Market watch:

August has arrived, temperatures have cooled, the Orange County Fair left town and in its place the familiar sights and sounds of the Orange County Marketplace have returned.

The cries of children carted around in giant rental wagons, husbands scolding wives for spending too much time browsing, and lost shoppers shouting into their cell phones to find their fellow shoppers, permeated the air at Sunday’s market.

Some Marketplace vendors in Costa Mesa took the 21 days during the fair as a welcome vacation, others saw it as income lost. Still, other vendors did not let the fun stop when the fair came to town, taking their booths inside the gates during the month of July.

“The fair was phenomenal,” said Mark Anthony, a returning vendor. “It was like taking [my] best day at the swap meet and having it every day for 21 days.”

Anthony, owner of “Nifty 50s” nostalgic gifts and collectibles, has appeared at the fair for the past decade.

A stop at the well-known booth, reveals scores of television and movie memorabilia, including T-shirts, lunchboxes, dolls and cookie jars. After an exhausting 21-day stretch at the fair, Anthony was ready to work just weekends again, and ready for the out-of-towners.

“August is as good as Christmas,” Anthony said. “All the tourist business and it being closed during the fair, [regulars] have been waiting to come back.”One weekend costs Anthony $240 to rent a double corner lot, considered prime real estate on the marketplace grounds and a price he is more than willing to pay.

“That’s very reasonable when you have 50,000 people come by your booth each day,” he said. “Where else can you shop, drink and eat in the aisles?”

People come here because they like the fun atmosphere, Anthony said.

“They come here to shop.”

But for others rising rent has become a problem.

Ramon Escoto, who has been in the sandals business for 20 years at the marketplace, said booth rental fees have almost doubled lately.

“If I weren’t here selling at the fair it would be tough,” Escoto said. “What do you do with your merchandise for a month.”

The vendors were not the only ones glad to be back in the swing of things.

Kathy Bohlan, of Anaheim, made sure she was back for the Marketplace’s reopening weekend. She took her time glancing over luggage and name-brand knockoff handbags.

“I like it because it is convenient and well stocked,” she said. “I come out of my way to get here.”

Renee McGuire brought her mother, Liliana McGuire, who she was visiting from Bonney Lake, Wash., to the marketplace. It’s been 10 years since either shopped at the Marketplace.

“They don’t have swap meets like this down in Washington very much,” Renee McGuire said.

Anthony attracted a decent number of onlookers and prospectors to his mini storehouse for the retro generation, with his deepened announcer’s voice.

“It’s all got to go, Lucy, Barbie, Elvis and Johnny Depp,” he boomed.

Johnny Depp?

Capt. Jack Sparrow dolls, from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl,” the most contemporary edition to Anthony’s nostalgic arsenal, have more than doubled in price since the release of the second Pirates film, “the Dead Man’s Chest.”

The real buy for the treasure hunters, however, stand side by side, packaged in cardboard and sporting plastic red hair: Anthony’s No. 1 seller is “I Love Lucy” limited edition Barbie dolls.

These dolls, released once a year, double in price with every new batch, Anthony said.

“I tell people to buy two,” he joked. “One to play with and one to pay for their kid’s college.”