BCEFA flea market 2024 collectors unite — Page 3

An indoor venue like The Javits Center, yes. 

Weird decision to keep West 45th open to traffic (while massive hordes of people were squeezed into barricades while tons of shows were going on, making it New Year's Eve-like-gridlock) but shut down West 44th to cars. Very unpleasant with crowds on West 45th unless you wanted to walk outside the barricades and be VERY close to passing cars.

Thr flea was something that had been on my bucket list for at least 8 years.  I hadn't been to NYC pre COVID . I've been to some massive political rallies lately including the big Harris Walz one in Philly . The table crowds gave me bad anxiety and idk why . Saw tons of old playbills and CDs but not many props /opening night items like I was used to seeing online .  Spent $70 in total on a Hamilton bag , show used newspaper Notebook prop , a signed Wicked Carrie St Louis door sign , a Kinky Boots water bottle ,Kinky Boots button , a 35th Anniversary Phantom playbill, and a front board name thingy of somebody I have mutual friends/acquaintances with. My 16 year old neighbor I was with was specifically looking for Tommy merch . The curtain call table ran out of jackets by the time we got there but she found a OBC playbill from the 90s and a bunch of Hadestown stuff she wanted . Brother got a big Cabaret vinyl thingy that hung outside of the Wilson. 

 

The autograph /photo booth lines werent as crowded as I thought but should have been organized better. The staff/volunteers there were very nice.  Met Stark Sands for $20 and Santino Fontana for $30 and both were very down to earth.  I know that Sarah Hyland , Andrew Barth Feldman , Donna Murphy , and Joy Woods were all $60. NPH was there too at his table with his husband but they were charging $100 for a photo and $25 for a autograph (at least it all went to a good cause ) . Was cool to see him in person. Also saw Sarah Hyland walk by too . 

 

Oh, and they were selling pieces of air vents from the Majestic for $40. Hilarious !

 

I won the Wicked lottery and my neighbors who I was with won The Notebook. The kids wanted to see Wicked for the umpteenth time  so I saw The Notebook with their dad. Beautiful show !  

I wasn't expecting much today. I went around noon. Was surprised that 44th was completely closed off but the tables were only on one side. 45th was chaos with the matinee lines forming. So many people bottlenecked, and then the security at Outsiders got upset when people had to move their stanchions to get by, even those in wheelchairs.

I ended up not getting anything today as I honestly was looking for one thing - The Last Ship glass (it has "F*CK the Bishop" on the bottom). Heh. Mine broken a couple of years ago and alas, I have very low hopes to find a replacement.

Updated On: 9/23/24 at 12:14 AM

I’m also surprised they haven’t moved to 8th Ave to accommodate the growing crowds. I don’t know how such closures work, but perhaps it’s too expensive for a charity nonprofit to swing. 

The past few years, I've feel like I've developed a pretty good strategy for the Flea. I go early and find stuff I want to get at "rope drop." Then slowly make my way around to all the booths. I take a lot of time, I go through things, I go back to things, I ask passerbys where they got their stuff from and go back to those booths if I missed something. I have no problems waiting out a booth that's crazy and coming back later. This year, I only had a couple hours, so that kinda went out the window. For the first time ever, I didn't come away with a single Playbill or program/Tony voter book because I just didn't have the time to look through bins and I also didn't get a signed item of any kind because I didn't have the time to wait in line for show booths. I didn't really feel it in the moment. But, looking back, I do think that it was worse than previous years. Definitely felt harder to get to the front at booths. 

That being said, I still came away with a great haul. My first and best find was Shucked corn holders (if anyone knows what they're from, let me know). I also came away with an item from each of the major Broadway trinket food groups: a pin (Bad CIndy spray can), button (Fat Ham Broadway), magnet (Shucked magnetic chip clip), keychain (Take Me Out baseball bat), and sticker ("New Jersey's Favorite Musical" Akimbo). Two big goals of mine were a Stereophonic opening night gift and a Mother hat. I found a Stereophonic ash/trinket tray at the Stage Managers' Union booth and got the Mother hat from 2st. Then I got a few more bits and bobbles. I got an Akimbo scarf from Broadway Crew, Pop Six Squish gum from Shubert, and, another favorite find, a Freestyle Love Supreme opening night gift puzzle, which I found at the Once Upon a Mattress booth (somebody must have worked on both shows and donated the puzzle). 

It was busy but I still had a great time. I think the gridlock on 45th was crazy but I honestly avoided that area when matinee audiences started to line up, always insane but love hearing some of the funny comments by unknowing audience members, “what are they selling here? Dust collectors?” 

Didn’t get too much, bought a Jimmy Kimmel Live picture frame signed by NPH at his booth and got a picture with him for $50 total. I must have made it to booth at the right time before they had a system, because I heard of people spending way more for an autograph/picture. Aside from that got a pen from the Outsiders and Matilda. And got a signed Ernst Ludwig card prop from Cabaret! And snagged one of Henry’s journals from Illinoise as they were free near the end of the day.

northlandfan said: "So glad to see that many have you were able to attend and found some amazing collectibles as I did. I must admit the crowds atthe Outsiders table was huge for many hours therefore, I’m sure they did very well with their daily sales!

I was surprised to see that they did not have the staygold patches and only one of the Tony voter books(at 25bucks(but luckily I was able to get the book at another table( for 3 bucks!).
Did not see the patches at any other table although maybe I missed out.

I noticed they had quite a few Stereophonics signed scripts towards the end of the day and I was able to look out as they reduced the price around 5 PM . Interesting to see that some of the books were signed on the cover and some on the first page. I chose the ones that were on the cover for display purposes along with my 2 Signed playbills. Still want to hear from any of you what other collectibles you found that day!!"

I got too much stuff to enumerate but the biggest surprise I found after the fact was a Raul Julia THREEPENNY OPERA poster I got for $5, only to discover it was inscribed and signed by him. (It must’ve been rolled up in a way nobody noticed it)

https://x.com/songanddancern/status/1838718417576120363?s=46&t=0XG46rJiPEOy8dyIeDsimg

I've unfortunately never been to the flea market in person but this year for the first time I was able to get a few people via the Facebook group to shop for me. Nothing has been shipped out yet but if all goes as planned I should (so far) be receiving:

-Hadestown reopening full cast signed playbill (Paid way more for this than I intended, and kind of wished I'd gotten one of the props which cost less, but my shopper had already purchased it. But it was the cast I saw and there was zero stagedooring at the time, so overall I'll be very glad to have it).

-Shaina Taub and Jenn Colella Suffs trading cards (Also overpriced in my opinion but it's my current hyperfixation show so obviously I needed something. I'm seeing the show next month and plan to bring them to the stagedoor to hopefully get signed)

-Come From Away Tony Voter book

-Into the Woods Tony Voter book

-Small money note from Hamilton

-The Band's Visit pin (I lost mine from a few years ago and have been trying to find a replacement)

 

Still hoping I might end up with a few other things, but we'll see

Jordan Catalano said: "Prices are even stupider than they normally are, which I knew would happen. I used to be able to save by using different payment methods that I searched here https://bmcaluniv.org/ but now it's not enough, the prices are too high. I hope my little win will allow me to visit it, but I'm confused."

Yes, it was quite expected!

Updated On: 12/9/24 at 10:44 AM