My daughter, Bethany, and I love to go thrift shopping and garage sale-ing, but we’d never been Santee Swap Meet-ing. So, on Sunday, we decided to give it a go and headed over after a late iHop breakfast.
On the way there, at the Woodside/N. Woodside fork, we passed a green neon cardboard sign that simply said “Mantiques” with an arrow pointing to the right. We decided that such a clever business name deserved to be patronized, so we made mental notes to visit after the swap meet, and then took the left to start our adventure.
The first thing we discovered upon arrival is that the parking fee is discretionary! It was almost noon, and the parking lot attendant told us he wasn’t charging anymore and we could just go on in. Knowing that the swap meet didn’t close until 2pm, we thought we’d hit the jackpot! The second thing we discovered, however, is most likely the reason that we got in free - many of the vendors had either already left, or were already packing up to leave! We weren’t horribly disappointed, though, because we had no idea what we’d missed by not being there earlier ;) And even though the vendors that were left were far and few between, we still found some deals and treasures.
Bethany loves honey, so she spotted the honey vendor right away. The vendor had two different flavors of fresh honey (we took one of each), and promised us that by next weekend they’d have many more flavors – including their coveted chocolate honey. I collect teapots, and found a beautiful miniature teapot that I “stole” for a measly $3. The vendor – operating out of her van, took considerable and thoughtful time ensuring it was well wrapped and protected for the trip home. Other purchases included a large coffee-table book on Space, and huge – no – really – HUGE balls of yarn – 40 oz. for $4! We took 5!
According to the website, it is really inexpensive to claim a vending spot at the swap meet, and anyone can sell just about anything. When the vendors leave, however, many of them just dump on the ground what they didn’t sell rather than hauling out what they’d hauled in. At first, we were really disappointed in the fact that many vendors so carelessly left “trash” everywhere. But then we noticed a good handful of people sorting through the “leftovers” and realized this must be a kind of swap meet tradition… if you don’t sell it and you don’t want it enough to take it back with you, leave it for someone else to take who might need it, or who might just make some money off of it at the next swap meet!
We do plan to go back - much earlier next time! - so that we have a better frame of reference as to the types of vendors that are there on a regular basis, but we were pleased with what we’d learned and with the few treasures we found in the process.
Back to the fork in the road, took a left under the overpass and found what we were looking for just a few short blocks past the 67N onramp :)
Mantiques is a small shop specializing in “vintage radio sales & service, and other cool stuff”, according to their website. The “other cool stuff” includes straight-edged razors, old toys (because you can’t take the boy out of the man ;), knives, lighters, and a variety of other things, but we were most impressed with the old radios and stereos – so many of them! They looked like they were in good repair and the stereo they used to fill the shop with music had the most beautiful sound quality to it! If I had $850 burning a hole in my pocket, I would have brought it home with me right then and there. We also noticed a cool soda-shop-type milk-shake machine, some carefully protected and preserved old news clippings and magazine articles, old telephones, and lots of parts… things one might use to fix other old things :)
The young guy behind the counter was very friendly and helpful – easy to converse with and more than willing to share his knowledge on the shop’s inventory and history. I asked if the shop ever got old sewing machines in, even though I knew, I said, that they might not be considered “manly” ;) Our young salesman said that people bring them in all the time, but he doesn’t carry them for exactly the reason I noted. He then asked for my name and number and promised to contact me the next time someone came in with one – how cool is that?!
We were thoroughly pleased with this new discovery, purchased a couple cool items, and look forward to going back… with men in tow, next time, as we can only imagine the child-like wonder we might see on their faces as they enter the shop for the first time ;)
It was about 1:15 when we left Mantiques, and Bethany and I both had 1:45 nail appointments with the best nail tech in Santee (more on that in another blog ;), so – with 20 minutes to kill, our eyes caught a “New Thrift Store” banner on Woodside just before Filippi’s. Time to kill and a new thrift shop in town?! We don’t believe in coincidences.
At first glance, Frankie’s Resale and Consignment Shop looks like a very small, albeit clean and well-organized, thrift shop. But two doorways off of the main room lead you to other rooms with many more hidden treasures, and we had a lot of fun discovering them! Bethany and her boyfriend love music, and collect record albums. Frankie’s has hundreds, so Bethany promptly plopped herself on the floor and started pouring through them while I walked through the rest of the shop. I heard one of the young staffers offer Bethany a stool, and another one (could it have been Frankie himself?) chatted with Bethany about her love of albums for a minute or so and then told her she could have whatever albums she found for 10 cents each! One beautiful covered casserole dish, a set of 4 leather-bound vintage carpentry books, two miniature wall hangings, and 8 LPs later, we walked out – with treasures in hand, hardly-noticeable dents in our pocketbooks, and a friendly “come back and see us again soon” ringing in our ears.
We were told Frankie’s gets “new” items in every 3 to 5 days – good to know! I hope this “New Thrift Store” hangs around a while, because the good old fashioned friendliness of this new small business deserves our patronage!
I got three of my favorite things in today – food, family, and (shopping is) fun! And all within a 2-mile radius of my front door!
Gotta love Santee :)
