Longtime Wolff's Flea Market Vendor the Week

By Guest Blogger Bianca Saputra

Vendors of the Week: Mr. Bausch & Mr. Hein

For Leroy Hein, selling at the flea is personal. Hein started selling at the flea just recently, but his uncle, Wally Bausch has been a vendor with Wolff's flea for nearly 2 decades. 

Bausch became a vendor to stay active after his retirement. His favorite part of being at the flea is meeting all the vendors and customers around him. Making new friends is what draws Bausch to the market week after week, year after year. 

Wally Bausch sells a variety of miscellanea, but his favorite thing to talk about are the Ferrari, Porsche, and Volkswagen Burago collectible cars. Each die-cast model is painted with a special oven-bake paint and all products made from 1976 to 2005 where produced in Burago di Molgora, Italy.

While Bausch sells a variety of goods, his nephew, Leroy Hein specializes in collectible coins. Among them include war-era pennies, memorial coins, and mint sets. A particularly touching moment happened as Hein was explaining the significance of some coins to me. A young boy, a budding coin collector, came up to the booth to look at some of the coins. After seeing his interest, Hein gave the boy a 2005 U.S. Mint Silver Proof set free of charge to jumpstart his collection. He later explained to me that he was a big coin enthusiast and wanted to share his interest in collectible coins to preserve the rich history behind the coins. 

Both of these men shared their love for the flea and of each other as I talked to both of them. Come check out their booths at space H4 and H5!