At the Yangpu District Flower and Bird Antique Market, Wang Yongkang talked with the old patron. The pictures in this article are taken by the surging news reporter Zhu Yiyi
At the end of November, before 6 o'clock in the morning, the sky was dark, Wang Yongkang sandwiched a roll of blue cloth, carrying a wooden box, at the gate of Longchang Road and his colleagues hurriedly squeezed into the gate of the Yangpu District Flower and Bird Antique Market.
The day of setting up the stall began, Wang Yongkang opened the wooden box, spread out the cloth pads, and placed the goods. In the late autumn morning, when it was a little cool, he buckled a duck-tongue hat upside down, revealing a few strands of gray hair, and folded his hands into his sleeves, waiting for the old neighbors to wake up. By about 8 o'clock, young white-collar workers may have just hurried out to embark on the road to work, and the place is already full of people.
A view of the market
Yangpu Flower and Bird Antique Market is located at No. 701 Longchang Road, close to Yangpu Park. The market has two parts, the antique market is open every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 6:00 to 12:00 a.m., and the flower and bird market is open all year round.
In the antique market, most of the stall owners have been operating for six or seven years, old utensils, old records, old books... Everything you can think of can be found here. People haggle, trade cash, gossip, and a corner of this modern city seems to have been pressed at the pause button.
"Clearly marked price" stalls
Turn left from the gate, pass by the sound of birdsong, and then walk inside until you hear the bustling human voices and arrive at the antique market made of tin and greenhouse cloth. Eight horizontal and eight vertical, looking at the small shed, there are about a hundred stalls.
Wang Yongkang's "clearly marked price" stall selling commemorative coins
Wang Yongkang's stall is very small, less than one square meter of blue cloth, divided into categories of old banknotes and commemorative coins of different denominations. This special "selling money" stall has a rare price tag in the market: the 99 version of the 10 yuan note is 14 yuan a piece, the old paper note set from one cent to 10 yuan sells for 280 yuan, and a red 50 yuan note is as high as 260 yuan.
A plastic envelope envelops each stack of banknotes with a price indicated by a black oily pen. The latest is the Beijing Winter Olympics commemorative coin, and after a while it attracted an old patron, "Lao Wang, I just came from the opposite side, your two coins are 10 yuan, which is 2 yuan more expensive than other people's stalls." ”
"Then you go to his side to buy, I have marked the price anyway, where you think it is cheap, where you think it is." Lao Wang was quite dissatisfied with the bargaining, but another old neighbor took a fancy to a 99 version of the 5 yuan note, and in the face of the price of 16 yuan, he turned over the small wallet and did not find a steel hammer, but Lao Wang took the initiative to relax, "Fifteen yuan you take it, a dollar will be saved." ”
When he was a teenager, Wang Yongkang became interested in coin collection, and when people kicked the shuttlecock, he only cared about studying the copper coins used to fix chicken feathers on the shuttlecock. Buy books to compare and study, go to appraisal institutions to steal teachers, communicate with big guys, and retire when "the collection at home can't be put down." Three years ago, he came to yangpu flower and bird antique market to set up stalls, get out of some home inventory, and also pass the time and practice martial arts.
"Recently, this Winter Olympic commemorative coin is very sought-after, have you entered here?" At about 9 o'clock, a middle-aged man in his early 40s went straight to Lao Wang's stall, he was not here to buy goods, he was purely a "martial arts member".
Lao Wang was quite excited to see him, and introduced himself to the reporter, saying that this is a professional, and has his own shop in the Shanghai Lugong Stamp Coin Card Trading Market at No. 600 Jumen Road.
"Recently, business has not worked well, and it has been affected by the epidemic." The man, known as Lao Li, lamented that before the covid-19 pandemic, the flower and bird antique market was crowded every morning, and it was crowded from one stall to another, and now although it is still lively, it is less lively.
Learn to banknotes
At Lao Wang's stall, the reporter found that several coin covers were marked with the words "learning money", "The eagle who plays with the eagle is pecked by the eagle." These are counterfeit money that he accidentally earned, it is difficult to distinguish, and after going to the appraisal agency for help, he found that it was a counterfeit, and it was also put out for collectors to learn lessons."
Are there still many people who love Tibetan money today? Old Li said that they have a WeChat group, more than 400 people in the country, the oldest is not unusual, the youngest is only 7 years old, just went to primary school, "even the family father and mother also like, he also followed the study." Old Li laughed at himself and said that it is not easy to make money by playing this thing, and it is very good to pass the time.
Shop tips for professionally receiving old goods
Young people have online idle goods trading platforms, while old neighbors are still attached to this offline second-hand trading market.
As small as a jar of effervescent tablets that cannot be used at home, a single ceramic teacup, a faded expired wall calendar, to a record player, a suitcase, a calf-high pickle jar, there is everything here, and many stall owners pile up goods at random, sitting on the small bench they have moved, bumping a bunch of melon seeds. "Harm, you can't buy this thing if you don't like it, it's a big deal that I can bring it back and use it myself." Suddenly there were several "loud" noises from the crowd, and it was originally the price that was not discussed, which annoyed the grumpy stall owner, so he set up a shelf.
Stalls where used goods are piled up
Chen Li is the most common second-hand stall owner in this market, and unlike Wang Yongkang's retirement time, this is Chen Li's job.
