Nashville 1

The Flea Market

The weekend that we are in Nashville is also the weekend for the monthly flea market at the state fairgrounds. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So our (my) first priority is to go to that event on Friday.

It was a so so event - some old stuff, an awful lot of new things. Finally found a few keys, an old catalog, and then happened upon a booth where everything was advertised at $5.00. Looked over a couple of rings of keys and the lady noted that there were more in the other corner. Found one string of keys there, and put the others back. The lady mentions that there's some more individual keys in a display case near her. I glance at the display case and see one key that looks familiar - it's a Russwin key. Generally speaking Russwin keys are nothing spectacular for the automobile key collector. While Russwin was a large lock manufacturer, they were minor players in the automobile lock business. I have a few in my collection already and really didn't need another, especially at $5.00 a pop. But, like the searcher that I am, I ask if I can look at it. I pick it up and turn it over to find the flying goose logo of the Wills St Claire automobile. This is a pretty rare car key and I can't believe that I have just found it. I had been looking for one for the past 10 or 15 years. As I get ready to pay the lady, she says that if that's the only one out the case that I want, I can have it for $2.00. "No, I'll give you the five, because that's what the deal was." So I give her a ten for the one string of keys and the Wills St Claire key, and walk away elated.

This Wills St Claire key is from the collection of Maurice Onraet.  Don't have a pic of mine yet.

Was in a daze for the rest of the day.