At a Paris Flea Market, Tips for Treasure Hunters

The Marche Dauphine, one of the markets at Marche aux Puces de Paris/St.-Ouen. [Photo/Agencies]

Good deals can still be had at some of the smaller shopping areas.

St.-Ouen. The name made me shudder. Whenever visitors asked me to take them to that vast set of flea markets just north of the Paris city line, I did my best to divert them elsewhere.

For me, getting to the March aux Puces de Paris/St.-Ouen was exhausting. It meant a ride on the No 4 Mtro line to the Porte de Clignancourt in the 18th Arrondissement and 15 minutes of jostling through a bazaar of cheap clothing, fabrics, leather goods, trinkets, cellphone covers, pots and pans.

St.-Ouen is so big (1,700 dealers in 14 markets spread over 228,600 square meters) that the only way to get around is with a map. Even then, I tended to end up in cul-de-sacs of oppressive, overpriced crystal chandeliers, marble mantel pieces, gilt-framed mirrors and Italian floor lamps in the shape of palm trees.

Then there was the bargain issue. There was a time when St.-Ouen was a place where tourists could hope to outwit the dealers. Decades ago, the columnist Art Buchwald wrote that it was a "hodgepodge of taste" where "one may find some precious thing the rest have overlooked, or he may have his pocket picked".

The part about finding some precious thing (cheap, that is) became much harder as rents soared, the dollar sank, dealers catered to wealthy foreigners and the antiques market turned digital. Having your pocket picked, however, was never a challenge.

So I preferred to take visitors to Puces de Vanves, the small, messy, open-air flea market on the opposite end of town, where bargains were still to be had. I showed them the proof: a 2-euro silver-plated gravy boat in the shape of a swan and a 10-euro cache of mismatched cut-crystal cordial glasses ($2.40 and $12, at $1.21 to the euro). I introduced them to the button man with thousands of Bakelite buttons sewn on to their original cards, and the woman with the collection of 10-euro cuff links.

I also logged on to vide-greniers.org, the website that announces weekly street markets. Vide-greniers literally means "empty the attics"; they range from residents participating in a neighborhood fair to itinerant professional dealers.