Fabian's Maps
What:
Fabian's Maps
Where:
309 Swanston St, Melbourne
When:
Mon-Fri 12pm-4pm (but not always)
Contact:
9663 3302
Fabian invited me into his office, pulled a chair into the middle of the room and warned me it was a piece from the 1860s. Careful not to snap a chair leg, I sat myself down and waited while he filled out a cheque for an overdue bill. After five minutes of scribbling, he looked up at me through his thick lenses and prompted my conversation.
The former accountant ventured into trading antique furniture. But when he started collecting bookshelves he realised the shelves looked sadly bare without books. Now, filled with leather-bound poetry and Cricketers' Almanacs spanning nearly a century, the bookshelves stand resplendently in his office. And, despite the empty room behind the cluttered window display of lamps, Biggles books and map prints of Greece circa 1000BC, Fabian's deep knowledge of history and antiques had me following him around his different rooms, wide-eyed and dizzy with excitement.
The space hasn't changed much since he started trading in 1978. And this has only spurred people's curiosity about the old man who sticks up handwritten signs in his window. While Fabian is the keeper of this peculiar museum, chances are he'll tell you he's "really quite busy" until you prove yourself something other than irritating. Then he'll show off his collection of six-generation Royal Doulton china.
Location: CBD
Product Type: Books & Mags
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