Marché aux Puces St-Michel

ummmm… heaven on earth!
that’s all.
bye.

I came here to check it out after the New York Times ran an article about Montréal and mentioned this place. Give yourself a whole afternoon if you want to come here and check out the myriad of stalls and sellers while you go bargain hunting, vintage hunting or even just browsing.
If you’re the kind of person who gets overwhelmed easily and don’t know what you’re looking for or what you’re looking at, don’t bother. If on the other hand, you enjoy digging, rummaging and pretending you’re on a treasure hunt, if you can spot quality vintage stuff from several feet away, you can name several types of quality vintage brands which have long since disappeared right off the top of your head (i.e FireKing, Jadeite, Descoware, Catherine Holm, Dansk Kobenstyle, Luminarc etc.) then this place is the mother lode for you.
Haggling over prices is encouraged.

Aisles and Aisles of cheap for better words…“junk”. Lots of cheap gaudy fashion, underwear and other misc stuff.

Some vendors are downright overpriced and not willing to haggle, but if you look you can find those goods you were searching for at the prices you want to pay, it just takes a bit of time.

Meilleur marché aux puces de Montréal j’y vais 2 ou 3 fois par mois minimum. Il vaut le déplacement assurer!!!

OK seriously, this place is a hidden gem. I didn’t even realize such an awesome flea market like this exists! What did i end up buying? An old vintage Polly Pocket toy for 5 bucks. Holy wow there was a lot of stuff and cool «junk» that was there. This place is a huge maze, and I felt like the longer I stayed, the longer it would take for me to get outta there. I think I spent 2 hours at this flea market, but it felt like years. (in a good way of course)
There’s all sorts of knick knacks here like antiques, vintage toys, comic books, records, figurines, ukelele, décor stuff etc. I spent rummaging through rings at one jewelry kiosque for at least 10 minutes. They didn’t have anything that I liked, but it was so fun hunting for something. Honestly this place is worth visiting… but I highly recommend going in the AM because it gets quite overcrowded in the afternoon… making the visit pretty unpleasant. I’d go back, totally. But probably once every 3 months or so just to see «newer» items. I think my favorite part of this flea market are the toys. So nostalgic to see 70s, 80s toys, (they even had an etch a sketch!)
Go go go to this flea market. It is fun, exciting, maze-​like, and filled with items you can get for a good price.

Ok, let’s be honest: I love this place. It’s right up my alley: rickey and twisty and full of old things. I embargoed reviewing this place for a while at a dear friend’s request but it’s out there now so I’ll add my review to the chorus. It’s a few blocks from St Michel metro and a bit hidden behind the McDonalds. It is a bit bug infested, and it does feel like the vast majority of the vendors have either figured out that they can sell this stuff for a fair bit of money on the internets, or are looking around at everyone else’s prices, shrugging their shoulders and ramping the prices up to be on par. That being said, I didn’t have any trouble dickering down to prices I was comfortable with when I tried, and I love love love the vendors her. Sweet old Québécois folks who all know each other and take care of each other and crack jokes together and are generally genuinely lovely. Will you find a crazy steal here? Maaaybe. But it’s nice so go if you promise not to tell…

C’est sale, c’est crotté et sa pue… On oublie vite cela quand on commence à regarder de plus près les kiosques… Un vrai musée, une vrai caverne aux trésors…On y trouve de tout… vraiment de tout. Amusez-​vous à dealer pour ce donc vous êtes tomber en amour… ou passez juste une demi-​journée à vous promener là.! Attention, ce n’est ouvert que du vendredi au dimanche seulement et c’est CASH seulement! :) Bonne visite!

Les puces Saint — Michel sont ouvertes les vendredis, samedis et dimanches, de 9h à 17h.
J’ai découvert les lieux grâce à mon amie montréalaise, chineuse avertie, pour né pas dire super affûtée ! Effectivement ce marché vaut vraiment le détour: beaucoup beaucoup de marchandises, une grande diversité (objets du quotidien, vêtements, livres, meubles…), des marchands très sympathiques et disponibles, des prix négociables…
Beaucoup de choses nous ont donné envie, mais pas facile de faire un choix quand on doit rentrer en France et qu’on est limités par la taille des valises…
Attention: certains boxs sont fermés le vendredi. Il est sans doute préférable de venir le week-​end !