Community blows out candles for 50-year-old institution

Battling for a park at a shopping precinct on a busy weekend is enough to frustrate even the most patient of drivers.

But for 50 years, locals in Melbourne's bustling inner-east have happily traded hundreds of in-demand spots for a place to host an eclectic community-run market.

Antique dealer Victor Aspiridis is one of more than 350 stallholders who roll into the outdoor concrete lot in Camberwell before dawn every Sunday.

There, they unpack carloads of items carefully curated across the week for thousands to filter through across the morning.

A Camberwell Sunday Market stalwart, the Northcote grandfather first caught wind of the new open air bazaar launching in an under-utilised car park in 1976.

Founding traders paid 50 cents each to transform the lot into a bustling trading hub filled with antique furniture and art deco collectibles.

'We used to put trestle tables in the car spots the night before after the shops had closed and you'd rock up the next morning and set up," Mr Aspiridis tells AAP.

"I remember Kylie Minogue used to run around here with Jason Donovan in the 80s, holding hands."

Today, $70 stalls are sold out weeks in advance, with as many as 7000 visitors snaking through the stands every weekend.

The Rotary-run market, which blows the candles out on half a century on Sunday, is an institution that has become part of the family's DNA, according to stallholder Adam Griggs.

"Every Sunday, rain, hail or shine, that's been our life ... it is a market family" he says.

"I've found some amazing things over the years and even when we've had family functions we still end up going to the market beforehand."

Mr Griggs' son Ruben, 21, has sold LEGO Minifigures alongside his dad's antique stall every Sunday for 13 years, earning him the affectionate nickname "The Lego Man".

"I have around 1200 figures on a Sunday ... people loving taking photos of them, it takes hours to set them all up," he says.