Every third Sunday of the month, hundreds of sellers set up shop at the Long Beach Vintage Market. Admission is $8 at the entrance, cash only, and parking in the stadium’s parking lot is free.
The vendors, many of which tour through the different flea markets, operate out of vans, pick-up trucks, and box-trucks.
One vendor, Terri Endroni, operates Itty Bitty Vintage Shop out of a 60’s Shasta camping trailer. Endroni scours the country collecting antiques, anything from vintage signs to vintage furniture. Then, she sells her antiques at flea markets in Laguna Hills, Topanga, Pasadena, and Camarillo.
Endroni began selling vintage about she first moved to California. Shortly after moving, she purchased the camping trailer and began refurbishing it, while falling in love with traveling and curating vintage.
“I moved to California 10 years ago, at that time the cupcake thing was really big in trailers but I couldn’t get a food license,” said Endroni. “So then I had a trailer and had to figure out what to do so I started selling my own junk.”
Since then, Endroni has been selling items from her own vintage collection at flea markets.
Dave Lancon is the owner Akashic Records, a business formed from his passion for music. He didn’t begin formally vending at flea markets until the 90’s, but Lancon remembers trading records at Poo-Bah Record Shop in Pasadena in the 70’s.
He jokes that he was “forced into it” as his collection got so massive, when asked why he started selling at flea markets. Like many sellers, Lancon has a strict schedule that he follows. On the first Sunday of the month he attends the Pasadena City College Flea Market, next The Rose Bowl flea, then the Long Beach flea and finally he ends the month at The Orange County Record show.
“You go to a yard sale or an estate sale and maybe they don’t have records,” said Lancon. “But they have vintage clothes or cool books and your level of expertise starts spiraling up and eventually if you’re doing it right you can start making a living out of it.”
One of the most popular items at the Long Beach Antique Market is vintage clothing. Steven Vega has been buying, selling, and trading vintage clothes for over a decade sourcing clothes from thrift stores, estate sales, rag houses, online, and other dealers.
In 2020 Vega founded his business, Eveready Vintage, based in Long Beach. The business is named after Eveready Battery Company, a battery company that was prevalent throughout the 1900’s, reflecting his love of vintage.
He wanted to start a formal business after seeing the popularity of vintage skyrocket, including modern fashion companies referencing vintage archives.
“The prices here are represented in all the work I am doing, finding, traveling, cleaning, and the value,” said Vega, holding a pair of 1940’s World War 2 U.S. Navy pants priced at $500.
He emphasized that while these items may seem overpriced to some, details such as paint stains and stenciled numbers, make items like these one of a kind.
While clothes and house décor are the most popular items, Mark Calamaco, has made a business out of sells vintage magazine ads. At first, sourcing from his personal collection, he began to cut and frame them. He used them to decorate his office at his day job, a car dealership. After his son sold a few vintage magazine ads online, Calamaco decided to start selling at flea markets.
“I just find that ads were very artistic in those times, and they are funny, hilarious,” said Calamaco. “I have an old Volkswagen ad that says ‘for when your wife crashes your car.'”
He primarily does vintage advertisements; however, he occasionally also frames articles with pictures or pictures with captions. Calamaco sells his framed advertisements at Los Feliz Flea Market, Long Beach Hi-Performance Swap meet and the Pomona Swap meet and Car Show.
The Long Beach Antique Market offers over 800 vendors, selling many different types of unique products such as furniture, vintage clothes, collectibles, and more. For more information regarding the Long Beach Antique Market visit their website.