Perkiomenville Auction House

I was extremely excited to visit this flea market. As an avid flea marketer, Perkiomen was a perfect excuse to wake up early and make a drive to Philly the Monday I have off for the Labor Day holiday. Many of my dealer friends recommended Perkiomen and suggested I make the visit. My boyfriend, lab mix, and I made the drive, nearly two and a half hours to be disappointed by this once renowned flea market. At 7:00am the market had only filled up about 1/4 of its tables. As we began walking around, a kind gentleman complimented our dogs demeanor but told us we may be asked to remove our dog because the staff recently decided to make this market a "no dog" market. My boyfriend and I looked around quizzically for several minutes for a staff to ask about this policy and none were to be found. As we made our way around the tables we saw several venders with small dogs and another shopper toting a Terrier and decided the man must be mistaken. After a hour I was scolded by a random vender in a van and told I was to remove my, might I add, well behaved dog from the premises. This women had no identification and was obviously not a staff. After this confrontation I made my way to the car and loaded our sad pup into the vehicle and sat with him for a while. The observations I made while in my car were infuriating. Shoppers that were walking about with small dogs in there arms and on leashes were ignored while several other shoppers with large breeds were asked to stow away their dogs. My boyfriend and I rotated in and out of the vehicle for several hours, our anger was kindled as we continued to see small dogs ignored while ours was calmly sitting in the car nibbling a toy. On our drive home we looked for the markets website that may have informed us of this "policy" but there was no website for Perkiomen. This large breed dog discrimination was rather unsettling. I found it curious that none of the other markets in the area had this same policy. This was a first strike for us but there was more. The simple lack of organization was offsetting. As mentioned previously, it was impossible to locate a staff. The vender tables were scattered haphazardly around the field with no discernible pattern. They was no online presence that indicated open or closing hours for the inside dealers. These issues may be trivial for some but, added together they made for a rocky shopping experience. Lastly the quality of the dealers was lacking. I am no stranger to flea markets with subpar venders but this market was mostly a trash dump. Sifting through piles of things may be appealing to some but, here I would be shocked to see someone turn the trash to treasure. Despite the over abundance of dumpster dealers there were one or two old timers who were worth shopping with. These venders were few and far between and even the loyalest among them conceded to the diminishing quality of merchandise at Perkiomen. All this said I was very disappointed in my trip. I recommend spending time elsewhere, such as Rennigers in Adamstown or Kutzown market. These places are far superior and dog friendly too!!