Halifax island-owner ready to sell off wares
CBC News | Posted: January 27, 2012 12:08 AM | Last Updated: January 27, 2012
A Nova Scotia man who owns an island, a shipwreck and a cemetery is getting ready to part with a warehouse full of other people's junk.
Bill Mont, known as the king of flea markets for bringing the first one to Nova Scotia in the 70s, is getting rid of most of the items in his north-end Halifax warehouse.
Mont has spend decades building up his collection.
"This is the first and only greaseless doughnut machine — greaseless," he said, pointing to an old appliance in his warehouse on Robie Street.
"It's rusty now but it can be cleaned up."
Mont sold that machine to the Please You Bakery in the 1960s. He then bought it back.
The wheeler-dealer now finds himself burdened with about six tractor-trailer loads of unsorted used goods. There are obsolete appliances and more than 200 religious murals that were part of a movie set.
"Behind those walls is six tractor-trailer loads I want to clear out, and six more to come. I'm getting frustrated. Just about ready to give the darn stuff away," he said.
Mont blames his weakness on growing up poor during the Depression in the 1930s.
"If it's a bargain, I buy it. Whether it's a movie set, whatever. I end up buying it and now as I reach the ripe old age of 83 almost, I'm stuck with all this stuff," he said.
"I don't know who in the heck I'm going to sell this to."
Mont is a local history buff and an indiscriminate collector — he owns Devils Island in Halifax harbour and the Pleasant Hill cemetery in Lower Sackville.
Amid the hodgepodge of objects in Mont's warehouse are items that likely belong in a museum, such as a wheel of chance from the Bill Lynch Show — a fair that started on Halifax's McNabs Island.
Mont has started giving things away to charities and he's also inviting members of the public to his Robie Street warehouse to make him an offer.
He said he's got a comeback for people who tell him he can't take the objects with him.
"First of all, I own a graveyard," Mont said, chuckling.
"I could easily take five acres and set it aside for Bill Mont and his treasures."