Peddlers Mall

A gigantic treasure trove of a business.
The best thing about it– Found a 1940 edition of Reich Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels’ ¹⁹³²⁄₃₃ diary «Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei». Nothing too special about that in and of itself– a relatively common book, published in multiple editions… unless it has an original «Dr. Goebbels.» autograph: o) I think I did pretty well for an outlay of $ 8.00 (eight dollars) !
Thank you, Peddlers Mall!

I was told by a friend that I might find this antique mall interesting so I figured I’d stop on the way through Redding. I was quite looking forward to doing some antique shopping during my brief trip. The store was clearly open and I could see people inside. Unfortunately when I tried to enter the store a man in a suit quite rudely shook his fingers at me and my companions. Confused at first I continued to reach for the door when the man stepped in front of me and aggressively told me I could not come in. Now I’m a 22 year old white male and I have never been confronted in this way before. I asked the man why I could not come in and his reply was the I knew why, which completely baffled me. To my knowledge I’ve never encountered this man before, and I have never wronged him in any way. Is this store some kind of exclusive club? How do you expect to keepan antique store in business if you only let certain people in?

Starbucks was so crowded this morning that I had to park next door at Peddlers Mall, so after getting my grande drip and heading back to my pick-‘em-up truck, I decided to duck into this new antique forum just to check it out.
I don’t collect antiques and probably never will, so I’m wholly unqualified to judge Peddlers Mall on technical grounds. I’m just a guy who — though not an enthusiastic shopper by nature — doesn’t mind perusing old stuff now and then, on the hopes that I’ll find something cool and unusual to look at and maybe purchase.
Peddlers Mall has some interesting stuff — I’ll give them that. A very old Chinese pagoda boat for $ 25k, for one thing. Some interesting vintage office furniture of the type that makes you think, «I like it, but what would I do with it?» An example: a well-​built, solid oak chest of small drawers that held Dewey Decimal System card catalogues in a library somewhere. Also: Lots of African carvings; at least two working 78 RPM record players, with 78 RPM records included; and an impressive selection of old technical books and journals, including some well-​preserved issues of «The Condor» (a flagship ornithological journal) from 1912.
One point five stars off (I’m rounding up to four) because: (1) frankly, the antique shops in my old town of Fair Oaks, outside of Sacramento, were stocked with more and better stuff; (2) the building is a charmless steel structure that was a car showroom in its previous life (see picture); and (3) the local Yahoo Country Radio Station was playing at near rock-​concert volume the whole time I was there — the kind of station that plays song after song of Nashville «modern country.» That means I had to listen to about four or five moronic, loud, jingoistic songs in a row performed by guys who were all really gosh darned proud of the accomplishment of being born American, Christian, and Republican.
No stars off for the missing possessive apostrophe in the name. I’m feeling generous today.