At Mini Market on Mutton Street, 73-year-old Shahid Mansoori sorts through a pile of rare black-and-white photographs of Sharmila Tagore, Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra. One of the area’s oldest establishments, the shop is part of Chor Bazaar, a neighbourhood where the past remains very much for sale. Old radio sets sit beside decades-old wooden statues, while antique furniture dates from a time when such craftsmanship was ordinary. Even the narrow lanes here retain their old-school character.

Christopher Nolan has visited the store, while his sons Magnus and Oliver followed his trail to Mansoori’s shop last month to examine his collection of vintage cameras and classic chess sets. Mansoori recalls Nolan visiting in search of old film magazines and rare posters.

Mini Market is one part of Mansoori’s family business. His sons run Bollywood Bazaar and Super Sale, while he manages Mini Market. The business dates back nearly 70 years to his grandfather, who worked on film sets in the 1930s.

“He was more like a clapper boy. He would bring tea and help around the set,” Mansoori recalls. His grandfather, Mansoori B A, worked at Krishna Movietone, one of India’s early film studios, and earned about Rs 30 a month. When an actor failed to turn up, he was sometimes asked to perform.

The family’s connection with cinema continued with Mansoori’s father, who supplied props to film productions. “Homi Wadia, known for Hunterwali and Arabian Nights, was among his clients,” says Mansoori. The practice continues today, with the family supplying props to films and television productions.

Their objects have appeared in films such as Devdas and more. Mansoori’s eldest son, Zahid, points to a pair of steel handcuffs in the shop. “Those were the same handcuffs that Shah Rukh Khan was wearing in the scene where he is arrested in Raees,” he says.

Mansoori’s own relationship with cinema began when he was four. His father took him to the last film shows after work, and he spent his pocket money on chocolates and photographs of film stars. He recalls memories when he watched men paste new film posters on Mumbai’s roads every Thursday.

At the time, few considered the posters valuable. His father would sometimes bring discarded ones home and use them to pack goods. Mansoori could not bear to see them treated as rubbish, so he began cutting and repairing them. Many are still wrapped in newspapers and preserved in his shop.

By the 1980s, his collection had attracted international buyers from countries such as Sweden and France. But Mansoori realised that selling everything would leave him with nothing to collect. He kept the originals and sold the extras. “That is how I built my collection,” he says.

Today, his archive spans Bollywood and Hollywood, with rare photographs, posters, Filmfare and Film India magazines, movie tickets, songbooks, postcards, letters and silent-era material. Among his treasures are photographs from Alam Ara, posters of Satyajit Ray films such as Pather Panchali and Charulata, and photographs of actors including Dara Singh, Suraiya and Kishore Kumar.

At every corner of the shop, there is a new object to discover. There are 1964 Beatles concert tickets that costed 5 dollars at the time, old milk pots from a Maharaja’s temple, and gulab-danis once used in Arab countries. An old inkwell is placed beside nibs and feathers, while vintage cameras and a film projector remind us of another era.

Mansoori points to a 1970s typewriter later used in the film, Coolie. Above hang African masks; nearby are Coca-Cola bottle openers, a telegram machine, taxi meters and folding military-style binoculars from London. “Everything here is a rare piece,” he says.

Much of the collection came from raddiwalas, auctions, garage sales and old homes. Mansoori now has a network of about 40 people across India who alert him when they find something unusual. “It was like a lucky draw. You never know what you will find,” he says.

His shop has also become a resource for filmmakers, writers and researchers. He contributed material to Angry Young Men, the documentary series on Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, and even did a voice over for the beginning sequence for the project. He has also worked with the Film Heritage Foundation, while his shop has been featured in Film Division’s In Search of a Fading Canvas.

Mansoori calls himself an archivist and historian of Bollywood, though he never formally studied film. “I just read a lot,” he says. For decades, magazines, newspapers and discarded photographs became his entry point into cinema.

In a shop where every object has a story, Mansoori’s take is simple: “Everything is rare, and nothing is rare.” According to him, an object’s value does not just end in what it is, but in the history it carries. In his shop, picking up almost anything feels like holding a piece of history in the palm of your hand.