Lots of bizarre finds at the prop bazaar

Today Marcie and I took a wonderful field trip, visiting a prop sale being held by the sadly now-defunct Vancouver Playhouse. We weren’t sure what treasures we might find and I skeptically decided that we wouldn’t find anything at all. Oh, how wrong I was . . .

Now, this was interesting experience for two reasons. First of all, the props themselves were fantastic and are going to really help inspire not only my own writing, but (hopefully) that of my students as well. Second, it just so happens that I’m writing a scene for Kendra Kandlestar 5 in which my wee heroes visit a city that is essentially one giant bazaar—so just the experience of going to the sale helped fuel my imagination.

Most of the items in the small warehouse weren’t priced, which meant a bit of bartering and some appraisal by Jim, a rather eccentric fellow who cheerfully came around to appraise our various discoveries. We ended with all sorts of delightful treasures—and my wallet was only lightened by $125 for all of it.

I think the quintessential moment of the morning came when I picked up a skull and contemplated adding it to my mound . . . only to realize it was REAL! The staff claimed that it couldn’t be—but when I invited one of them to take a look, she shook her head and said, “Keep that thing away from me.” So I put poor Yorick back on the shelf and washed my hands as soon as I could.

Well, here’s some of the goodies . . .

Sadly, we have no room in the house (let alone the car!) for this delightful set piece, so we had to leave it behind for some other lucky scavenger.

All kinds of helmets (and, yes, I bought one).

Okay, actually, I bought not only the helmet, but a chest plate, some shackles, a whip, and a guantlet and pauldrons (not shown). Turns out the shackles are an actual prop that was used in one of the Underworld movies.

Marcie found a whole box of prop mirrors. I was a little more interested in the giant guardian lion in the background (again, sadly, no room in the house.)

Here are the three mirrors that Marcie decided to buy.

This is NOT the real skull, just a foam one with a trident sticking through it. I would have bought this if it hadn’t already been marked “sold.”

This mysterious box caught our attention straight away. We bought it (and another smaller one that fit inside).