Brocante

After my mom gave me a hard time about chairs (yes, chairs), and our lack of them, Chloe and I went to a flea market in Sassenage, with a single mission: chairs. Unfortunately, most of the chairs that were being sold were on the verge of collapse. Some had no cushions much less cushion supports, and others would creak dangerously when you touched them. These were definitely on their last legs (couldn't resist). Since we were there, we looked around, and quickly realised that this brocante did not have any specific focus (i.e. chairs), but rather was a true flea market. What I mean by this is that people were getting rid of EVERYTHING! I guess the premise is the same as for Ebay; no matter how dirty, broken down, useless or ugly something is, there is always someone who wants it. This is a valid premise, of course, but not when your buying audience is limited to a few hundred people on a sunday morning, rather than the millions who browse Ebay. And even so, some of the items for sale would test even the Ebay pool. Poking fun at items for sale at garage sales is like shooting fish in a barrel, but here are some gems that not even I can resist recounting:

6 cans of pringle potato chips

A Mattel Intellivision, circa 1980 ( if it wasnt PAL, I would consider buying this)

An airbrushed Johhny Halliday Album (tried to find this on google images but no dice)

Those clocks that banks give away

Boxes full of porno paperbacks

Military telephones

If only I had remembered my camera. Also, we almost ended up buying a 19th century walnut blanket chest, but chickened out since we are totally ignorant of the going prices for these things. We did managed to bargain him down to 500 euros though.