My first time at the Brimfield antique show; I was in awe. Of anything made or used prior to 1950, it was all there.
What was at Brimfield? Garden gnomes, vintage Harley signs, Fiestaware, life-size garden statues, marquee lettering, door knobs, vintage toys, colored glassware, jewelry, and anything else that could be hauled into the field.
And if you love grab-and-go food, this is an event to attend. The usual suspects of pizza and hot dogs were there, and the not-so-common kielbasa, pulled pork, baked potatoes, lobster, and a beer garden to relax and regroup.
I’ve been to flea markets and antique shows before. But I have never been to an event that was so large it needed its own app to share locations of toilets, and each field.
Now each field is so highly detailed with wares, that it could very well take an afternoon to scour through everything. But knowing the big picture of how big the picture really is at Brimfield, I tried my best not to linger.
There’s definitely something for everyone at Brimfield. And there’s definitely every kind of personality walking around. From the hipster to the antique train collector, and everyone else, they were walking the fields. And there were 500,000 visitors to the Brimfield antique show.
And the vendors are grateful for the younger attendees showing up in the fields. Not much more than a decade or two ago, the vendors were worried that the flea market was dying. That it was becoming a lost art. And then the Antiques Road Show started, and the American Pickers made it cool again. And then all of the other TV shows and web posts that we and all of our fellow DIYers share about repurposing and upcycling exploded.
So what is hot right now at the flea market? It was hard for me to figure it out, so I asked one of the exhibitors how he chose the items to bring. He said that he just pulled up to his shed and filled his truck. Haphazard, maybe. And his shed has at least four times as much as was filling his booth. Everything from old postcards and bottle caps to vintage posters.
But the part that opened my eyes was that the vendors buy and sell to the other vendors buying and selling.
With so much stuff, multiplied by so many vendors, multiplied by so many fields, I wonder if the people exhibiting at the Brimfield antique show are mostly trading amongst themselves or does a lot of it go home with people like me, who really weren’t looking for anything in particular and only bought one piece. (Yes, I went to the Brimfield antique show and only purchased one item.)
What do you think?
