OCEANSIDE -- With 100 booths offering a wide variety of items, the estimated 30,000 visitors to the Antiques on Mission antique fair had a full day of browsing ahead of them.

Vendors offered costume and fine jewelry, quilts, cookie jars, vintage signs, vintage clothes, vintage music and much more. One booth even had a hand-cranked phonograph that was revved up for interested potential customers.

"It brings out a good crowd, and it's a mellow show," said Mary Ann Theim, chairwoman of the MainStreet Oceanside board of directors. "We've got music, we've got some food. People can spend the day."

MainStreet Oceanside is a group of business owners and residents that has, since the early 1990s, worked to revitalize Oceanside's downtown. The Antiques on Mission antique fair is one of the events they hope will do that.

"It brings people downtown who haven't been for a long time," said Lynne Cook, vice chairwoman of MainStreet and also a vendor at the event. "Anything that's good for downtown, I support," she said.

Though not the largest of North County's street fairs, many visitors and volunteers agreed that Antiques on Mission's two blocks of booths offer a good experience for people interested in shopping for antiques. In fact, an

expansion of the fair to include booths selling more traditional street fair goods and not antiques was received cooly by many returning vendors.

"It's really personal. It's nice," said Cathy Nykiel, event coordinator for MainStreet Oceanside. "I'd have gray hair if we had to do something like the Carlsbad Street Faire."

According to Nykiel, the event's timing, both on Mother's Day and on Sunday, helps to draw a crowd of families spending the day outdoors and those attending several churches near downtown Oceanside.

One of the fair's biggest draws is the booth offering appraisals, giving visitors the chance to bring in items to

see what they're really worth.

"We've had some very nice things today, but nothing outrageous," said Carol McAndrew, one of the fair's two certified appraisers. "Part of the fun of this is discovering something.

According to McAndrew, many of the people bringing their items aren't even particularly keen to sell their items once they're appraised.

"They sometimes just want to know how old it is, or if it's real," she said, adding that "often it's a sentimental piece, and they don't really care what it's worth. It's just so that they can tell their kids."

One of the best finds of the day, according to McAndrew, was an oil painting from the Italian isle of Capri that was painted around the turn of the century. She said it needed a bit of cleaning up, but was still worth around $3,000.

McAndrew said that her love of antiquing and her day's work went well together.

"We go shopping too," she said, "during the lulls."

The next Antiques on Mission fair is scheduled for Sept. 14.