Event Coverage overheard things at the swap meet

Not a swap, but outside a big dep't store in Sunnyvale, CA., Christmas Eve:
My wife and two little daughters, ages 5 and 1 are looking at Christmas trees. The tall 9 ft. Noble was majestic, would fit nicely in our living room under the vaulted ceiling...It was priced at $70.00. The manager came out himself, talked it up how the 'Noble Fir' is THE tree...etc., etc.
I offer him $20, he looks at me like I'm crazy..."NOBLE FIR!", he fairly screams... "Yes, but how much can you get for it tomorrow?"
Twenty bucks. LOL Merry Christmas. (our house was being worked on at the time, so we weren't going to get a tree that year...the girls said, "Oh, Daddy...It's Christmas! ...And Santa won't come where there's no tree..." Had to get it.
...And, we decorated it that night! Best Christmas ever.

 

I like to Say : what is THAT ? I might need it..

My garage, "Where I keep my stuff, while I go look for MORE stuff......."

 

Hey, he's building a rat rod. How sharp could he be?

 

"1$ 1$ 1$"

 

Will pass on this weekend's Pate Swap Meet sell which is all ready on Craigslist....good luck to him !
Years ago had a descent set of early Corvette caps with the spinners...just a good old set...little dinged but was looking for $45 dollars....a guy kept coming by offering $25 or so and would drop em down on top of each other and walk away...'bout the last day I see him coming and moved to the back as my buddy came up to the front when the guy made another $25 offer...my bud said $45 takes them home as he drops 'em again and says they are kinda beat up....you hear my voice from the back saying - if d heads - would not be picking them up and dropping them - they'd be a lot f ing better....we all laugh about it now....about 20 or so years back......

 

Should read the CL list on the car I just sold.....you'd think Boyd had just built it....it was a stock 1965 Dodge Coronet Station Wagon runner....

 

Years ago we had a pop bottle/sign collection. There was a vendor with an original, unwrapped 1930's Orange Crush sign. Wife wanted it. Guy was asking $50 for it, that's about what they were going for at the time, maybe a little less. I gave her money and told her to go buy it, she didn't want to give $50 but didn't want to haggle with the guy. I go down, look it over and offer him $30. He just stares at me and after a couple minutes he says "get the hell away from me". Several hours later we are ready to leave. The wife has mustered up her courage and walks down to the guy, looks at the sing again, holds out a $10 and a $20, "would you take $30 for it?". I'm standing about 5-600 foot away watching from on top of the hill where he can't see me. I see her walking really fast back towards me. When she gets there, she says the guy told her "go to hell and tell your stupid husband to go with you. Told him no, telling you no, understand?". On the way out we were telling my brother in law about it and laughing. He walks over to the guy and offers him $30. Guy blows up, starts screaming, yelling, spitting, turning red, shaking....was funny as hell. Then he yells "take it, take the damned sign, everyone that's looked at it all day has offered $30. Take it and leave before I have a stroke!" Brother in law takes it, pays the guy and walks off. Guy was still yelling about it as we left. Still have the sign, wife has learned how to bargain a little better now, too.
SPark

 

We were at a big Ford show in Columbus back in the 80's, and a guy was selling some slip-on seat covers. "Made with crushed velour inserts, and bolsters from hides of the Naugha."

 

When I'm a vendor at the swap meet I love when the buyer asked if that's the best I can do on an item he wants to buy. I usually reply yes" I" can do better than that and come up on the price 5 or 10 dollars. I love the look on their face when that happens. I am a vendor at an annual swap meet and had one of those old toy metal garages from the fifties or sixties for sale. It was fairly large and anyone wanting to buy it didn't want to lug it around after the purchase and asked if I would hold till they came back. In 3 years I sold it three times to three different guys who paid for it and forgot to pick it up at the end of the day till it was finally sold and taken the fourth time out. It became a running joke with the other vendors and they all too had similar stories of larger items people failed to pick up after purchasing or putting down a deposit on.

