posted 10-18-2001 10:54 AM            

During our first days walking around Munich we noticed some posters advertising ANTIK MARKT, RosenheimerStrasse 143, Saturday and Sunday September 8/9, eintritt frei!, and others showing Antiquare Büchermarkt (antique book market) also at RosenheimerStrasse 143 on Sunday September 9 and frei! These announcements were on the large advertising columns scattered throughout Munich and we copied down the information.

As Friday approached we inquired at the hotel about how to get to Kunstpark Ost, and were told to go to Ostbanhof, the train station on the city's east side; S-Bahn trains, trams (trolleys) and busses serve the station. Ostbanhof is a large outdoor train yard, and as our S-Bahn train entered the station we saw a large building with a sign at the top proclaiming Kunstpark Ost located just to the southwest, so our destination was in sight. After the train stopped, we walked back a couple of blocks and found an old industrial site with rail lines, truck loading docks and metal-sided buildings. As we walked into the fenced site, most of the buildings appeared to be abandoned, but as we drew closer we discovered that they are now occupied by small manufacturing businesses, night clubs, music clubs and bars, and the weekend flea market ("flohmarkt").

Toward the southeast corner of the site, there were a number of outdoor vendors set up along the interior roads, some with dilapidated shacks for their storage and others with card tables set up beside their cars. Most of the outdoor merchandise was of the type and quality that you see at garage sales. Finally the signs brought us to the Flohmarkt, a large metal building where a number of inside flea market dealers have permanent booths. As it was Friday, we were not surprised to find that only one-third of the booths were open; the merchandise was fairly consistent: lots of old or not so old clothes, books and magazines, LP records, 1960's furniture and electronics. A few booths had china, glass and metalware, and we did find some WMF flatware at decent prices (DM 5-10). We wandered around for about an hour and then exited and followed another street in the complex, which had railroad tracks down the center. After a couple of turns, we found a building with posters indicating that it was the location of one of the Antik shows we had seen advertised. We looked inside the doorway, but it was clearly in the early set-up stage, with booths still empty and only a few dealers beginning to carry in boxes. In the building next door, however, we found what appeared to be another show, although it seemed fairly quiet for an antique market. We walked in and finally asked someone, who turned out to be a dealer, and he said the market was open and we were free to look around. What we had discovered was the Antik Palast, a large hall with perhaps 60 dealers permanently set up, similar to the Antiques Showplace on 25th Street in NYC. About two-thirds of the dealers were there looking after their booths. We spent several hours looking around, met some nice dealers, and learned that we were in the regular weekend antiques market, open each Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Another show, only for that weekend, would be held in an adjacent hall in the same building, though it wouldn't open until Saturday.

Sure enough, we returned Saturday morning to find about fifteen dealers set up in a smaller room, some of whom we recognized as regulars from the day before. Back in the big room we checked out the booths that had not been open on Friday, then we walked to the other antiques building and found it fully set up with about 20 more antiques booths for a two-day show. On Sunday, an antique book show opened for the day in another room in the main Antik Palast building. As advertised, entrance to all the shows was free, and each one had interesting offerings of a wide range of merchandise. We saw china, glass, furniture, silver flatware and hollowware, costume and estate jewelry, furniture, kitchen implements, art, books and linens. Prices ranged from very reasonable to fairly high. It should be noted that the majority of the silver was in the main building, in the booths of the permanent dealers. Virtually all of the dealers spoke good or excellent English, which is important as we do not speak German.

Their web site has a map, an aerial photo and pictures of vendors' booths. http://www.antikpalast.de/
The arrow on the map points to the main entrance to the Antik Palast on RosenheimerStrasse, while the flea market is under the area covered by the letter "A".

Much of the silver we saw was German 800 silver, although there were pieces from France, Denmark and Austria as well. There was a notable amount of WMF and Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) flatware. Other offerings included several Richard Reimerschmid pieces and a few Weiner Werkstatte items. We would recommend that travelers in the region take the time to visit this convenient weekend flea market and antiques destination.

posted 06-10-2007 05:14 PM            

More within the center of Munich we found two more shops that had beautiful merchandise and very nice proprietors.

Roger Emery has a shop at Isabellastrasse 13. He had two beautiful silver teas sets, one English and one German. He also had some interesting silver flatware. Roger also carries a lovely collection of furniture, lighting fixtures, etc. His English was exceptional so we had a great chat.

If Art Deco is your thing, you should visit the Art Deco shop at Kurfuerstenstrasse 12. Gorgeous flatware and jewelry.

Munich has a lot of very high end antique shops. We did a bit more window browsing but unfortunately there was not enough time to do more.