Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Flea market review 2008: Torshov, September 13th

Torshov former special ed. school at Torshov in Oslo's east end.

This place is no longer a school; it used to be a school for 'special needs' children, but is now defunct. All the weirdos go to regular schools now. I'm not sure what the place is being used for these days, but I'm sure it's something. It's a lovely set of buildings and seem relatively well maintained. The marching band still exists and the market was to benefit them.

This is a really good flea market for books. (This was my second visit.) They have a whole room full of books and I suspect that this room is set up permanently. It really seems that way - otherwise, what an awful job to set up and fill all those floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They cover three walls, almost. I think those books are just left there and they set up the tables in the center of the room, plus maybe the trolleys, especially for the flea market. I don't think they throw books away after their markets, which IMO is a very good thing. Partly it means that books aren't thrown away ;-) and partly it means that they're likely to have a lot of books. :-D

There was a really good book selection, and that's saying something considering that I arrived at about 3:15pm (their opening hours were 10am-4pm). I didn't look much at the other stuff because by this time I was starting to get really tired. :-) They had some furniture left but not a lot. The clothes section seemed to be pretty well stocked. But I really can't say much about anything other than books this time. I'll have to go back again another time and arrive earlier ... >:-)

The prices were good, generally 5,- for a paperback and 10,- for a hardcover. The friendly old Sikh behind the makeshift counter gave me a good deal. :-) I'm sure I could have found more if I'd had the energy to look harder.

My haul:

The book room:

An exterior view:

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