This past weekend, Todd and I wandered around a couple of the antique/vintage/junk malls in the Hollywood District before our wine and pasta run to Trader Joe’s. We stopped at Hollywood Antiques and Hollywood Reruns, two antiques/collectibles spots on SE 42nd. I’m not a big fan of “collectibles” at antique stores but it doesn’t prevent me from looking around all the little booths, some selling fun vintage wear and some selling junk.
Our first stop was Hollywood Reruns, which has more collectibles than antique or vintage wares. The big draw here are the magazines downstairs. They have a wide variety ranging from McCall’s to Mad Magazine to issues of the Saturday Evening Post from the 50s. It’s a great place to browse. The place also sells new unfinished pine furniture…which seems out of place to me but they’ve been selling it for years.
As always I went to the jewelry case first, and found a pair of shoe clips that had different backs than any of the others in my collection. Instead of hinged clips, you just fold the metal gently to attach them to your shoes. I image these were made in the 50s or 60s. The price was great – $3. I also saw a strand of pop bead plastic pink pearls but as fondly as I remember then from childhood, now they just looked cheap.
Shoe clips circa 1950s or '60s
Our next stop was Antique Alley, right next door. It’s the downstairs part of a mall that has all kinds of odd little stalls upstairs. It had more vintage and antique goods than Hollywood Reruns but some vendors just sold collectibles and replicas. It’s a fun place if you don’t mind wandering through lots of stuff to find a real gem. I saw some excellent antique marble prosthetic eyeballs, old black and white postcards, toys from when I was a kid, and lots of great jewelry, costume and fine. In one of the booths I saw a pretty little dress clip hidden in the corner. I asked a friendly salesperson to show it to me, and was surprised to see how decorated the back of the clip mechanism was. The stones are bezel set and the piece looks hand-wrought but I’m not sure.
Dress clip, likely from the 1930s
It was a fun afternoon for a wonderful sunny day. For serious collectors, I’d say skip these places and go to the place across the street, Hollywood Antique Showplace. We ran out of time but I’ve been there before -beautiful antique furniture, glassware, and jewelry. There’s very little junk there, but of course, the prices reflect this.
