You wouldn’t think four umbrella stands of elaborately decorated canes could be so intriguing, but with fox-headed sticks and walkers topped with golden-clad timepieces, we couldn’t take our eyes off this collection. Showcasing ultra-specific, fascinating objects en masse seems to be the common thread of the 20 stalls inside Potts Point Galleries.
And ‘gallery’ does feel like an appropriate description for these halls of objects behind their very formal glass cases. As you walk from one shop dedicated to Art Deco porcelain to another exclusively housing vintage silverware and Waterford crystal glasses, it feels like you’re jumping between carefully curated museums.
Explore the back corner for a dig of archeological finds from Neolithic China and late Roman culture; rummage through well-preserved outfits from 1940s coats to colourful 1980s blouses; or reminisce about that relic the landline telephone at a cabinet of novelty dial-ups from the last century.
The store’s dedicated owner Debra Lebreux has been working to maintain this range of dealers since the store opened four years ago. “As long as they’ve got interesting stock and aren’t stepping on other people’s toes, we take them on so we’ve got more diversity in here,” she says. They also try to keep things local, with many of the dealers transferring their collections from the Sydney Antique Centre after it closed its 40-year operation.