I'd have been better off buying dubious penny stocks, because this much I know: cherished these past 10 years, my vintage 100-percent-authentic Princess Pat Hair Net made from Real Human Hair won't make a fortune on eBay. Not in my lifetime. Not when you can currently pick one up for four bucks at the Hidden City Collect n' Consign (4333 Fraser Street).
This sprawling year-old emporium covers 2,500 square feet. That's big, but you've no idea how big until you open the door onto a place crammed with…stuff. It's like a dud-free garage sale, the thrift shop you fantasize about finding (except that this place smells pleasantly of lavender and chamomile). It's like waking up, as the hero did in Canadian author Brian Moore's 1970s novel, The Great Victorian Collection, to find a wealth of aged objects outside your window-except that, at Hidden City, stock is 20th-century. "We're very selective," say owners Jody Furneaux and Stacy Clumpus of their massive collection of retro, vintage, and collectibles.
As often happens, interesting jobs aren't those that your high-school career counsellor told you about. Furneaux and Clumpus's lives ran parallel (UBC degrees in women's studies, retail experience) until, avid collectors themselves, they test-drove a small business they called the Junktion in Clumpus's dad's garage on the Sunshine Coast. When he sold the property, they moved on to stalls at antiques and collectibles sales around the Lower Mainland. (They still show up at the bimonthly 21st Century Flea Market.)
"What drew us in [here] was the location," says Furneaux of their Fraser Street space that, lit by windows at both ends, formerly housed a karaoke and video-repair store. Its tiled floor stayed, the mezzanine went, but "the biggest makeover," she says "was the paint". Walls, once nicotine-coloured, are now purple and custard cream. The two also added business chops via Douglas College's Self-Employment Program.
New objects come through the doors daily from the 230 people currently on their books. (Consigners receive 40 percent of the selling price, or they can rent a spot, starting at $75 a month, and collect, for instance, the entire $12 that one lessee charges for double-sided Beatles jigsaws.) Where some stores progressively mark down merchandise that doesn't move, the duo promotes Funky Fridays, when all consigned items are 20 percent off. The Last Chance Bargain Nook is filled with kitchen doodads: a set of shiny metal canisters for flour, coffee, sugar, and tea for $12; an almost-matching breadbox for $20-steals even before you knock an extra 40 percent off. "The nice thing about vintage kitchenware is the colours you get," says Furneaux, as we pass a box of green-handled utensils ($4 for a fish slice, $10 for a whisk). Jadeite items, she adds, move out the door fast. A wish list shows customers on the lookout for these and "Pez items (rare)" to, three single-spaced pages later, "70s drapery with matching bedspreads". (The store is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 11 a.m. to 7 p.m, Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Dealers and the movie industry have already discovered the store, possibly because its clever organization lets them shop fast. Similar things are displayed together, such as red kitchen items (along with a red-rimmed, flower-patterned cake holder from the late '40s or '50s) and battalions of salt and pepper shakers whose shapes include foam-capped beer mugs ($8) and lustreware eggs ($12). Pointing out a lace-edged tablecloth the colour of cappuccino foam ($10), Furneaux says that old linens are a strong seller. Paper ephemera move fast, too. Protected in a Ziploc bag, six copies of the Vancouver Business Woman date back to 1929 ($35). Nearby is a Princess Pat Real Human Hair Net just like mine. I look at the price and wince as I see my imagined fortune dissolving into the ether. Some customers are so moved by an object that slingshots them back to their childhood that they actually break down and cry.
Allow five to 10 minutes for a quick sweep, says Furneaux, "and up to several hours". Like the best yard sales, items are hidden: under tables, on top of cabinets. Drawers hold Archie comics and toy cars. Vintage sewing patterns and a catalogue showing a woman in a long strapless white dress and shoulder-length gloves selling 1957 Frigidaires ($5) cry out for adoption. I nearly drop $35 on a handsomely aged leather suitcase; never mind that, even empty, it weighs more than most airlines' whole luggage allowance.
Clumpus dreamed up the store name. Furneaux says, "There's so much hidden here. You never know what you're going to discover." She's right. Near boxed games of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman and pink waffle-weave wool blankets from a yacht embroidered Calliope Main Lounge in turquoise, I see a familiar face. Up on a shelf, beside a small bottle of Dr. S.N. Thomas Eclectric [sic] Oil ($3), is another Princess Pat Hair Nets. And behind it, three more.
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