If you happened to be on the De Anza campus between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on June 1, chances are you caught the monthly De Anza Flea Market, which recurs on the first Saturday of every month.

Like any other flea market, De Anza’s brought a wide variety of items to look around at, with around 300 vendors taking up parking lots A and B.

If you are into comics and Pokémon cards, vendors Anthony Yee and Todd Kwamme were the people to go to. They have both been selling at the flea market for a year. Kwamme started the booth first, then Yee joined along. These two engineers — who first met while working in aerospace — decided to come together and start selling their collections of Pokémon cards, comics and Funko Pop! figurines.

“I started collecting comics when I was in college at Berkeley, and throughout my life I was collecting, collecting and recently I’m like ‘I gotta get rid of some of these,’” Kwamme said.

Kwamme even has his own business called Sundry Collectibles where he sells his collections on Instagram.

One of the most valuable comics that he owns is the “Conan the Barbarian: First Appearance at Red Sonja,” released in 1972, which was marked at $260. He also mentioned in the past he sold a Batman comic book at this flea market for $1,200. His oldest comic was one from Walt Disney that came out in 1943.

While Kwamme was handling the comic sales, Yee was handling the Pokémon cards. Yee had some common and rare cards in hand, including a Dark Dragonite, which he had sold for $80 in the early hours of the flea market. Another popular card that he had was the Zapdos, which is a rare Pokémon card. Although Yee mainly sold Pokémon cards, he also had some comics that he brought himself to sell.

“I brought comics too because I actually inherited my dads comic book collection, so Todd helped me go through it and find the expensive comics,” Yee said.

Kwamme got into comics in 1986 while he was still studying at UC Berkeley. Yee got into Pokémon cards when it first came out in 1997. They’ve been through it all, and now they share their collections and knowledge with flea market attendees.

If you’re into sports jerseys and sports bomber jackets, look no further than the booth of community members Josef Laya and Vincent Dinh, 22, hospitality and tourism major. These two had some exotic NBA and NFL jerseys along with bomber jackets from teams of both leagues.

“I like shopping for myself. I want to collect and sell something that I like,” Dinh said. “I love and enjoy the team’s colors because they represent the city they play for.”

Laya and Dinh had pieces including a signed Steve Kerr Chicago Bulls jersey for $220, three different signed jerseys from Gary Payton ll for $180 each — which they both got Payton to sign when they attended Warriors games in the past — and a signed Domantas Sabonis Indiana Pacers jersey.

While the two sold mostly NFL bomber jackets, their most expensive item was a San Jose Sharks bomber for $180. They also had some rare NFL jerseys like a Dion Jordan Miami Dolphins jersey and a Telvin Smith Jacksonville Jaguars jersey.

Dinh has been collecting since he was young.

“The bomber jacket of the Charlotte Hornets was the first one I purchased,” Dinh said. “The 49ers’ Vernon Davis was the first NFL jersey I bought when I was in 8th grade.”

This is only the second time the two have been vendors together at the flea market, however this is Laya’s third time being a vendor.

“I checked it out for the first time to help my friend (Laya),” Dinh said.

“My first time here it was raining and there was decent traffic, it wasn’t as bad as the last (De Anza flea market),” Laya said.

Everything that happened in the flea market would not have been possible without the leadership of the Flea Market and Special Events coordinator, Dayna Swanson.

Swanson first became the flea market organizer in March 2022, and she said her background in hotel and restaurant management is what got her interested in the job.

“The event field has always been an interest to me. So when this came up, it was a good opportunity to try something a little bit different and be on a college campus,” Swanson said.

Swanson first started off as a flea market coordinator, but she has many different roles on campus as she is also an advisor on the student government marketing committee and program committee, and she also works in the Office of College Life. In addition to the flea market, she helps plan other special events on campus like the Spring Carnival that happened on May 30 and the annual graduation ceremony for the college.

She doesn’t do this alone, as she said that there are De Anza students helping set up the flea market as well.

“On the day of the market, I have anywhere from 10 to 14 students that work here on market day. Then in my office, our students help out with the payments for the market.” Swanson said.

Of the 300 vendors that show up every month, around two-thirds of the vendors return from the previous month, with over 650 spots being taken up.

“I get about 80 new vendors each month and those 80 don’t have seller’s permits so they can only sell twice a year.” Swanson said.

All of the revenue that is made from the flea market each month goes back into the De Anza Student Government’s budget.

Every year DASG runs these funds through budget deliberations to allocate them to areas across campus.

Each flea market creates opportunities for the entire school, and it’s all thanks to the leadership of Dayna Swanson and her students.

If you happened to miss this past flea market, the next few will take place on July 6, Aug. 3, Sept. 7 and so on; so there will be many more opportunities to experience it.