You couldn’t miss this large Halloween figure. It was right near the entrance to the show. Bill and Zach, the Vintage Guys, Littleton, Mass., had the nearly 6-foot-tall figure priced $350. They had named him “Mr Pumpkin Head.”
Review & Photos by Rick Russack
DEERFIELD, N.H. — Klia Ververidis Crisafulli’s Brimfield North flea market and antiques show premiered its fall edition on the Deerfield fairgrounds on the weekend of October 14-15. The fall edition, with 130 dealers, was smaller and more compact than the Memorial Day Weekend show. As have the spring shows, this one drew a huge crowd, more than 7,000 people, much to the delight of the dealers who had less competition but plenty of buyers.
Nearly all of the dealers who were interviewed had done Crisafulli’s other shows, some at Brimfield, and returned because they had done well. It occupied a different portion of the Deerfield Fairgrounds, but the fairgrounds is huge and there was plenty of space for the show, the food trucks and the other activities of the weekend. Dealers were set up in two buildings and numerous outside tents. There may not have been Eighteenth Century furniture or ceramics, but the variety was wide, including selected craft items, and each booth had inexpensive items, affordable to the younger crowd, many who attended with small children. The admission charge was only $5, making it an affordable family event for a fall weekend.
One dealer was especially complimentary of Crisafulli. Jean Gauthier, Owl’s Nest Antiques, Bennington, Vt. commented, “Klia certainly goes out of her way for the dealers. It really feels like a family. She was really helpful to a lot of us during the Covid lockdown, when those of us with retail stores had no business. She helped me navigate getting my stuff online, and I know she did that for others. She’s just that kind of person.” Gauthier was one of the dealers with a wide variety of merchandise — from a colorful painting of a clown, priced at $100, to Christmas items, cast iron cookware, garden accessories, stereo equipment and architectural remnants — one of which was a well-weathered, gothic-shaped lattice window priced $69.
Jean Gauthier, Owl’s Nest Antiques, Bennington, Vt., priced the colorful clown painting $100. She’s a big fan of Klia Ververidis Crisafulli, who runs the show, and has done each of her shows since the beginning.
Halloween and Christmas are approaching so decorations for those holidays were in abundance. One of the eye-catching Halloween items was a large, plastic, gory-looking creature with a pumpkin head and an evil face, and it was carrying a couple of other pumpkin “heads.” Bill and Zach, the Vintage Guys, Littleton, Mass., had named the 6-foot figure “Mr Pumpkin Head” and priced it at $650. Their large outdoor booth, another example of the variety of things available, offered a wide assortment of “everything vintage,” as they put it, and said with a smile, “some stuff could be old.” They had a wooden crate full of marbles, a box of shoulder patches, fast food toys priced around $2 each, compact discs, old license plates, a bin full of plastic Jurassic Park dinosaurs and other toys, lunch boxes and much more.
One tends to meet interesting people at shows. Cassiopeia Turcotte, from Merrimack, N.H., is one of those people. She had an eye-catching booth with assemblages of driftwood, beach sand, old glass, shards of ceramics and other “stuff” she has created. On her business card she described herself as an artist and treasure hunter. “If you asked me who my role model is, I’d say Indiana Jones. I love finding the old stuff.
Everything I use has been abandoned, and now, reclaimed. All the glass in my works is from old bottles I dug up in dumps and other places. Some stuff comes from the forests and old homesteads.” Pointing to a scene with items from a beach she said, “The sand in this one came from the beach at Normandy.” The sand in another came from Falmouth, Mass. “Wherever I’m at, I’m looking for things I can use. Some of the driftwood came from a beach in Rye and other places along the coast. Some I’ve carried home from Europe.” Her work has been featured on WMUR Television’s New Hampshire Chronicle. When not making things or hunting for things she can use, she teaches health and physical education at the Windham, N.H., high school, coaches the girls varsity basketball team and during the summers takes groups of students to Europe under a program sponsored by the Global Citizens Program. Her prices started at $45 for smaller works and ranged to $225, depending on size and how much work went into it. After the show, Turcotte said, “I made 32 sales. It was the best show I’ve ever had.”
A long, snake-like “Haunted Antiques and Oddities” tent was set up in one of the buildings, taking up most of the space. It had skulls, bones, coffins, seasonally dressed figures and high schoolers, appropriately dressed to give the children a fun time. This is one of the figures in the tent. (Photo courtesy Klia Ververidis Crisafulli)
In keeping with the Halloween theme, Crisafulli created the “Haunted Antiques & Oddities” tent, which was filled with skeletons, coffins, taxidermized animals in costume, old carnival and country store items, etc. She hired local high school kids to dress up in costumes to entertain the kids. There was no additional charge to go through the tent, which occupied almost one entire building.
After the show, Crisafulli said, “It was really a fun event. We had a great crowd and nearly all the dealers took advantage of a loyalty discount we offered and signed up for the spring show. We shared the fairgrounds with the New England Amateur Radio Festival and we both agreed to let those attendees and ours visit each other’s’ show at no cost. That was a bonus for everyone, and I know there was some vintage stuff in that show. The Halloween tent was great for the kids and a big hit with the parents. The spring show will be quite a bit larger again, and we’ll be back to utilizing the same space on the fairgrounds that we have in the past.”
For information, 781-324-4400 or www.brimfieldlive.com
