To enjoy in Belgium
IT WAS a scene like the dash for the best spot at a music festival, although the arena was a car park and the only music was coming from the pipes of a 19th century “Orgue de Barbarie” – a barrel organ. Odder still, the “performers” in the event were running alongside the “audience”, but this was antiquing Belgian style and the 2pm dash was unique to the Ciney Puce & Antiquités.
We are no strangers to European fleamarkets and antiques fairs.
Weekly French village braderies, and the now famous massive first weekend in September event at Lille, have been happy hunting grounds for a number of years. But what we found at Friday’s opening Ciney Expo – it’s like a mini NEC 50 minutes from Brussels – was something altogether different.
We had arrived the evening before, via Eurostar and stayed at the 17th century Hotel Les Tanneurs in Namur, just 10 minutes from Namur station.
The boutique hotel with 35 rooms was created from 15 guardhouses, later brothels burned down by nuns, and subsequently the site of a tannery.
A guided tour of the cobbled streets of the French-speaking capital of Wallonia followed the next morning, its citadel, once one of Europe’s mightiest fortresses, towering over the confluence of the Rivers Meuse and Sambre.
Two world wars devastated the place, not that you’d notice today with EU money currently revitalising the city centre.
The 25minute drive to Ciney saw us arrive in time for lunch inside Expo, where we were surrounded by an incredible display of antiques and fine art on display with around 200 dealers. Entry was €10 on the first day and €8 on the Saturday and Sunday, or €21 for all three. (We worked on €1 equals £1, which at the time was near enough).
We lunched with 20-year authenticity vetters Marie-Christine Vosse and Daniel Minet, whose job it was to ensure everything was as its owners described, and to show foreigners like us around the stands and offer advice.
Daniel explained that this event had attracted an unusually large number of antique clocks, but there was everything a collector could wish for.
Sellers appear from all over Europe, attracting more than 8,000 visitors to each of the three events of the year.
Oddly, however, at around 1.45pm, the hall virtually emptied. We followed, joining at the back of a throng, which surged forward at the stroke of 2pm.
Numerous lorries and white vans had arrived throughout the morning, which by tradition must remain locked until the appointed hour.
As the crowd surged forward, we
There was plenty of money changing hands outside at Ciney Expo found their owners running with us and as soon as they reached their vehicles, the doors were flung open and the selling began, buyers crowding around each like locusts.
There was everything from the rare and valuable to the detritus of countless house clearances where the eagle-eyed spot bargains.
Prices were not as outrageous as we found the last time we went to the Lille Braderie and we saw lots of money changing hands. We met John and Helen Baldock from Bath who were buying stock for their online store Kraveantiques.co.uk. Both were laden with their purchases.
Emily Avenson, who was born in Los Angeles, describes herself as a “farmer-florist”. She is married to a Dutchman and lives in Aubel on Belgium’s border with the Netherlands where she runs workshops and creates bouquets from the unique and exotic blooms she grows in a gardening paradise in the countryside.
She was feeling particularly pleased having found and purchased a charming Art Nouveau style painting of a girl blowing a dandelion clock by Laurent Moonens (19111991). Almost as tall as her, it will hang in her studio and although she declined to say what it had cost, she did say she had bartered with dealer who had reduced the price by €100.
Sadly, few of the thousands of things on sale had prices attached.
A simple “Combien?” (How much?) sufficed and if all those numbers spoken quickly confused, “En Anglais?” (In English?) helped.
Many of the sellers also had pen and paper to hand, so a scribbled answer was usually forthcoming.
My eye was quickly taken by what I thought was a Lalique glass car mascot called “Victoire”, the screaming female bust with hair swept back to imitate speed.
I was reaching for my cash when the stallholder said €120, but I declined when he explained it was a later Czech copy. I was also tempted by 18th-century Dutch Delft blue and white tiles that had obviously been removed in countless house renovations and now lay in boxes on the ground on several stands.
The most affordable I found, decorated with different views of children playing games, were priced at €15 apiece. I saw identical ones inside Expo for €40.
Europe is a happy hunting ground for mechanical music machines. One dealer was offering ubiquitous black-cased portable wind-ups at €100 apiece, but on the same stall was a remarkable Parlophone red and chrome creation, the like of which we’d never seen before. It was priced at €1,575.
There was plenty we would have liked to take home, not least that barrel organ that M. Pierre Champion from the quaint village of Redu, an hour south of Namur, was playing to serenade visitors. He wanted €4,000 and it seemed cheap, but how could we get it on the Eurostar?
Inside the Expo was another mechanical music treasure, a superb 1946 AMI jukebox, which its owner, Freddy Lambert, was asking €7,300 for. Freddie restores pinball machines and jukeboxes in his workshop in Arlon, close to the border with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. His website is arlonflippers.be
The glowing neon jukebox did not seem out of place among the upmarket offerings surrounding it, but it most definitely would have been at the Salon des Antiquaires at the Château de Deulin, our destination on the Sunday.
If the Expo was upmarket, this was museum quality stuff. I’ll tell you about that another time
The next Ciney Expo antiques fair is on April 10-13, 2020.
Christopher Proudlove was a guest of Wallonia Belgian Tourism. For more information contact info@ walloniabelgiumtourism.co.uk