It was a dark and stormy night.....
that's not right, it was dark,  but not particularly stormy and closer to
dawn than midnight.
but a largish (8 or 9 of us) group of the FleaBAGs gathered for our
traditional pre Galootaclaus excursion through the Alameda Flea Market.

There's a long line of people waiting to get in a the old airstrip (where
they filmed Mythbusters)  at 6 AM.  We gather the group and head for the
back of the flea, where dealers are barely unpacked and Bill managed to
find a 60 pound blacksmiths post vise that kept his attention the rest of
the day.

The weather warmed from lower 40's to T shirt by mid morning, and Kirk
managed to pick up a Windsor Beader in a wooden box with a label after
talking the seller down to an outrageous price, outrageous to get a Windsor
Beader for!

Bill picked up an iron, early T&G plane in a wooden box that now appears to
be aftermarket, which is fitting considering the even more ridiculously
tiny price he paid for it.

Tom walked around with some lovely saws most of the day, while lamenting
the "lack of smalls" meaning the tiny, exquisite tools he is known for
pocketing.  All the vintage Christmas decorations must have cut into Tom's
smalls, along with a lot of other tools, the pickings, while thin, were of
a high quality- Kirks' acquisiton being the pinacle.

Clamps, an expanding jaw brace (I'm assuming that was Greg, correct me if
I'm wrong) were found. Brian was looking for a wooden jack plane and found
a nice razee version.

If found blacksmith tongs, my CBA sweatshirt got me a good price, and a
neat little case of folding clothes hangers that will go to an office white
elephant exchange. What I thought was a box with large scale threading dies
turned out to be pipe threading gear, along with a huge pipe cutter. Not
much use but it was cheap and cool and someday I might need a favor from a
plumber!

A stack of molding planes yielded a nice side rabbet that took 3 of us to
figure how the wedge and iron went in, and we couldn't convince Paul to buy
a Gardner marked plane, he only gathers Gardner/Murdock planes!

The relative lack of tools and holiday commitments whittled our little
group down to 3, and after Joe distributed the fruits of his bees labors
and a small amount of found gunpowder was sparked on the head of a ten
pound sledge for traditions sake, Bill, Tom and I repaired to the now
unpacked back end of the fleamarket for a second round.

Bill needed convincing that the big post vice at close to market price was
not worth the hauling, and I found a spiffy Spofford brace with an 1859
date on it  and my best find of the day, a tiny cardboard box with metal
corners, Disston #3 Saw screws, the box said a dozen but there are 4 sets
left.

As usual, the company is great, we all (mostly) look for different things
at the flea so there's very little competition, but a goodly amount of
slope nudging and SGFH cajoling.

Pics on GIC
http://galootcentral.com/components/cpgalbums/userpics/10071/DecAlameda16.jpg

http://galootcentral.com/components/cpgalbums/userpics/10071/sawscrewbox.jpg

Michael-along with the other Galoot A Elfs polishing tools and planing
fragrent packing materials for Galootaclaus.

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