A Visit to Aberfoyle

If you are in the Southern Ontario area, you probably know of Aberfoyle, Ontario. If not, let me fill you in. Aberfoyle is located just outside of Guelph and is home to one of the largest and oldest antique markets. The market is held every Sunday (yes, that's right, only Sunday). And what better way to spend the day then to jumble sail! or is it jumble sale? That's what the Brits call it anyway.

This is one of the "streets" at Aberfoyle, named so you don't get lost.

The market sprawls in and out of trees and into gravel clearings.
Some sellers have little booths, while others are literally set up out of their car!

I feel for the sellers in this area: poor suckers have no shade.

So what can you find at Aberfoyle? Really anything. I went with four items in mind: stereoscope cards (which I used to collect, but have neglected), coins for my friend at Coin Coin Designs & Co. , pie birds, and those Mario Batali antique string holder heads that I desperately want for my kitchen!!! (and which I have previously blogged about here).

I managed to actually find a String Head (is that what you would call them?!) But I didn't like it at all.

Is it a dog or a cat? It's $45, that's all I know.

I noticed some really obvious collecting trends. First: old Crown mason jars were everywhere and ranged in price from $3 to over $12. Another was old carved duck decoys! You should have heard this fellow give the history of this duck from the 1920's. The fact that you can even tell the date of when something like that is carved is amazing. Typewriters and rotary phones were everywhere. The average price for a rotary phone was about $45! Wild!

There were excellent prices on old cameras. Lots of paint by number (ever see Drew Barrymore's collection? It rocks). And all the toys that boys played with in the 80's are suddenly worth something.

Some really neat costume jewelry, military pins and watches...

Where I could have gone crazy but didn't was here: (I am so proud of my restraint!)

WHOA! This is the best selection of antique typefaces yet!!!

Need more information on Aberfoyle? Check out their website.