Stone Town is a shopping Mecca for Eastern
Africa. I found several incredible antique stores specializing in East
African tribal antiques from the 1600's through the 1900's. One such
store was like walking back in time. Intricately carved horns, parchment
scrolls, rawhide prayer books, wooden masks, wooden statues of every
shape and size and many other types of antiques were on display. The
owner has several partnerships with antique dealers in Santa Barbara,
Beverly Hills and Los Angeles - where at those stores the antiques sell
for many many times what they sell for in Zanzibar.....so with this in
mind, I left his store with several bags of antiquities!
This store has an antiquity dealer in the USA - Dispela Antiques is
located at 459. S. La Brea Ave in Los Angeles, CA. They are open 7 days
a week from 10am to 6pm. They can be reached at 323.934.9939.
Javed A. Jafferji, the famous photographer behind the classic
Zanzibarian postcards and coffee table books available at many of the
stores in Stone Town, has his own store at 170 Gizenga Street in Stone
Town. This incredibly talented artist and photographer has had his
photographs published in magazines such as Newsweek, Sunday Times, and
the Independent Guardian. I had the opportunity to visit his store - and
meet Javed while I was there. He took me into his back room and showed
me several new photographs he had taken as well as a book he was
writing. Javed & his father have a wonderful gallery containing
local artwork including paintings, antique carvings, lots of his own
postcards, and an excellent collection of books.
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Dave's Pick