Ever since I was little, I have enjoyed going to auctions, jumble sales and charity shops to look for treasures and bargains. When I was at university, in Swansea, I used to hang around the antique shops just to see what new things came in, hoping to buy something unusual with my limited means.
This love of old things and bargain hunting descends from my grandparents and my mother who, in the 1970s, used to work for an antique dealer in Cascais, when it was easy and cheap to buy antiques in the local markets. Mum also managed the Lagoa Donkey Sanctuary shop for almost 20 years, which fuelled our love for buying ‘things’.
Spurred on by new hobbies, I have lately, obsessively, been hunting in charity shops for unusual furniture to restore, colourful scarves, men’s ties or curtains to cut up for upholstery projects or for making ‘new’ eccentric bohemian curtains. I have many projects on the go and very limited time to do them, but I keep on hoarding the ‘stuff’ for when I do have the time.
Having exhausted the local charity shops, last month I went to the Lagoa boot fair. I had not been for many years, and I was looking forward to getting some bargains. However, apart from buying some strange glass beads, which I am not sure what to do with, more ties and a couple of teddies, overall, I was disappointed. It was not the exciting experience that I recalled. If you are looking for clothes, glassware, books or old rusty tools, there were plenty to choose from, but nothing out of the ordinary grabbed my attention.
Car boot fairs have been popular for over 40 years now. Initially held to raise funds for charity, they have become a weekend institution whose popularity has spread throughout Europe in one form or another. They are basically a take on the original ‘Marché aux Puces’ – the flea market which existed in Paris in the mid-1800s.
The original Paris marché was beyond the Porte de Clignancourt in Saint-Ouen and it originated in the reign of Louis Phillippe when the homeless set up their homes on the site. Did you know that it was called the flea market most likely due to the sale of old clothes that were undoubtedly infested with fleas?
The market area became a second-hand ‘city’ of alleyways full of stalls and, at one time, it also had a travelling circus and outdoor orchestras for entertainment. It was described in Tatler Magazine by ‘Priscilla’ on March 20, 1940, as “a dump of hovels, of broken-down huts of shelters built of old doors and other materials bought from house breakers. This is the home – or rather the business quarters of the rag and bone merchant, the second-hand clothes dealer and the old iron vendor … there is nothing one cannot buy at les Puces so long as one does not care in what state of disrepair the object is. The broken bits and pieces that were displayed on the ramshackle booths or were strewn on old sacks and newspapers over the roadway itself were neither foul not filthy and the place was neither smelly nor really flea some. I picked my way over the cobblestones in and out between piles of carpets, stacks of bones and mounds of incandescent gas burners.” Priscilla’s ancient description is not far off those of boot fairs of today!
The Paris market became a paradise for bargain hunters and a tourist attraction over the years. In the New Milton Advertiser of August 27, 1938, an article described how pupils from a local school had a trip to Paris visiting the Palace of Versailles, Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Marché aux Puces!
To this day, the Marché is still running albeit it is now more upmarket with the area having become the largest concentration of antique and second-hand dealers in the world, with over five million visitors each year.
In Lisbon, the ‘Feira da Ladra’, or Thief’s Market, has been running since medieval times having begun in Chão da Feira, near the castle of S. Jorge around 1272. It moved to Rossio until the 1755 earthquake and relocated to Praça da Alegria and then to Campo de Santa Clara in 1882 where it still operates today, on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Vendors set up at 5am and the market has become part of Lisbon’s heritage. Stall after stall of vintage clothes, fashion items, antiques, bric-a-brac, books and craftwork such as jewellery, pottery and paintings line the streets, providing visitors with a vibrant trip through the history and culture of this amazing city. It is expected that buyers will haggle over the price and cheerful banter can be heard at every stall.
You can also partake of traditional food from the many street-food vendors and listen to the street musicians while you browse for that special purchase in the bustling market that has something for everyone.
In today’s modern world where recycling is the norm, boot fairs and flea markets provide the opportunity to recycle goods, thus preventing waste, whilst also raising funds for the sellers and the organisers.
It is every bargain hunter’s dream to find a valuable treasure. In August 1891, many of the British newspapers reported the story of an old lady named Madame Pacaud who had bought a very old and dilapidated mattress at the Marché in Paris. Upon cutting it open to wash the horsehair stuffing, she found a leather bag with 14,000 Francs in gold. So, some people really did keep their money in their mattress!
Almost 100 years later, one lucky boot fair visitor in the UK bought a trinket box with some costume jewels in it only to find, 30 years later, that a ring in the box contained a real diamond which she then sold at auction for £656,750.
Nowadays, however, treasures are few and far between as people are more aware of the value of goods, most likely due to the internet that allows for fast and easy valuations. They may still exist, but you would need to join the connoisseur buyers who start rummaging while the stall holders are still unpacking their car boots in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, I cannot get up that early!
So now you know!
By Isobel Costa
|| features@algarveresident.com
Isobel Costa works full time and lives on a farm with a variety of pet animals! In her spare time, she enjoys photography, researching and writing.
