The day after Christmas I ran away from home to peruse the booths at Antiques Village in Dayton, Ohio. I used to love treasure hunting in antique malls and junk shops but haven’t made the time to do so lately.
The name is sort of misleading because this vendor mall is 80,000 square feet and filled to the brim with vintage pieces, crafts, books and all manner of items beyond the advertised antiques.
I skipped the rows of glass cases mainly because they tend to make my eyes glassy and still managed to spend half of the day there. Honestly, I wrapped it up because I found the one thing I wanted and it was well past lunchtime. Plus, my cart was sort of full.
I’m always intrigued by the things you see in these places.
Like the family photos that have been discarded.
The collections!
The artistry!
And the weird stuff.
Sometimes I like the weird stuff best.
I came home with a few of those photos as well as several small things including a bust of Mark Twain, a side table with a shelf for books, and a silver teapot with nice patina to put flowers in. It was quite the haul of treasures!
If you go, wear your walking shoes and get a cart. It can be inconvenient but anytime I have not gotten a cart, I’ve had to backtrack to retrieve one. The restrooms are clean and there’s a place to sit and rest or to leave your spouse when they get cranky because you’ve been there too long. That day, the rest area looked like time out for middle aged men.
Most of all, go with an open mind and remember if you see something you want, you need to grab it before someone else does!
Patsy Cline collected salt and pepper shakers. She picked them up in her travels and had quite the collection. Who would’ve thought?
There was a time you could pick up a cool old coffee can for under $10. I have a few in my collection of random stuff – two hold flowers on the back porch and there are two or three in my kitchen too. All are missing the lids so they came for the bargain basement price of about five bucks.
The average album price in this antique mall was about $13 but many reissues of albums go for about $16. Since all the cool kids are going vintage I’m guessing prices will only continue to increase.
