Unlimited Antiques in Paris

I went to Le Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen today which is at Porte de Clignacourt to the north of Paris. The first thing to note on arriving is that it is a working class immigrant area. A typical trait of this kind of area is that it is very lively which lots of cheap shops. You can buy converse shoes there for 40 euros rather than 55 which you'll pay in the centre of Paris. The first market you'll come across is full of what can only be described as junk. There are lots of low quality souvenir stalls (which is really an oxymoron as there are no high quality souvenir shops), cheap lingerie stalls, and some places selling African 'art' which looked like it shouldn't have been allowed through customs. The other popular type of shop was that selling fake designer gear such as Louis Vuitton bags and Dolce and Gabbana belts.

None of these were of interest to me as I was there for the antiques. I've been wanting to go there for ages as it is the biggest antique market in France, if not the world. My parents love antique furniture and books, as do I, and I am thinking about buying them here and shipping them to Australia. My parents can keep what they like and we can sell the rest.

There are so many different antique markets at Le Marche aux Puces. It is not just one market. It is so difficult to know where to start looking and how to go about buying something. I lot of the pieces were over 10,000 euros. That is way out of my budget. I don't know if that is the tourist price or if that is the real price. The prices generally weren't marked so they could have told me anything. As much as I like antiques I don't have any idea of value. I don't have a good knowledge of the different periods and I couldn't spot the difference between a Louis XV or a Louis XVI. It looks like I have a lot of research to do.