take me to that specials place
I’m thinking about setting up at the flea market. It’s $45 bucks for a spot at Alemany in San Francisco. I’ve brushed elbows with a few full timers in that trade and it takes a strong stomach. The gates open to the public at 7 am and you need to be set up and ready for the sharks, the self employed wild bucks who support God knows what with this lifestyle – what kind of drugs would you be on to show up at 6:30 am Sunday morning to stand in line so you could be the first to sift through a dead person’s possessions?
You know they are specialists by how they hold something. Like an ass-man they flip everything over and look at the back first – is the teapot marked? Are the bronze bookends stamped? Is the painting in it’s original frame? Is the vase signed?
They flip everything, but not like homebuyers. They buy with a target in mind. They will hold onto a piece and wait for the big Deco sale in New York, or the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. Annual events that bring in high end buyers who drop big bucks on rare items. These early morning hustlers are competing with pickers who buy to resell immediately to other dealers who don’t get up so early, or may be across the bridge at Alameda, the once a month flea market on the old Navy base.
People are cranky at that hour, and it’s still dark and they have two thousand bucks cash in their pocket and they’re scared. Scared they’ll miss a deal or make a mistake. It feels desperate out there, pushing and shoving, cursing, stealing. Anyone who knows anything keeps their mouth shut. Don’t tell the seller what he might have, don’t show excitement about a piece or another buyer will appear out of no where to drive up the cost. It’s like the floor of Wall Street, people want to make fast deals and get to the next stall and have a look. There is no one in that crowd saying, “My grandmother used to have one of those.” That kind of mentality will get you pushed to the ground and stepped over. These people are brutal as arms dealers in a war zone.
About ten years ago I opened a junk shop back in New Hampshire. I got used up by these people. People who make their living driving around looking for something they can buy low and sell high are people who are at all times somewhat insecure. What if they come back empty handed? All that fuel and time wasted…no fresh meat. Most likely there is a garage or a barn loaded with stuff, but they need something new. If shoppers were content to see the same thing in the same place day after day, grocery stores wouldn’t run specials or switch out the end caps. Shampoo wouldn’t be in aisle 6 one day and aisle 12 the next. Sellers know that to shake money out of our pockets, we need to be shaken up ourselves.
I got to spot these sharks by how methodical they were, and how they could spin a story about there hobby and how good my shop looked, Jon, and I have a lot of nice stuff, Jon, and if they bought a bunch of stuff usually they got a better price, right Jon? All the while they are looking not at me – definitely not in my eyes. They are on their hands and knees going through some dusty box they spied behind the counter and asked me to pull out. They said my name hundreds of times because I was a little baby they were lulling to sleep and they would soon have stolen the candy right out of my hands.
By the second or third time they came through I got wise and raised prices. And they got mad. Now it was high pressure sales, with me the salesman being bullied into a corner. I didn’t know what I had and they did. But I had it and they wanted it. Things got nasty. I was hungry but didn’t like being taken advantage of. None of my local customers wanted this stuff, so I needed these guys to spend some dough with me. Their bullying worked. They dictated the prices.
After nearly two years in the junk business I gave it up and moved west to chase the cowboy dreams. Those are behind me too, and now I’m ready to get into the flea market. Get to know some of these characters, the buyers and sellers. From a distance, not relying on them for my rent. There is a lot of freedom in that lifestyle, and freedom tends to burn people out. A loosely regulated cash economy of hustlers. I’m ready to jump back in.
I think I would read a novel that took place in a flea market. Gotta be tons of good stories in there. And by good I mean thoroughly depressing.
People walking around flea markets with $2000? You should be rolling these people, or at least picking their pockets.
Comment by Lyle_S — December 7, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
well said. real writing. thank you
Comment by critic — December 7, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
beware the bedbugs!
Comment by raid — December 7, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
I used to sell junk.
Comment by Anonymous — December 8, 2008 @ 8:23 am
It would be interesting to write a novel about robbing a flea market at the early morning hour of 5:30 am. Because those people fer sure have some dough. Those maniacs would band together and hunt you down. They have access to unregistered guns and most likely some have contacts with fences, thieves and therefore killers for hire.
Comment by Rolston — December 8, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
`I’ve gone into lots of music shops. “We sell used guitars” Bullshit! They COLLECT used guitars and then display them for three or four years because they are priced $sixty dollars less than retail. After four years in a window the guitar isn’t even worth sixty dollars.
“Four hundred? Is that the best you can do?”
The guy looks up from a box of twisted mic wires.
“Yeah.”
“You just like to look at it don’t you.”
“It’s a good guitar. If you can get it for less then go get it.”
Don’t become one of these people. There’s a price to carting around boxes of trinkets too. Even if it means you don’t get top top dollar for every original star wars toy at least you don’t own it for so long that you can’t afford to sell it. Ebay is the only way to tell what an item is really worth. If you want top dollar then auction it off.
Comment by oggy bleacher — December 11, 2008 @ 10:18 pm