Disappointing
We went to the Pec Thing yesterday. It's a huge indoor/outdoor flea market/antique show at a village nearby. Pecatonica IL, thus, the name. I've not been to it in a year or two (they happen twice a year, May and Sept), but I didn't remember there being this much CRAP out there. I love browsing it though, for the occasional odd or interesting tchochke or old tool find. What was out there this time was a whole lot of VHS tapes, the usual amount of kitschy collectible cutsy crap that clutters up curio cabinets (sorry for the only semi-intentional aliteration), and just-off-the-slow-boat modern gizmo, gadget, tool or appliance that you can pick up at wallmart for half as much. Sure, there were the occasional vendors of pseudo-antique merchandise, though "antique" seems to have lost some of it's meaning. As I was growing up, antique was something over 100 years old. Now, Antique is something over 20 years old and rusted to crap, or painted and peeled six times. At least the prices are still the same sky-high trademark of a true collectible.
There were a few cute ladies out there to watch, most of them, in a trailer-trash kind of way. I did take a few pictures during the day, but most of the people shots didn't come out well enough to make the cut. And wandering around with Wife kinda cuts down on the girl watching (and photographing) I can do.
What really amazed me though was the amount of work that these CrapGypsies are willing to do to hawk their wares.
Since we were there on Sunday afternoon, we got to watch the vendors at the ends of their ropes. After a long weekend of Fair food and picky customers, looking at packing up all their crap back into the trailer behind their Winnie. There was one lady who had at least 4 or 5 large tables, with two tiers each, of little tiny figurines or glass or ceramic nick-knacks, sitting in her lawn chair carefully wrapping them all in newspaper and packing them away. I also wondered just how much crap any one of these gypsies actually sells in a weekend? I gazed at, and walked right past the vast majority of the stalls, some with not even a cursory glance. You gotta wonder if most of them even made enough money to pay for the vendors fee and gasoline to haul this crap from show to show. It's obvious how intent these people are at selling their wares from the picture at right. At least she wasn't snoring (which kinda surprises me, come to think of it).
In a similar vein, the two Rockford Antique malls are closing their doors at the end of June. So everything in there is also on sale. Some of it, up to 80% off. Which brings it down to pretty much what it's worth. They're going to reopen up in Rockton, about 7 miles north of town. Yeah, they'll get much better traffic up there. The antique malls are not immune to the 'junk' market, but they at least don't have the modern wallmart crap cluttering up the aisles. The malls were rented stalls that vendors kept for months at a time, so there was some continuity.
That was my weekend. How's yours?
There were a few cute ladies out there to watch, most of them, in a trailer-trash kind of way. I did take a few pictures during the day, but most of the people shots didn't come out well enough to make the cut. And wandering around with Wife kinda cuts down on the girl watching (and photographing) I can do.
What really amazed me though was the amount of work that these CrapGypsies are willing to do to hawk their wares.
Since we were there on Sunday afternoon, we got to watch the vendors at the ends of their ropes. After a long weekend of Fair food and picky customers, looking at packing up all their crap back into the trailer behind their Winnie. There was one lady who had at least 4 or 5 large tables, with two tiers each, of little tiny figurines or glass or ceramic nick-knacks, sitting in her lawn chair carefully wrapping them all in newspaper and packing them away. I also wondered just how much crap any one of these gypsies actually sells in a weekend? I gazed at, and walked right past the vast majority of the stalls, some with not even a cursory glance. You gotta wonder if most of them even made enough money to pay for the vendors fee and gasoline to haul this crap from show to show. It's obvious how intent these people are at selling their wares from the picture at right. At least she wasn't snoring (which kinda surprises me, come to think of it).In a similar vein, the two Rockford Antique malls are closing their doors at the end of June. So everything in there is also on sale. Some of it, up to 80% off. Which brings it down to pretty much what it's worth. They're going to reopen up in Rockton, about 7 miles north of town. Yeah, they'll get much better traffic up there. The antique malls are not immune to the 'junk' market, but they at least don't have the modern wallmart crap cluttering up the aisles. The malls were rented stalls that vendors kept for months at a time, so there was some continuity.
That was my weekend. How's yours?
posted by Intothelight4now at 9:54 AM
1 Comments:
the title on this one just made my heart drop, I almost didn't want to read through! But it wasn't the job thing I thought. I never went to the junk swap in Pec, sounds entertaining. Miss you!
Post a Comment
<< Home