Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Eighteen thousand square feet to dig through
More than 175 independent vendors fill this place, and every one of them stocks it differently. New things hit the shelves every day, so it’s never quite the same shop twice.
The floor
Booths change hands and change stock, so treat this as a rough idea rather than a map.
What’s on the floor
Eight of the things people come in looking for
There’s a lot more than this. It’s a fair idea of the range, though, and most of it is within a few aisles of the door.
Signs and petroliana
Porcelain and tin, gas and oil, soda and farm. Some of it hangs on the wall and some of it is stacked where you have to dig.
Comics
Graded books in the locked cases and plenty of raw longboxes to go through. Keys, runs and the cheap fun stuff.
Vintage toys and diecast
Pegs of carded cars, loose tin and pressed steel, and a steady trickle of things that turned up in somebody’s attic.
Action figures
Carded and loose, vintage and modern. The good ones live in the glass, so ask at the counter and somebody will open it.
Glassware and pottery
Depression glass, carnival, milk glass and a lot of stoneware. Hold it up to the light before you decide.
Furniture and home
Dressers, tables, lamps and mirrors, usually set out as rooms so you can see what a piece would actually look like.
Funko Pop and seasonal
Walls of boxes, plus blow molds and Christmas that comes out well before you are ready for it.
Tins and advertising
Coffee, tobacco, shortening and chips. Good graphics, usually cheap, and they stack beautifully on a shelf at home.
Also on the floor: military, gaming, currency, stones and crystals, records, artwork and a long tail of things that defy a category.
How it works
One building, a lot of different heads
A mall isn’t one shop. Every booth belongs to somebody who collects, hunts and prices their own way, which is why you can walk twenty feet and go from pressed glass to Star Wars.
It also means the stock moves. Vendors restock on their own schedule, so there’s new material going out most days and the thing you walked past last month may well be gone.
Everything is on one level, there’s parking at the door, and nobody will follow you around. Take your time.
Outdoors, five Saturdays a year
The flea market in the lot
Five Saturdays through the summer we open up the parking lot and fill it with sellers. It runs 9am to 4pm, and the early hours are where the good stuff goes.
A spot is $25 cash for roughly ten feet by fifteen. You can book one at the front counter.
Come and see us
3201 S Shirley Ave
Just off Louise Avenue by the Empire Mall, in the big building with the parking lot in front. Open 10am to 6pm every day of the week.
Sell with us
Booths and the wait list
Vendor space fills up and there’s a wait list running at the moment. Getting your name on it takes a couple of minutes at the front counter.