People of Puces: the Antique Sellers of Paris | EUROtoday

Jean-Paul Jurquet

The Safe Room, Marché Dauphine Stand 126

Rare antiques from the Banque de France

Tell us about your career.

With all antiques, all objects, it is the vintage sellers who create them by some means, who deliver them out of historical past, out of the attics, out of stagnation, and say, ‘Look at this’. They are artists… they’re those who give you the story. Maybe if I had by no means dismantled all of the vaults within the Banque de France, they might have been scrapped, or deserted. It’s as if we exhume tales, put them earlier than mankind. I’ve met individuals who have give you unbelievable issues, who’ve introduced complete eras to mild.

Is there a picture from the previous that obsesses or conjures up you?

Sometimes when I’m within the banks to dismantle – it could possibly be within the archive rooms, the vaults, or the basement -I think about the blokes who labored there, who constructed them, who arrived by prepare, by horse, and who did every part by hand. And when there was no pure mild they used carbide lamps, which made smoke, and did not actually present a lot mild. They labored six days per week, maybe 12 hours a day. Some of the issues that we maneuver fairly simply as a result of now we have very environment friendly machines are very heavy-they will need to have had their very own strategies that had been additionally very efficient. The instruments had been hand instruments. Everything was definitely extraordinarily properly ready, numbered, pre-assembled in workshops, however nonetheless, the situations had been very, very completely different.

What has, or hasn’t, modified on the Puces?

There are legends; it is mentioned that when upon a time, more cash was made in exports on the Puces than at Renault! But there are many lies. It is a world of desires and falsehoods too. There are loads of fabulists. You meet them each week. And there have been seismic shifts within the enterprise. For instance, again within the day, individuals got here from throughout France, even from overseas, to promote right here at Saint-Ouen. All the streets the place you now see faux stuff-stuff from China, and many others. was the place, again then, individuals got here to promote. And then in the future, somebody invented the skilled antiques honest, in Montpellier, Béziers, Avignon, Le Mans, Chartres, and many others. So these sellers do not come any extra. Maybe tomorrow, individuals will purchase second-hand, or possibly they will not. But what is definite is that in my day, you possibly can invent your self, every part was unscripted. It wasn’t very troublesome to make it up as you went alongside, whereas I believe at this time it is tougher, possibly as a result of individuals want plans.