (where do you even go to buy and develop actual film these days?) but I'm hesitant to sell it. If you or someone you know might be interested in giving it a good home, let's figure out a fair street value and we'll talk. It has the regular 50mm lens and two zoom lenses, and I'll throw in a set of color lens filters, accessories and a carrying case if you want them. I'll be in New Jersey in December and could even bring it with me if you're in the States, so we wouldn't have to do international shipping. I took a lot of fabulous photos with this camera, back in the day.
Vintage Hermes typewriter with cover. I saw an even older one on another seller's table. Remember the days? When you had two-color ribbons to change, and God help you if you made a typo because you'd have to start all over again?
A blue duffel bag filled with pink toe shoes. En pointe!
