All,

like others, the local fleas are starting to pick up a little and this weekend
marked the first opportunity since last fall that I've had to get to a monthly
one held in the area.  Pickings were pretty slim but I did manage to get a few
things, nothing to gloat about though.

Given the relative disappointment of the monthly, I head to a couple of other
weekly fleas that are often more hit than miss in an attempt to scratch the
itch..  First stop was a bust for tools but found some old 70's rock and roll
records for $1 each.  The second had one vendor with a few hatchets and some
other odd things that I was interested in.  Downside was that was a guy and his
wife who I typically avoid as their prices are consistently way too high for me.
I would have walked on this time but was the only thing worth buying in the
whole place so I ask how much.  Wife comes back with about 4x what I'm willing
to pay, we go back and forth a bit, I put some stuff back and we dicker a bit
more then husband comes over.  I give him my best offer which is a little more
than I want to pay and he's no go so I thank him and walk on.  He calls me back
and says OK, OK, he'll take what I'd offered, so I pay him, take my stuff and
turn around to walk back to the car.   As I'm walking off, wife then comes up
behind me and grabs everything from my hand and shoves my money back at me!!!
While trying to keep a grip on my purchases and protesting that we had a deal I
found myself at a complete loss as to how to extricate myself from this woman's
grip without going against my upbringing.  Versus letting it turn into a
scuffle, I give in and take my money and am simply at a loss for words that
don't involve profanity or insults that wouldn't have gotten me anywhere.
Husband calls back that he'd make the deal for an extra $5.  I simply respond
that we already had a deal and we're done and walk on shaking my head in
disbelief.  Needless to say, I don't think pickings can ever be slim enough...

Take care, it's nuts out there,
Andrew

Andrew,

Behavior like that would get them banned as vendors from most of the Flea
Markets I know.

This might possibly be a case where "The eBay Effect" was in action.

This has been discussed on OLDTOOLS many times over the years.  It's especially
pernicious because some Flea Market sellers think the prices listed as "Buy It
Now" are indicative of what the item actually sells for.

John Ruth
Metuchen, NJ

Hey John, 

This Flea in particular could at best be considered "sketchy" - have gone there
for a few years and have only once seen someone on a golf cart who might have
been the owner/in charge.

Like I said, I'd thought I'd already learned to not bother with them as prices
have always been unreasonable.  Should have known better.  I don't know if it's
the eBay effect or not.  I'm pretty sure that sometimes just because a thing is
old and I'm looking at = must be worth $$$.  Nothing to do but laugh it off and
be happy I kept my mouth shut and didn't tell the guy his wife looked like she
needed a shave worse than he did.

Andrew

On 5/22/2023 2:26 PM, Andrew Bouland wrote:

> I simply respond that we already had a deal and we're done and walk on shaking
my head in disbelief.  Needless to say, I don't think pickings can ever be slim
enough...

Oh geez, I could and probably should write a book on this subject. I've
run into all types at the markets over the many years, some of them are
nice folks and I try to help out if I can when the price on something is
a little over what I'd normally pay for it, but some, I have no mercy
on, for various reasons.

Case in point, there used to be one doofus, that would set up for the
weekend at the Saylorsburg market years back.  And sometimes he would
have some decent stuff at okay prices, but sometimes he would be really
off the wall.  And occasionally he would put out a bucket of $1.00
tools, which 99.9% of the time, well I wouldn't have given him $1.00 for
the whole bucket.  However one day, there was a minty Starrett 12"
combination square rule in there.  I held it up and asked, "$1?", and he
said "Yes", so I paid him and left.

Don't you know a couple of weeks later when he was back there, he comes
up to me while I'm gazing at what he had and said, "You know, I should
have charged you a lot more for that ruler," and from the tone in his
voice, it was like he was expecting me to hand him more money.  I didn't
say anything and left him alone for the next month or so.

He never said another word about it....

Tony (yepper......)


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Andrew, Tony, and Assembled Galooterati:

Some members may not have joined the Porch early enough to have seen the great
flea market tales now stored in the OLDTOOLS archives.

Suffice to say that many an amazing thing has happened at Fleas! ( Like a Galoot
persuading a Pit Bull to let go of a market goer's leg by smacking it on the
head with a Stanley Bailey #8 ! )

Since nearly all Flea Markets charge $ for a table space, there's almost always
someone there to collect the fee.  I would consider this person to be the
Person-In-Charge.

I've seen people get "ejected and banned from the premises" several times,
usually for evasion of payment for the space.  Sometimes, though, it's
behavioral !

Occasionally, somebody REALLY acts up and the cops have to be called.

I've even seen State undercover detectives bust Flea Market vendors of CD's and
handbags for counterfeit goods.

John Ruth
Debating whether to attend the Tuesday AM Flea.

On 5/22/2023 5:40 PM, John Ruth wrote:

> Occasionally, somebody REALLY acts up and the cops have to be called.
>
> I've even seen State undercover detectives bust Flea Market vendors of CD's
and handbags for counterfeit goods.

I've seen a lot of that kinda stuff, but the best one was the time that 
the house of a regular shopper at the one flea market got burglarized 
during the week, and THEN the 2 geniuses showed up at the market on 
Sunday to resell the pilfered goods and were spotted by the owner of 
said goods, and well there was much in the way of yelling, and cop 
calling, and the 2 thieves got their butts hauled off to the county jail.

Yepper, there is such a thing as karma...

Tony


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Tony reminisced:
> I've seen a lot of that kinda stuff, but the best one was the time that 
> the house of a regular shopper at the one flea market got burglarized 
> during the week, and THEN the 2 geniuses showed up at the market on 
> Sunday to resell the pilfered goods and were spotted by the owner of 
> said goods, and well there was much in the way of yelling, and cop 
> calling, and the 2 thieves got their butts hauled off to the county jail.

Lovely. I can think of two fairly local fleas where this would happen (maybe
one. The other might have finally shut down for good, in part for this reason)

There are dealers I avoid, as we all do, because everything they sell is gold,
in their eyes. $US2 ballpoint pen, with no ink left. Handyman block plane with a
broken casting and missing cap $US%0. And all the rest. That isn't ebay pricing,
that is siphoning too much gasoline by sucking on the hose, and getting it wrong
every time. As the song says, Walk on by. (my favourite was when a seller pulled
up a listing to prove the price, and it was an Item I had bought. The price was
the buy-it-now, not the best offer I paid, which was MUCH less.)

{Flea's weren't productive, but I am looking right now at a nice sunday garbage
pick on my way back from a walk around the a lake- a couple Brodhead-Garrett
two-locker bench base units. There was a pile, and when I pulled over and
grabbed the first to put into my truck, several others pulled over behind me and
started squabbling over who gets them. I grabbed the second and left the rest to
them. If you took wood shop between maybe 1960 and 1990 in the US, you know
these lockers, since you project was always exactly a smidgen too big to fit
through the door at the end of class. I love the week before bulk pickup day)

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