 

I have had this happen to me a few times. The best one was a guy that gave me a $50 deposit on an old porcelain Goodyear sign. He asked when I would pack up for the day, I told him about 4PM. Never saw him again. I took the sign back to the same swap meet the next year, raised the price $50 to give me some dicker room. The same guy comes along, looks over the sign and tells me he saw a sign like this last year but he was on his bike and couldn't haul it. I asked if he left a deposit on it, he said no but I should have. I said I would take 50 bucks off the tag price, since he had left a deposit he said no he hadn't, I say yea you did, the dude gets about half pissed. He said I want the sign and you don't have to take 50 bucks off the price because I never gave you a deposit!! He forks over the full asking price on the tag, picks up the sign and walks off. I guess it takes all kinds!!

 

I've never gotten so lucky as to get overpaid or have an item left behind.
I usually mark my junk to sell and if they want to cut me at the knees I say no.

My best ever money makers were some meat carts my grocery store gave me when the health inspector said they were in violation because they weren't stainless steel (id welded their shopping carts up for years and was close with the manager) those free carts were worth big bucks to guys trying to drag transmissions along.
Also worked on the highway and picked up a lot of bungee straps and chain boomers. Id always toss out a few and when they sold put out some more. I got paid to pick them up off the road, and got paid to sell them.
Like double free money!

 

At a large swap meet several years back, I had 4 matching 53 Olds hubcaps. One that I had for years & 3 that were given to me that day. Didn't have a dime in them. A guy comes by & looks them over, asks how much. My answer was $15 for the set. He tells me everything he knows about Olds hubcaps. After a while he says "well, I dont know, would you take $20?" Oh, I guess. I don't have an Olds anyway.

 

I have two brothers. One that always went to swap meets with me and another that is a salesman that has always bought only new things and thought we were crazy to like and work on old crap. We always called him mister spiff because of the clothes he wears and he never got dirty. One year he decides to go to the swap meet just to spend some time with us. We walk into the building and start hurrying down the isles, scanning quickly for our first pass around the meet to hopefully not miss bargains and a few spaces down we realize our brother mister spiff is not with us. we look back and he is standing and staring at the first booth we looked at. We go back to get him and and ask what are you doing ? He says with this what the hell look on his face, their's nothing but but rust here ! We ask him ,what did you think was here ? He said He thought there would be vendors of new car parts everywhere. We laughed and all proceed on. At the end of the day before we left mister spiff bought one rusty bolt. He laughed and said now I am like you guys. I bought my first rust. That was probably the best swap meet I ever went to. He still goes with us just to have fun.

 

I usually have pretty good experiences at swap meets. If I see something I need and it's priced right I don't haggle. If it's a litttle past what I think it's worth I'll make an offer but it's never more than 20% less than the asking price. If the gap's more than 20% I can't afford it.
I was at a swap meet years ago and one guy had a Chevy tailgate I needed that was in pretty good shape. Only a couple of easily fixed dings in it for $50. I had already spent all but $20 of my mad money and the tailgate was already priced right so I left him with the $20 as a deposit until I got to an ATM. I found an ATM a couple of blocks away and though it wasn't my bank and they charged an extra $3. I figured it was still worth it. It took me 20 minutes to get there and back to the seller's space and noticed it wasn't in the back of his truck anymore. He handed me the back the $20 deposit and said a guy offered him $75, so he sold it. I asked him if he knew what a deposit was for. He shrugged his shoulders and just sat back down....That kinda pised me off.

 

I have to wonder at the people who would rather break stuff than sell it . My experience is those folks are the same ones that complain about parts countermen that can not read their minds and guess what vehicle they are wanting parts for. The real problem with swap meets is the people who stand and block the tables of parts and remenice about the old days, and don't buy anything.

 

Kinda??? Apparently you are a very tolerant man, especially when dealing with weasels.

