Shipshewana: Tough Name for Tiny Town of Easy Deals

“Watch for Fleas” and “Careful Fleas Crossing” warn the signs along the narrow two-lane road leading to this century-old northern Indiana hamlet with the hard-to-pronounce name.

More than a million people from all across America beat a path here every year for the 43-year-old fleamarket and flea auctions on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, May through October.

Shipshewana, which is in the heart of Indiana’s Amish country and was named after an Indian chief, boasts one of the nation’s oldest and largest flea markets. The signs account for the fact that buyers and sellers are nicknamed “fleas.”

“Wanna buy a used coffin? You can find them here. Don’t ask me where they came from, whose bodies were in them before,” said a laughing Fred Lambright, 63, owner of the 80-acre Shipshewana Flea Market and Auction. “You can find just about everything imaginable for sale here from old-fashioned buggies and horse-drawn sleighs to modern stuff.”

Antique toys, pre-World War I cash registers, Victrola records from the 1920s, rocking chairs, turn-of-the-century cast-iron stoves, old comic books, mounted moth-eaten animals and stuffed animal heads, trunks, fly swatters, used golf clubs, 100-year-old furniture, carrousel horses. . . .

As Lambright said: “You name it. It’s here.”

There are swap meets and flea markets in every state. But Shipshewana is different. What sets it apart is its size, the presence of the Amish, and the Wednesday antique auction with a dozen auctioneers barking simultaneously in the huge antique auction building.

“Gather around. Gather around,” shout auctioneers, ringing cowbells at 8 a.m. as the auction begins in a dozen different places in the warehouse-like structure. Crowds ring tables stacked high with items for sale.

One fellow holds up a rusted hammer in one hand, a rusted ax in the other. The bid starts at $2 and doesn’t go anywhere. At the same time, at another table, a woman holds up two wire wastebaskets. Bids start at 25 cents and end at $1. So it went.

The bids were much higher as a man pranced back and forth holding above his head a 1920s tintype toy railroad engine missing two wheels. Dick Mudd, 52, who drove three hours from his home in Portage, Mich., had the highest bid, $47.50.

“It’s a steal,” Mudd insisted. “I come here every week. I’m an antique toy dealer. I look everywhere for old toys. This is one of the best places to find them. I would have paid at least $200 for this somewhere else.”

Chant of the Auctioneers

It’s noisy. Auctioneers’ chants echo raucously from all over the floor of the building jammed with people. Thousands of items are auctioned this day, ash trays and dishes going for as little as 25 cents, antique dolls and toys bringing as much as $400 and $500 each, a rare piece of furniture fetching $3,000.

“What’s so special about Shipshewana, you ask?” John Pippman, a 38-year-old mailman, repeated the question. He had driven 225 miles from his home in Bay City, Mich., for the Wednesday antique auction. He held up two 1910 barn lanterns he just bought for a successful bid of $3.

“This is what’s so special about Shipshewana. You can’t find this kind of stuff at these prices anywhere else.”

Outside in the free market, every one of the 1,083, 20x25-foot spaces were occupied by vans, pickups, campers, trucks and cars with each seller’s wares spread out in front of them on tables. It had rained the previous day and dark clouds threatened more precipitation.

“Weather’s going to keep the crowds away,” sighed Pete Safiran, 44, who drove 165 miles with his wife, Cathy, 41, and their son, Ray, 21, from their home in Bradley, Ill. “Come here on a warm sunny summer day and you can hardly move for the people jammed shoulder to shoulder, belly button to belly button.”

Safiran was selling antique wood duck decoys. He was asking $75 for one he held. He was selling old milk bottles priced from $3 to $20. He had fishing tackle. His son had brought along 10,000 of his 80,000 baseball cards hoping to sell as many as he could.

“I’m paying my way through Northern Michigan University by dealing in baseball cards,” the university sophomore said.

‘Free Enterprise at Its Best’

His father chimed in: “This is free enterprise at its best. I’ve been renting space at Shipshewana 16 years. On weekends we set up at busy intersections on the outskirts of Chicago suburbs. This is our sole livelihood.”

Several chartered buses were here from Detroit (120 miles away) and Chicago (150 miles) bringing people on daylong outings for a shopping spree at Shipshewana.

Spaces at Shipshewana flea market--rented $18 to $28 a day depending on location--have all been grabbed for the rest of the year. Satinder Sawhney, 26, and his wife, Balvinder, 25, both originally from New Delhi now living in Milwaukee, sell silver and gold sequin dresses from India at the flea market.

“Give you a very good price, only $65 for this silk sequined dress,” Sawhney tells a man passing by. “I’ll give you $30,” the man says. “No sir. I cannot do that sir. I paid more than that. Here, I’ll let you have it for $50. Buy it, you will make my day. . . .” Bargaining is part of shopping at Shipshewana.

Esther Grant, 61, and her husband, Ray, 62, were selling miniature wood figures of cats, ducks, ponies, pigs, dogs and teddy bears they create on a scroll saw. Ken Schneider, 69, was selling his hand-crafted competition class boomerangs priced at $7 to $10 each.

The president of a division of American Seeding Co. before he retired, Schneider and Mary, 68, his wife of 46 years, make the boomerangs and travel in a van across America selling them. “We pay as much as $125 to $225 a day for space at craft shows. Here we’re only paying $20 and the crowds are much greater. We like to move around. It beats sitting in a condominium getting old,” Ken Schneider said.

Step Back in Time

The town of Shipshewana is a step back in time with the rhythm of horse hoofs clippity-clopping down narrow lanes pulling buggies driven by bearded, black-hatted Amish men accompanied by their wives and children who wear century-old style clothes.

Amish park their buggies next to the automobiles and shop alongside others at the flea market and auction. Amish quilts, furniture and dolls are also for sale at Shipshewana. And, tasty, generous-portioned Amish meals relished by out-of-towners are available at places like the Essenhaus (eating house) where a country feast is served in a barn with 25 varieties of freshly baked pies offered each day.

The Shipshewana flea market that began in 1946 is an outgrowth of a livestock auction every Wednesday since 1922 where an average of 2,500 sheep, cows, pigs and fat hogs are sold. Shipshewana also claims the nation’s biggest horse auction, held here every Friday.

It’s easy to get lost in the maze of “flea” stalls and difficult to resist the many bargains up and down 15 rows one direction, eight rows the other, each row marked as a street with names like Hopeful, Keepsake, Depression, Bargain, Souvenir, Collectable and Trinket.