The best thing about flea markets is "the hunt" -- searching for that diamond in the rough, that needle in a haystack, that super bargain.
Fellow flea marketers..... agree?
In my opinion, the second-best thing about flea markets is getting the opportunity to interact with the vendors.
Howdy them.
Discuss the weather.
Ask how the weekend has been going, as far as sales and "people traffic".
Find out more about their stuff.
That sort of thing.
First off, the 60-something guy wearing the Cardinals shirt. Watching over the furniture at his wife's booth. I'll refer to him as "Red".
The conversation kicked-off by me asking Red if he had stayed up late last night watching the end of the Cardinals win. That kicked-off a conversation about Derek Jeter and the absolutely "storybook" way he had finished his Yankee Stadium career.
Red proceeded to tell me that he was a native New Yorker and a big Yankees fan. He ended up in Mt. Zion after some time in Chicago and a career that allowed him to have the freedom to move around a little bit.
Although I did not buy any of Red's wife's furniture (which was really cool repurposed stuff), the 5-minute chat with him was fantastic.
Then there was the lady selling her marbles.
Actually, they were her deceased husband's marbles.
We'll call her "Margie".
If I remember correctly what Margie said, he had over 6,000 of the little glass balls.
She had already worked with a professional expert to appraise the collection. That expert kept every marble valued higher than $250 and was going to auction those off.
She had all the $250 and under ones with her for sale.
Yes folks, I held a $250 marble. It was quite large.... slightly larger than a golf ball.
I asked Margie what made a marble worth $250. She proceeded to tell me age, size, clarity, condition, rarity, and design/pattern.
In the case of some of her $250 marbles, they had really cool patterns inside of them. I forget what Margie referred to them as, but they had a specific name and were rare. Quite rare. $250 rare.
Yeah, she had marbles $250 all the way down to $1.
And what was really cool.... Margie let each of the girls choose a marble out of her dollar box.
Told them to let it be the start of their own collection.
How neat.
Yup, flea market convos are awesome. Thanks Red and Margie.
Out for now.....
Matt