 

Yeah...At that point the tailgate was gone and anything I did then would probably just land me in jail. Just move on and know that Karma is a mean old lady. LOL !!!

 

I buy a lot of used stuff...a lot, to me part of the deal is to haggle( can’t use the right word anymore) on the price, most of the time. The part may be worth X amount to the seller, doesn’t mean it’s worth that to me. Maybe worth more, I have paid more than asking price when a part I want was woefully underpriced, just to be fair to the seller and myself. I have to live with myself. But , to me that’s a large part of the experience of a swap meet/ garage sale / flea market. If you are one of those that doesn’t like to “haggle” put a large sign in plain view “ prices are firm “ and we won’t make an offer, or at least I won’t. Just my .02
Bones

 

I was about 14-15, me my dad and my little brother made the annual pilgrimage to Good Guys in Indy. We were wondering around the swap meet area and saw a 32 Ford coupe sitting on a frame, so I ask the guy how much, "$20,000" he said. At this point I think my dad was ready to buy it thinking he said $2,000. This guy starts getting huffy "the ash trays alone are worth $2,000" I think my dad was about ready to deck him.

 

Some time the the reaction is worth the cost.

 

"The _______ are 2 for $10 apiece."

 

That's when I would say to him.... "Well, you sold my tailgate so you still owe me the other $25!"

 

Last year my kids were across the aisle looking at a table full of Chinese plastic crap (toys). Came across while I was looking at a guys stuff and asked me for some money. Vendor that I was at says “now kids- everything at the swap meet is priced to haggle - so offer him less than he wants and he’ll sell it to you cheaper”. I gave them some bills and watched them walk back across to the other booth. And then said “ well, on your advise- I’ll give you $50 for this battery!” Could see the horror in his eyes—— he had a new Optima 6 volt battery marked $75, already a bargain and was going to buy it anyway..

Lucky for me so many people abandon 6v and most of my junk is 6v. I’ve paid retail for exactly one of my 4 optima batteries.


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The only reaction you would get out of me is "what a dumbass".

Mick

 

Back to Jefferson, it was a nice event and it was good to me. Found a lens for my Pontiac trunk light (Impossible to find) and an early EP4B for so little, it was scandalous. Should have flipped the guy an extra $50 just because...
We definitely got windburned Sat!

 

But you would go away then and that is the whole point of the exercise.

 

not a car event but a yard sale, the wife were on the way to the dump and stopped and bought a very nice long table to put our new 55" TV on, just the right size, for $20. Paid them and asked them to hold it until we get back from the dump. They say OK. come back about 15 min. later and two guys are loading my table up! Ends up the sellers resold my table to someone else for $75. Damn, my TV look great on my $20 table!

 

When you leave something at a booth or garage sale to be picked up later, you're trusting to the integrity of the seller. Most people are honorable, but a small percentage are not. When I get a screaming deal on something, I try to get it out of there as soon as possible, to remove the temptation. Especially if it's big and in view.

Other side of the coin: One meet me and my buddies got our wires crossed and brought way too much stuff with us, and our area was overloaded. During set-up, another vender asked about an old industrial table. I sold it cheap, telling him I needed the room and it needed to leave today. He agrees and dissappears. Next morning I sell it to a gal immdediately, and now she wants to leave it. I tell her, "Here's the thing. I already sold that table yesterday under condition it go away, and the guy didn't show up. Now you've bought it for the same price. The first person who takes it away gets the table, the other gets their money back." She flagged down a kid with a cart and took it on the spot. That afternoon the first guy shows up looking for his table. I gave him his money, expecting a ration of shit. Instead he says, "Yeah, I should have picked it up yesterday like I said." Turned out to be a pretty nice guy and he bought some other stuff from me--which he took with him!

 

I have sold at swap meets / flea markets for 50 years. I have been known to destroy an item or 2. I don't mind haggling as it is fun, but don't bust my balls. If you do, you can't buy the item at any price.