I had every intention of writing from London last week but alas after walking all day toting around junk sent from heaven it was all I could do to crawl into bed!
I'm kind of surprised at how many markets I actually stumbled into and how easy and how much fun it was negotiating with the English dealers, bringing all the junk home however was a different story....
My first adventure was down Portobello Rd. I had read that they had weekend markets with lots of street vendors but wasn't sure if it was going to be junk or JUNK (of the good variety). The first shop I ran into I basically moved in. The owner was this wonderful man who has the same obsession with American antiques (in particular our flag) as I do with English treasures. He said he hope to marry an American so he can move over and junk to his hearts content! Such a kindred spirit~
These are some shots of his lovely shop Jensen & Ballantine just off Portobello Rd~
I honestly thought I was about to move in and have tea in his shop and he was going to be
my new best "junk friend"
I almost died when I saw this wall bird cage....we just got those in the shop last week! What are the chances?? The owner was nice enough to give me the lowdown for the street market (go Friday and not Saturday...boy was he right!!) but since it was only Wednesdy I wandered a little bit and ran across some other shops that make you want to hit someone in excitement...unfortunately no one was with me so I took pics and had an entire conversation about how absolutely wonderful this day was!
Portobello Rd has several antique shops (for buyers not shop owners looking for resale) that are out of this world. This was hands down the best most fantastical shop that made my heart stop. I actually went in the side entrance and didn't move for several minutes because it was everything I had ever dreamed of finding all crammed in one space, piled high to the ceiling and a huge sign saying "NO PICTURES"...I'm so sorry!!! There were childrens riding toys (seals, lions, sheep) hanging from the ceiling, flag pendants and banners along the walls, marmalade jars stacked and virtually every space was crammed with treasure. The only pic I could get was of the outside but you can tell it was a sight to behold!
When I walked into this shop's backroom I thought...Yup I've hit the motherload! Then I checked the prices and had a mini stroke and realized they may actually like there metal numbers quite a bit more than we do. No even the mini was affordable...
Even now looking back at these pics I'm slightly obsessed with all the little treasures~
Slightly off the subject of junk- there is this clothing store in the UK called All Saints that I've loved for a long time now and their current window display is unreal...imagine 4 walls over 14ft high of this~
All of these are Gold Lettered Singers...I wonder what they do with them when they're done?
I do have more pics of junk and am working on another post for those of you that want to do some junking in London so you can have the low down too!
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