These are wonderful places to buy (and sell), if you know what youre doing. Flea markets and car boot sales are very similar events with the main exception that one is usually held indoors, the other outside. Give them a go, have a great day out, and come back with lots of great stuff to sell on eBay. TIPS * Inspect sellers stalls, especially inexperienced sellers at boot sales and flea markets. Youll normally spot them from their haphazard approach to selling, unpriced goods, and hoards of pets running riot and kids fiddling with the stock! They usually offer the best bargains and will offer further discounts to ensure they sell out on the day and dont take unwanted stock back home. * Always haggle with sellers, even for low value, high resale items. A caudle cup, priced at 5, haggled to 3, resold in Edinburgh recently for many thousands of pounds. * Arrive early at fairs, swapmeets, markets, before other dealers get first pick of bargain goods and miracle finds. Say youre trade, even if youre not, and gain admission long before the doors open to the public. * Look for items now sold individually which were originally issued in sets: some postcards, cigarette cards, some books. Find one and chances are the remainder are lurking alongside. For example, at a northern flea market I spotted a postcard showing what looked like part of Christs face, followed soon by cards depicting other body parts - feet, hands, legs. Eventually I found twelve cards which I realised fitted together, in jigsaw fashion, to form Christs body, with each card focusing on important events in the life of the Messiah. The cards, costing 20p each, were part of a composite set, which I kept, but is definitely worth hundreds of pounds. * Look for items that are poor sellers in one area with high potential demand in another. Santa Claus postcards, for example, are hugely popular in America but just another postcard theme in Britain. * Learn about most desirable and high price collectable makes and makers in your chosen field. Steiff for teddy bears, artists such as Kirchner and Mucha for glamour postcards and prints, Sutcliffe for early topographical photographs, Corgi for toys, etc. * Look for goods to buy in bulk which can be dismantled and sold individually. Though still presenting competition from fellow dealers at auction or other selling venue, most collectors or dealers avoid buying in bulk when just a few items interest them. Postcards and stamps frequently come in bulk, in albums, as do boxes of books, toys, ephemera, and such. Likewise job lots, unwanted collections, and so on. For a recent example, the sale of items belonging to the late Dame Catherine Cookson featured hundreds of individual pieces, alongside trays and boxes packed with smaller less valuable goods, the likes of books, cutlery, small ornaments. For a few pounds per lot northern dealers acquired boxloads of items belonging to the norths most famous and best-loved daughter which were quickly cleaned, priced, and sold individually at flea markets, boot sales and from ads. in regional newspapers, not forgetting eBay where my own purchases sold like hot cakes in America. |
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