I didn’t even know that the famous Greenhills Antique Fair was already under way since last week; I had earlier texted a dealer for an appointment, and he texted back—asking me to meet him instead at his stall at Greenhills. Apparently, it’s that time of the year again for this longest-running antiques and collectibles show which I have been attending since the mid 90s. I think its history goes even further than that.
For 4 weeks, Manila’s antique dealers, segunda mano shops, numismatists, deltiologists, philatelists, collectors, “junkies” and kibitzers congregate near the fountain area of the Greenhills Shopping Center for a full day of wheeling, dealing, trading and swapping. Anything of value is sold here---the term ‘antique fair’ is not quite accurate as there are more repros being sold than the real thing.
Thus, Greenhills is not for buying quality century old santos; instead, it is for rummaging and scrounging around for collectibles of all sorts—not too old, mostly vintage, but still capable of invoking nostalgia, that hard-to-explain longing for a connection to the past, which many collectors like me experience in the presence of anything old, passé and defunct.
Toys, softdrink bottles, old product packaging, medals, stamps, 1950s magazines, schoolbooks, clocks, pens, pinback buttons, vinyl records, prints—name it, the Greenhills Fair has it—well, almost.
Supply seems to decline over the year judging from the number of participating dealers this year. This did not deter me from rushing over at Greenhills on one Sunday afternoon, ready to jostle with the thick weekend crowd in the hope of unearthing a ‘find’.
But the old reliables are still there—my tocayo, Alex Villaflor, is still at it, peddling ephemera, artworks and kitsch with his partner Sonny Benitez. Alex founded the first pop culture collectible shop in the country—Circa—back in the 80s at Creekside. He used to have a fne array of Bakelite radio and Coca Cola memorabilia, but those are long gone. Instead, he had these nice Flora de Filipinas botanical prints (called ‘Blanco prints” by collectors), ready for framing.
The famous George Bonsai also has one or two stalls here, but unfortunately, he was still setting up.
Jun Macaro had a fine display of medals and coins, but I was after his old photos, which he failed to bring, to my disappointment. I’ve have had lots of luck with Jun—I found my small ivory Sto. Entierro complete with his wooden calandra in his Aurora Blvd. junkyard and I also bought most of his old photos from the estate of Jorge Pineda.
I just hopped from stall to stall—the antique shops from Tiendesitas are in full force—but they carried mostly reproduction santos dressed in gaudy clothes—they looked more like overdecorated dolls.
Talking about dolls--it was at Mike’s stand that I saw, lying on the bottom-most shelf of his glass display—an old cardboard box that had a large doll inside.
The box was wrapped in plastic, but it took only one look for me to recognize the moppet with curly golden locks tucked inside, which even had a cardboard leg separator and head support.
This is a large composition Shirley Temple Doll from Ideal Novelty Inc, perhaps the most popular doll in the world based on the likeness of the top child star of the 30s, at the time of its release in 1937. A good sized doll (22 in.) in this condition (mint in box), would command at least $900 in the market today.
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