PHS, tea jars, abacuses, dv machines... There is also the most characteristic of Shanghai's green lampshade table lamp, this variety of grocery stalls are the treasures that Chen Li collected everywhere. Chen Li, 48, has been setting up stalls for 20 years, and the market is open every Wednesday, Saturday and July, and the rest of the time he pedals on a tricycle to collect old goods from people who move and demolish.
When the bad time can only earn a hundred yuan a day, when the good time can have four or five hundred, Chen Li has trained a set of sales experience in the 20-year stall setting career.
First of all, you must be able to chat and listen, and most of the people who come to visit this antique market are still elderly, and they love to reminisce about their youth when they pick up old goods. Talk about those things in those years.
At about 9 o'clock, in front of Chen Li's booth, an uncle wearing a yellow down jacket picked up a film camera and carefully examined it, while saying, "This thing is not common now." "You see, but this camera has to have a film to use." Chen Li quickly picked up the topic.
It turned out that this uncle had previously worked in the "largest photo studio printing photo on the beach", and the Shanghai Photography and Photo Agency in his mouth was located on Fuzhou Road, and he had to flush more than 1300 rolls of film a day that year, and also set up film collection points in many colleges and universities' education supermarkets, which was all the rage. Nowadays, the film machine has gradually faded out, and the film of various models of brands has also fallen to the dust, "The film has long been weathered and cannot be used, but I still have more than 100 kinds of film boxes, which are also a collection." ”
While nagging the past, he reluctantly touched the film machine, and finally the uncle cut a price and brought it home for 60 yuan.
The purchase of goods usually has to be inspected, but this film machine is unknown, and has not been turned on, the reporter can not help but ask Chen Li, if it can not be used can still return? "The goods are sold and are not returned." Chen Li said that this is the rule of the old market, dare to come here to find goods rely on the eyesight, you can touch, you can ask, you can bargain, but if you pay the money, you have to be responsible, "This is not a pleasure."
In addition to being able to nag, you must also be able to recognize people. Another of Chen Li's skills is to recognize the old patrons and better understand their needs. On Chen Li's stall, there is a bright yellow car model that is quite conspicuous, turn over and you will find that behind the car model is a PHS mobile phone, this piece of goods was specially put out by Chen Li that day, waiting for the person who has a relationship.
Carrying a piece of pork belly bought at a nearby market, with his hands behind his back, Wang Yi paced and came, and the only thing he could see in this flea market was all kinds of car models. In a plastic bag next door to the pork belly, he showed reporters what he had bought at other stalls — a model of a red car and a model of an army-green truck. ”
As soon as Wang Kang appeared, Chen Li handed over the yellow model and played with it, and Wang Yi let Chen Li quote a price, happily took out a 10 yuan and a 5 yuan note, turned and left. "He just comes to shop every Wednesday after buying vegetables, so on Wednesdays, if he has this kind of goods in his hand, he will put them on him and wait for him to pass by." Chen Li and Wang Yi were not very familiar with each other, but they gradually reached a tacit understanding.
Whoever came
Shortly after entering the market, the reporter who frequently took pictures with his mobile phone aroused the curiosity of the old neighbors. "Girl, what are you doing, come and shoot TikTok?" A female stall owner couldn't help but ask, and the people who could appear in the market on weekday mornings were all nearby retired elderly people, with gray hair and leisurely steps, and the appearance of young people seemed to be thrown into the gravel on the calm lake.
In fact, there are many bloggers who come to "explore the shop" in this market. Searching for "Shanghai Tandian" and "Shanghai Treasure Market" on the Little Red Book can turn to hundreds of blog posts and video sharing, among which the Yangpu Flower and Bird Antique Market also appears frequently.
Add a dark color filter to render the atmosphere, shoot several stall elderly people, these sharing blog posts often carry, "retro and grounded", "humanistic Shanghai", "slow pace of life" and other words, but also attracted a lot of followers to comment, yearn for and even follow the punch card.
However, young people may not be fully compatible with this small corner, "there is nothing to find here, there is no guarantee of true or false", "the stall owner's accent is too heavy to understand", "the expectations are too high, can only play in the past", and some comments that think that it is "cheating punch card" have also emerged.
And young people are willing to buy here, most of them are also related to their own youth, in the shared blog post, the most popular goods are WALKMAN and CD players, Jay Chou, Zheng Zhongji, Wu Bai's tapes also surprised them.
The important thing may not be to find anything, but to participate, as a post-90s Zhang Sen may be the most frequent "outlier". He lives nearby is already a member of the old neighborhood, weekdays busy work, on the weekend he will bring young children to walk around, see the insects chat, "is to let the children feel the atmosphere of life, after all, when I was a child, I was also taken around by my parents to hang around, and I can also practice Shanghainese." ”
Although there are some strange curiosities about the arrival of young people, the old people here do not reject "fresh blood", Chen Li even consulted the reporter, "You said that if I also pat Douyin, set up a mobile phone live broadcast stall next to the stall, sell goods, will anyone be willing to watch?" ”
And in the Bureau Gate Road running a commemorative coin shop old Li is a step ahead, "we have long begun to shoot short videos, talking about how to distinguish the authenticity of commemorative coins, how to receive different years of commemorative coins value range, to be honest people to see there are also a few thousand." ”
The morning passed quickly, and by 11:30, many stall owners had already packed up their things. Wang Yongkang meticulously put the coins into a wooden box, asked how the income was today, he smiled and said that there was no difference from the past, and he received more than he sold.