Event Coverage Worse swap meet ever! [for me]

Twice a year we have a swap meet in Fremont, Nebraska. One is a standard 1 day affair and the other one is a Saturday and Sunday meet. This weekend was the 2 day-er and I decided to clear out my "big stuff" that weighs too much to trundle to the swaps in my little HHR panel. I borrowed my neighbor's single axle trailer, loaded it up with 3 chavy small block short blocks, one 454 chev block and crank and my extra '59, 389 Pontiac engine....threw in a narrow dana 44 posi and a huge 400 turbo from a truck...bolt-on flange type.
I filled out with a little card for each motor and trans, describing what it was and put a hunnert and a quarter for each engine and a hundred for the trans...100 for the rear axle.
I sat down and waited for the gates to open and the hoards to come to me.
Welp, the hoards began to slowly trickle in Saturday morning and by 1pm the trickle was down to nothing! I sold the dana posi for 80 bux and went home to shower and watch the Indy race on TV...showed up at 6 am today...Sunday
Nuthin....nobody showed up 'till about 7:30 and there were teeny groups of 2 and 3 guys wandering past my stuff...at times nobody was there for 15 minutes or 1/2 hour at a time! I took a few phone calls about the big block and one guy promised he was coming from home to buy it but said he wouldn't pay more than 60 bucks for it...I ddin't hold my breath. I ended up selling it to some guy for 55 dollars just to get rid of it.
That's it! Nothing else sold! The 350 is a real live documented corvette engine with sparkly clean innards and abdolutely NO ridge in the cylinders. I even dropped the prices on the engines and nobody wanted any of them! for any price!
Are these people buying crate motors? Is 50 dollars [I dropped the price to sell it] too much to ask for a complete 400 turbo? I'm cleaning out my rented storage garage and I guess it's gonna have to go to scrap..at least I'll get SOMETHING out of it.....maybe I'll save the 'vette 7 quart oil pan to sell to the corvette people...And I can't give up my 389 for scrap.
I was able to buy a model A rear spring for 10 bucks tho...that was cool.

 

sometimes that happens.......the next swop you may have guys fighting over the same shit.........i hate selling stuff.

 

its too hot. 4th of july coming up. I set up at 2 or 3 swap meets per year and I noticed most people like to buy small things. If you were close to me I would jump on those engines and transmissions. Things sell better if they are clean. I have sold quite a few things that folks came by my shop at a later date. I have also delivered several things from a swap meet. Money is tight every where. Better luck next time

 

That is the way of swap meets today. Two days ago I laid all my parts on the floor of my garage valued at about 3.K called a couple of swap meet vendors I know and one of them bought everything for $1000. cash I thanked him because now I am done with vending and listening to people moan and offer pennies on the dollar for parts. Good Riddance !!!!!!!!!!

 

yep, experience the same thing at local swap. more sellers than people buying. used to make some $ to buy other parts I need. now lucky to pay for entry and a Hot Dog. there are other swaps farther away that do a little bit better at. but, have to add up gas, etc. also, have a bunch of ads on craigslist and rarely get a response.

 

Last swap meet I tried to sell at, I sold not one thing. My brother shared my trailer at the same meet and sold everything he had ! Which was a lot of stuff. He wasn't giving it away, it was just the way the day turned out.
I do a lot on line now, because it is a more productive use of my time!

 

If you're ever coming out to SoCal for a Disney or beach vacation bring that '59 389 along and I'll gladly take it off your hands.

Whatever you do, don't scrap it!

Sad to see the action at the swap meet was so dismal.

 

seems to be all or nothing anymore. I'd love to have the 389

 

IMO, a lot of this is the result of EBay and Craig's List.

 

But Wayne you got to see Tony ,That's worth a couple bucks, Tim Jones

 

from what I have noticed lately very few people are 'building' cars. There are still those restoring or 'freshening up' old cars, but these people are looking for a specific part, I.E. "Chrome hood trim for a 68-72 chevy truck".
The rear ends, engines, fuel cells/tanks, springs just sit there.

 

my buddies and i have been selling at 4 day swap meet, tampa, then zypherhills, then webster, fl for 39 years. make a 4 day campout goodtimes, sometimes sell a lot sometimes little but always a good time amazing how fast the years pass. we loaded the trailer in 1981, never unloaded just add more. working on my last flthead car, have lots of parts left to get rid of,

 

Hahaha...that's true, Tim! Ol Tony is a classic...tried to sell me his supercharged yellow Dakota R/T pickup for a very appealing price. I want it but..........didn't sell enough parts to buy it..
I guess I'll stop whining now. I guess I'll prolly unload all those engines in my storage garage and trailer 'em all to the next swap meet. Better yet, place an ad on Craig's list...I don't think I could really scrap out perfectly good, [but worn] steel crank 283s. The point about cleaning them up is well taken too. A good power wash and a $4 can of orange spray paint really does go a long way to selling stuff.

 

I sold everything that didn't fit my current project a couple years ago. NOTHING sold at a swap meet. I went to to 3 and quit after that. No engines, no trans no rears; nothing that used to move. I may have sold a couple tail light lenses. Ebay and craigslist have ended the swap meet's effectiveness. I sold it all on those 2 sites and some wheels here. None of it was junk; a 706fwhp 406 Chevy, a roller cam 496, M-21 69 SS Nova, and some really neat stuff I had hoarded through the years.

