Market Value

Are you in the market for a 500-piece, mirrored disco ball? A pair of Beavis and Butt-head slippers?

Or how about a viaticum—a eucharistic kit used by Catholic priests when visiting homebound parishioners?

These are among literally tons of items being sold by 900 vendors during the monthly Kane County Flea Market at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles. The event, which goes closes up shop 4 p.m. Sunday, was expected to draw between 7,000 and 10,000 visitors this weekend, said Lori Hopkins, one of the flea market's organizers.

"We don't control what they offer," said Hopkins of Burlington. "The space here is like their own store."

Hopkins said vendors are prohibited from offering just two things: "Balloons and pornography, that's it."

Otherwise, visitors can find just about everything, including the bathroom sink. And hairpieces, baseball bats, deer hooves, bedpans and various types of cacti.

Fred Robinson of St. Charles, Hopkins's father and son of flea market founder Helen Robinson—also known as the "Queen Flea"—has attended every flea market since his mother's first event in 1967.

"The strangest things I ever saw? A kid's casket, about 4-foot-long. And a stuffed horse, a taxidermied horse," Fred Robinson said. "Like my mom used to say, if something was ever made, you'll probably find it here."

On Saturday, the disco ball was the star of the show. Offered by a vendor known only as "Indiana Steve," the ball tilted sideways in a cardboard box as one curious shopper after another stopped to touch and it ask how much he wanted for it.

"One hundred dollars!" Indiana Steve yelled to a man who inquired about the disco ball. "I got it out of the rafters of an old night club in Beverly. You'd be hard-pressed to find one in better condition, that's for sure."

When the customer balked at the price, Indiana Steve quietly retorted that it's "authentic," glass and metal, not like the modern plastic ones available everywhere.

"I'll let it go for $100 apiece, and that's $500 pieces!" he yelled across the crowd.

A few rows over, Bruce Dirks of Skokie offered an antique traveling viaticum kit—a box containing an icon of the Virgin Mary cradling the dying Jesus, with a small compartment at the bottom for holding the eucharist and equipment for administering it to those who are homebound.

"You can do your own little ceremonies with this," Dirks said as he opened the compartment to reveal a crucifix, a eucharistic plate and other equipment a priest would need to offer communion. He asked $25 for the piece. "It's pre-1960s... It came from a church in Chicago."

Flea market regular Carolyn Lauing-Finzer of Naperville was overjoyed to be back at the event.

"It's got to be good luck," she said, smiling as she wrote out a check for the fourth item she bought during a few hours of searching. "I haven't been here in two months and I've found treasures." Her "treasures" included a stained-glass window, a large purse for a friend, an antique metal egg basket and a wrought iron log wrack she intends to use as a decorative planter.

"I paid $20 for it, and it's 80 years old," Lauing-Finzer said. "I'm just so happy with it."

For more information on the Kane County Flea Market, visit www.kanecountyfleamarket.com. The next flea market is scheduled for Oct. 2-3 at the fairgrounds.