Off to the Brocantes!

You've probably seen my references to brocante fairs and vide greniers. Maybe you've wondered why the heck Albert and I spend at least a little time, nearly every weekend, wandering through these open air markets where people sell junk/antiques/bric-a-brac. Maybe it goes waaaaay back to when we first met, in the mid '70s. We had little or no expendable money then (about the same as now, probably), so we would spend our romantic weekends wandering through the Sebastopol (Calif) flea market, and every once in awhile we'd hit the big Veterans Building parking lot flea market in Santa Rosa. I guess we like to look at other people's cast-offs.

 Now that we spend six months in France each year, we were thrilled to find that we could start wandering among tables of FRENCH cast-offs. We rarely actually buy something, but we just love looking at old stuff and figuring out what it was used for, when it was made, etc.

Biscuit jars and Baccarat crystal

 A  brocante is a place (either a store or a gathering of dealers) where one can buy used items, some which may be just old junk, others which may be true Antiques  (antiquités). The first two pictures have some pretty high class, beautiful and expensive items. These were tables belonging to professional dealers.

Silver and Limoges porcelain

A vide grenier (empty attic) is an event where community members pay for a table or tables, and bring things from home to sell. It's something between a flea market and a rummage sale. This is where you might find a bargain...or you just might stumble into what we call a BBT. Broken baby toys.

I think the deer foot hat holders are interesting, but can't say I want them in my house. 

Some things to hang your hats on

The photo below is a fun mix of items. Note the remnants of last year's politics on the steel door, the tattered remains of a poster advertising a new political party, the Anticapitalists.

Here's a typical conglomeration of fabric, statuettes,  old clocks, a painting, an old fan...and a ceramic raccoon?

Now, what do you collect?  Old wooden duck decoys or hand-painted whirligigs? Bird decoys? Cork pullers? Oil lanterns? These decoys were really cool folk art items. But very expensive.

Old duck decoys

Stick-in-the-mud bird decoys

 Perhaps tool collecting is your game. Here we have some interesting old carpenter's planes...

 ...and the tools of the butcher trade, a chopping block, cleaver and butcher's saw!

 Maybe doll furniture is your thing?

 Or real vintage clothing?

What are you looking for?