 

I think you hit it on the head regarding crate motors. With the cost of machine work and sometimes uneven quality it doesn't pay to rebuild a Chevy smallblock unless you're building a race motor for a particular application.

 

eBay is not even close to be where it once was. Ten years ago everything I listed sold like hot cakes. I literally sold things I was going to throw away. Not any longer, I now find myself having to relist things several times and then they don't always sell.
There's always the HAMB Classifieds. I've done pretty well on there.

Gary

 

Went thru 2 of these fresh rebuild engines with my buddy.

The first was advertised as "fresh" with trw 0.030 flat top pistons and yhadayhadayada bunch of good stuff yhadayadah. Opened it up and it's a bone stock stinky stock bore dished piston hot mess from a junkyard & Here from the Hamb too.

The next was a fresh 283, stock rebuild with 0.060 over pistons, all new parts inside. I spent 15 mins at the machinists shop talking about it. Went back to the seller and This one was opened up before the money went out. The water passages were full of scale. The kind of scale the looks like its going to jump off the block and eat you. Sure was all new parts in there but just shaking a head had all kinda of scale shit falling out. Same in the block, the shop didn't even poke at the big chunks. How fast would that plug a 1200.00 custom radiator?

So, he ordered a crate engine & Was delivered in less than 24 hrs. He will probably never look at anything else ever again. I know I'll be way leery.

 

Old farts who can afford to pay high prices for parts are dying off. Young guys are not interested or can't afford the high prices.

 

Welcome to the new American economy the cost of living now takes it all nothing left over for car stuff I took 1400 pounds to scrap engine blocks 9 inch axels exhaust manifolds you name it after this and last years local swap plus 6 months on craigslist. I totally left feepay the buyer now holds all the cards if he want to rip you off it is as easy as pie just file a complaint about the most ridiculous thing possible and he wins.

 

I find it difficult to pull the trigger on big items anymore. I've been burned a few times by dishonest sellers. "Rebuilt" rearends with cracked pumpkins, a 283 with a big hole in the side of one cylinder. "I just took it out of my daily driver so I could put in the 327 Ive been working on."
Also, in so cal at least, everyone wants a fortune for their shit.

 

Don't scrap anything- put the word out to younger guys in your area and donate the stuff to them ( or charge scrap prices). This keeps the old parts in the loop and may inspire a kid with no money to get into hot rods and not "tuners". For the price of scrap , you could make someone's day. I'd rather give it away than throw it away. Like my buddy "Walter the Model A Man" says "Ya know, they don't make these anymore ( stock parts)". Last time I made good money at a swap was about 6 years ago. Then I got tired of loading Sat. afternoon, getting up in the middle of the night, unloading , re-loading Sun. noon, unloading Sun night, ---- that's a friggin' workout! ( on your days off). Now I vend light stuff that goes in my truck without a chainfall, and go to meets to socialize more than " get rich". Most of the swaps around here have turned into yardsales anyway- lawnmowers, used clothes, games, and not many car parts! The times they are -a- changing!

 

I've seen a lot of good items at swaps and then I've seen trailer loads of junk that would be better at the dump or scrap metal dealer. I always go for a look but rarely buy there anymore as I have everything for my project. An excuse to drive the car and catch up with like minded people. Too much bric a brac

 

You're right. I just bought a base 350 crate motor for $1329.99 delivered to my door. I couldn't rebuild one for close to that.

I think part of the swap meets being off is Ebay and CL, like Dave said. You get more for your parts and never have to dicker with anyone. (at least on Ebay). The other factor might have been timing. The week of July 4th upcoming is when people are thinking of other things than swap meets.

Don

 

I've been thinking about getting a slot and loading up a bunch of my stuff and going to a swap meet but the more I read these stories it makes me not want to.

 

Everyone comes to the flea markets in their Toyotas and Hondas, they are not able to take those hunks of iron home. Many times you will sell them a week later.

 

I usually bring the lighter stuff and have a poster with pics of the heavy stuff and cars for sale.

 

I have had better luck getting rid of stuff on Craigslist. Just takes a long time. But its better than hauling big stuff to the swap meets and bringing them back. I tried for 3 years to sell a 34 Ford transmission and rearend. Finally got one person interested at a meet and sold it with the brake rods, torque tubes, radius rods, everything from the flywwheel back to the brakes for $100 just to get it out of my way.

 

I still like swap meets. It sure is nice for a buyer to be able to look at something, pay you, and haul it off instead of sending 101 pictures and descriptions, boxing everything up, hoping a shipping company doesn't destroy or lose it, and then hoping the buyer didn't see something in his head that was different than what you shipped.

 

Don't forget the Ford Barn - sold most of my roadster left overs there.

 

Swap meets are still cool for me .... swapping spit and swappin' shit instead of online shenanigans are good when you can get it. I've been burned both ways with all forms of interspace classifieds. Doesn't matter how awesome you buy or sell, reputation wise ... seems there's always a way for someone to bust the strap on your pants and hump ya'. You obviously have a great parts stash, and I hope and pray some of us ... will appreciate bumping into a good guy like you. Here's to next time !!!