A Day of Big Scores at Happy's

Some days at the flea market and the antiques mall are better than others. Some of you might remember that last year I scored a Tiffany bracelet for $2 (it was authentic and worth quite a bit of money). Today, there were a lot of opportunities at Happy's Flea Market in North Roanoke and I cashed in my share.

I began the day by running into Erin Pope, who writes for FRONT and is one of the most stylish young women I know. She was holding a pair of aqua moccosins just bought for almost nothing and talking about a woman with a booth "full of Gucci shoes" and other names of equal note (Fendi, Ferragamo). Above and below are a few shots from that booth.

The woman who had the booth talked about the glut of pretenders at flea markets who were selling fakes, but "these are as authentic as you'll find." The photos above and below show you her goods. She also told me of a guy at the back of the lot "who's selling Orvis sports jackets for $1." She hadn't even finished the sentence before I was trying on jackets. They were badly wrinkled and probably not worth much, but Orvis makes good stuff and I looked further.

I found a new pair of Jack Purcell tennis shoes, the kind I can't find any more: canvas. Bought those, along with a lamb's wool sweater (dusty orange) and a pair of gameday Orvis pants ("gameday" because they're Tennessee orange and I couldn't possibly wear them in public at any time other than the day of the game in Knoxville). I added a pretty (and new) lime T-shirt by Orvis and the total was $8--$5 of that for the shoes. The total retail from the tags on the four items was well over $200. And everything was new.

Before I left the Orvis guy, one of the Happy's regulars had entered the pictutre with a wad of cash and paid Orvisboy $1,800 for everything he had left.

And, hey, we're not even talking here about the 99 cents a pound tomatoes you could have had today (and probably tomorrow).