Yesterday, I took the day off, and MeMum, SweetiePie and I went to Shipshewana for the day. Shipshewana is a small town in northern Indiana, mid-way between Chicago and Toledo, just south of interstate 80.*
Aside from being known for its Amish community, Shipshewana has a great auction and flea market. You may have heard of it! The flea market is every Tuesday and Wednesday, year-round (except, sometimes for very cold weeks in the middle of the winter), and the auction is every Wednesday. It’s a pretty popular tourist attraction and the town has some nice fabric shops and lots of crap craft shops.
We’ve always loved the auction. The big barn above is filled with lots of antiques, collectibles, furniture and you-name-it. All this stuff is organized into four long rows from one end of the barn to the other. At 8 a.m., roughly 8 auctioneers begin 8 separate auctions — four at the east ends of the four rows and four in the middle of the rows — and they all work their way to the west. The auctioneers stand on little step stools and do their thing and they’re usually done by around 2 p.m. The owner of all the goods in each booth acts as an assistant by holding the items up and there is a clerk to collect the money or write down an account number when the bidding for each item is over.
In the above picture on the left, you can see the auctioneers — they’re a little taller than everyone else. (As always, you can click on pictures to make them bigger.) It’s hard to see very many of them — I think there were probably only 6 separate auctions going on yesterday. The auctioneer on the right is pointing to someone who has just made a bid. The clerk is just to his left and the owner is in the middle holding an item in the air. It’s pretty hard to hear in the big barn. There’s so much noise from all the people. Plus all the auctioneers have loudspeakers and they talk a mile a minute — as auctioneers do.
“HeyBatterbatterbatterbaaaaatttteeerrr” — whoops, wrong call. “Tengimmefifteengarbledstuffnoonecanunderstandfifteenwhatsmybidmoregarbledstufftenfifteen…” You get the idea. It’s great fun to stand around and watch how much people are willing to pay for something. And to see what’s hot and what’s not. Some days, things are really cheap. Other times, they’re pretty pricey. Prices are definitely inflated during the summer, when there are so many tourists. Yesterday was probably the best day that we’ve ever been as far as smaller crowds go. Probably because it was so soon after Labor Day. The crowds will start to pick up again during the fall and into the Christmas season.
Here are some of the things that were at the auction yesterday. Not very many quilts, but a fabulous Grandmother’s flower garden on a beautiful bed. One booth had tons of linens and hand embroidered items. Obviously, with so many auctions going on at once, you can’t see what everything goes for — I missed seeing the final bid on these items because we were spending most of our time at the booths with dishes. MeMum has a VERY weak spot for dishes!
This booth had lots of glassware and it took forever for the auctioneer to get through it. One shelf was full of Little Red Riding hood collectibles! The fiesta ware was really interesting to watch too. Prices for the fiesta ware were all over the place (probably reflecting the difference between old fiesta and reproduction fiesta) and several of the bidders were obviously dealers. I was very surprised disappointed at how they broke sets up for the bidding. Obviously, they get more money that way. See the set of four nested bowls in the foreground of the above picture on the left? They sold those four bowls separately. I was having a heart attack. The smallest bowl sold first for around $60 to one woman. The next three bowls sold to another woman for between $30 and $50 each. And those little appetizer bowls to the left of the nested bowls went for about $120 each. Fortunately they didn’t try to sell each piece of those bowls separately. Apparently they stop short of being totally stupid! ;-)
This booth above on the left had more fiesta ware and lots of neat Halloween collectibles. And for all you spinners out there, I took a picture of this spinning wheel. Oh, how I was wishing I were a spinner and had a clue about how to use a spinning wheel. This wheel was in beautiful condition and sold for the unbelievable price of $60. Another booth had a beautiful brand-new-still-in-the-plastic silverplate double chafing dish that sold for $35. MeMum and I were kicking ourselves that we didn’t bid on that one. This was the first time ever, in the 20 years that we’ve been going to the auction that we haven’t bought something.
As an added bonus, if you get tired of the auction (I don’t know how that could happen!) there’s a huge flea market going on outside. There are rows and rows of junk stuff, some new and some old. There are definitely more vendors between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but during the rest of the year, there are plenty of booths to keep you busy and make your feet hurt by the end of the day. Pickings are pretty slim in December, January and February though, on days that the flea market is running. If you decide you’d like to visit then, you should probably google some Shipshewana Auction phone number and call to see if the auction and flea market will be in operation.
I think that’s enough for now. Next time, I’ll tell you why we REALLY go to Shipshewana! ;-)
XOXO,
Anna
*Sorry for the blurry map, I suck at that sort of stuff!
