Saturday, May 8, 2010

Flamboro Spring 2010

I went to the Flamboro outdoor antique market this morning. You might remember my posting about last spring's visit, the day of the torrential rain and hail. http://http//cynfulcreationscanada.blogspot.com/2009/05/outdoor-market-season.html

Sadly, this year's weather was not much better, only instead of hail, we had a special weather bulletin in place warning about the strong winds expected to develop over the day!

The forecast was not encouraging when I woke up this morning, but as I was showering and having my breakfast, the weather was definitely improving so I headed off to the show. There were plenty of grey clouds and it had rained quite a bit overnight but there was actually blue sky in sight and the sun was shining when I arrived, although the temperature was quite chilly. But you could tell rain was coming. As a result, and perhaps for economic reasons as well, there were only 4 outdoor vendors set up this morning. Four! Usually there are dozens.

I went into one tent and the woman whose booth it was had her arm above her head holding on to the frame of her tent covering, trying to keep it stable in the very strong wind. I can't imagine how she was going to stand like that for the rest of the day, let alone serve customers!

There were two buildings full of vendors as well but even they were much reduced in number over last year and other shows I have been to. I had looked at everything within an hour and a half and by the time the torrential rain started, I was ready to leave.

I didn't leave empty-handed, although it was close. I had only spent $4 as I was about finished seeing all there was to see (on three old magazine supplements from the British Sunday Times for $2 - one each from 1963, 1965 and 1972 - and 4 milk bottle caps for $2) and thought that would be it, until I saw this old portable typewriter - the Brother Activator 889.

It was in pristine condition, complete with instruction book, sturdy plastic bits to hold the cartridge in place while not in use and a hard plastic carrying case. I had been looking for an old typewriter, as I'd like to use the typeface for artwork, so this one is ideal. It might need a new ribbon, which I'm sure I can pick up on eBay somewhere. (it has one of those old ribbons, with red ink on the bottom and black on the top - very cool!)

All in all, a disappointing start to the outdoor antiquing season but hopefully I'll have better luck with my shopping excursions as the weather gets warmer and slightly more reliable. Plus I've got three weekends of flea market shopping in France to look forward to at the end of August!

By the way, if you're interested in old typewriters, you might want to check out these sites I just found on the Internet (who knew?), both called the Typewriter Museum: http://www.mrmartinweb.com/type.htm. and http://www.typewritermuseum.org/.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I just picked up one the exact same typewriter. It writes well, but I am still trying to find info on it. Lately I have been taking it down to my local coffee shop and driving people crazy with all the incessant clacking. :)