Flea Markets

[Shadowman]

What do you think? Do you go to them, set up a booth at them? What do you look for?

[frenchy]

well i sell stuff on ebay  mostly guitars and amps and stuff like that but to be honest they have a real racket .. if i knew how to do it i'd setup my own site just for musical instruments and take less of a commision ..somehow i just don't see myself sittin at a flea market all day tho .. maybe 20 years ago .. but not now .. we have one every wednesday down here by me at the old drive in theatre and i'd go for the produce but they had a bunch of other stuff . and i'll look around from time to time .. i got  bunch of tools for a great price .. if you know what you're lookin for it can be a great place ..but at my age i have most of whatever i need already .. no need to drag more stuff home ..   

[Karin M Fichtner]

That is what my ex chooses to do for a living. I think he has worked the flea market you mention, French. He never knows where he's gonna be or how his stuff will sell, so he pretty much lives hand to mouth. He hates working for someone else, so it is what he wants to do. It's making an old man out of him for sure. He found a woman online who was willing to travel around in a van with him, and she's had 3 heart attacks while doing it. Better her than me!! They worked the Tampa area for about half the year, and the other half in GA. He worked Ft. Myers because he has a brother down there. Now he's based out of Homosassa, but he still goes on the road. I did it with him a couple of times; it's a hard life....unless you have one of those huge motor homes to live in. I won't even shop at one anymore; lost my taste for it.

[frenchy]

yeah it can be hard down here karin .. it gets pretty hot in the summer and even tho it never goes above 100 we have what they call the humiture down here which is pretty much like the wind chill factor ...only in reverse . so while it may only be 92,, with the humiture it makes it feel like its 108.. so sittin outside in that for 5 or 7 hours a day can just wring you out . i go outside in the summer as little as i have to .. to go in the pool maybe . or maybe later on at night i can sit on the deck and play the guitar ... but durin the day its tough .. when you see little old ladies fist fightin for a parkin spot cause its too hot to walk that extra 50 feet .. you know its hot .. like a big fat dog breathin on ya.. and i can see someone havin a heart attack from the heat .. i've had this theory for he last few years that its not modern medicine that has prolonged our lifespans .. oh no .. its air conditionin .. once your core temp goes up too high if they can't get it back down in a hurry its lights out .. the heat is literally murder .. i know i tease everybody up north when they get hit with a blizzard and we have temps in the 70's .. but in the summer the heat can be life threatenin down here if you ain't careful .. a half hour can give you a good sunburn and an hour can fry you like a piece of bacon ..  

[Shadowman]

I set up vendor booth several times at an annual one near me toward the end August. Last year I had to work at that time and good thing I missed it, guess it rained all three days. I don't make enough to pay for the time but enough to pay for the spot and sometimes a little more. For me, it is sort of like a vacation and in that it is in my area I see people I know and visit with them and also with the out of state folks. Visiting with the other vendors is interesting, some are retired or "professional" flea marketers and travel the south in the winter and north in the summer. I rarely buy anything at the flea markets myself but do buy some stuff at auctions and maybe at a garage sale or two in order to have stuff for the flea market. I also sift through my garage and house at that time.  I do sell a few items on ebay, mostly books, may a few a month. But as you say Frenchy, they like their cut between ebay and paypal.

I have been to some of those in Florida when my brother would go to Florida to live in the winter.  Mostly, that would have been in the Jensen Beach area somewhere.

[Wayne Goodwin]

How does a person find you on eBay?

[Shadowman]

I am  eclipse_iv  on ebay but don't know if one can find a member that way.  This link takes you to an item and then one can see more information on the seller, etc.  http://www.ebay.com/itm/261833271814?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&...

[crestofwaves]

I always thought this might be fun--not as a main source of income, but to pass the time, talk to a few people, make a few extra bucks.  At one point I looked into selling Indian Jewelry when I was working in Catholic school for peanuts.  I thought it would be fun to set up a table on the weekends since I was between marriages at the time and always looking for an adventure.  It never came to fruition because I got a job in public school for a lot more money.

But in reality, it's hot or cold. Not too many of the perfect days.  And the bees must be a pain in the arse.

Like Shadowman, I think the social part would be interesting.

[Wayne Goodwin]

Ya could have dressed like a Nun .....

[frenchy]

i dunno .. all that drivin would make me bonkers .. look .. up ahead there's another.. hill .. and it looks just like the last .. hill .. and the hill before that .. and the hill before that .. i do think some people do have a thing for it tho .. always goin somewhere new .. but i don't like it .. at all 

[Snagg]

A little over a year ago, I began the process of rebuilding a vinyl record collection that the ex-wife destroyed before I could get them out of the house. Flea markets, garage sales, record swap meets, a half-dozen used record stores scattered throughout the Midwest...I hit 'em all.

No deadline...I just want my grandson to appreciate how we had to listen to music when we were his age - How music used to have heft and solidity. He's a few years away from that point, so I'm in no rush...

[frenchy]

yeah flea markets are good for stuff like that snagg.. you can find all kinds of stuff there .. a wheel barrow with no wheel or a cuckoo clock with no cuckoo .. and of course all the stuff thats of no use to some people cause they've moved on .. vhs tapes cause they don't have a vcr anymore .. or one that works anyway .. or records cause they got rid of their turntable the day they got their first cd player .. and some move on and never look back .. embrace the new technology and forget the old .. and then there's people like us who can live in both worlds and will gladly scoop up the stuff they discard as useless and know all along its true worth .. 

[Snagg]

I'm doing it as much for my grandkid's edification, as I am because I was sick of looking at my music room wall and seeing what looked like a rag quilt instead of a wall of albums. (Plus, it made finding the one I was looking for a gigantic pain in the ass.)

I'm about where I thought I'd be at this point; Replacing popular stuff, like the Beatles, Dylan or the Stones, was the easy part; Now I'm trying to find the more eclectic, out-of-the-ordinary stuff, which is a lot harder. People who bought albums by Captain Beefheart, the Velvet Underground, Van Morrison, the Gang of Four or Rory Gallagher (for example), really LOVED that stuff, and are a lot less likely to just get rid of 'em. I have to either pay collector prices for those, or hope to stumble across an estate sale or the occasional stash of stuff that got left behind when they went to college and their Mom donated it to the Salvation Army.

There's a reason, after all, that used record shops always have 10,000 copies of Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Kenny Loggins and Linda Ronstadt vinyl, and hardly anything by, oh, say....Elvis Costello, Television or the 13th Floor Elevators.