Miscellaneous Flea Market Stories

For those of you who sell at flea markets.....how often do you run into this?

Fellow comes up, spends a minute or two looking at a small item and then asks how much it is.
When told a dollar, he looks a few more minutes (how much looking does a brass water nozzle take?) and then says he'll take it. Do I have a bag? Sure. I get a bag put it in the bag and he takes out his wallet, pulls out a $100 bill.

No thank you; even if I have the change I won't do it. This is just plain dumb behavior on anyone's part (the $100 bill).

Subsequently, most of the time now (unless I know the buyer) I won't pull out a bag until payment has been made. Seeing me not move, they sometimes ask "do you have a bag?" to which I reply "Sure I'll get that for you in just a minute" and I wait for them to produce the cash. Sometimes a $20 will come out for a $1 item, sometimes a $50. The fifty is a no-no.

The other take on this money exchange is the person who buys a $5 item and commences to retreive a plastic baggy full of loose change.  Quarters, not so bad, but $3 in dimes and nickels. Sometimes I tell them no. I don't sell anything for less than a dollar and I have no need for loose change. If I ask $2 and someone offers me $1, I will sometimes counter with $1.50, but "only if you have change, because I don't have any coins."

May sound petty, but hey, working for dimes and nickels....I don't need the money THAT badly.

yeah people at flea markets can be a pain. you can get those money markers very cheaply if your concerned about counterfit. i take big bills for small items but normally charge them a couple bucks extra for the exchange if they dont have anything smaller if they still wanna do it cool.

Ill take change as well although i always have bins of tshirts a quarter a piece.

yeah people at flea markets can be a pain. you can get those money markers very cheaply if your concerned about counterfit. i take big bills for small items but normally charge them a couple bucks extra for the exchange if they dont have anything smaller if they still wanna do it cool.

Ill take change as well although i always have bins of tshirts a quarter a piece.

I've been using the anti-counterfeit pen for some time and now with the shiny vertical threads, watermarks, etc it's getting easier to spot bad notes.

A year ago a nearby seller came over to me and asked if I could change a hundred for him. This guy had been around several years and was likeable enough. "Sure" I said and took the bill from him. I checked it by holding it up to the light first and there was no water mark where it should have been for that age of the bill. I also marked it and the yellow stripes turned black. When I mentioned it to him he said "Oh, I gave you one of those ?" Here, try this one. I just handed the 2nd bill back to him and told him I was mistaken, I didn't have enough change. It wasn't too many months after that we stopped seeing him around. Don't know what happened to him, but trying to pass off a phoney bill on one of your neighboring vendors was the ultimate shot!

That's an A**HOLE thing to do!  Almost as bad as the douche bag that passed off some counterfeit 20's to the girl scouts up here selling their cookies.   Glad you caught it, that could have been an expensive "favor"!

Movieman - Great tip for anyone selling in a public setting.  Anti-counterfit pens can be picked up at pretty much all office supply stores like Staples and Office Max.  Walmart used to sell them, but I haven't looked in awhile.

I just checked Staples online.  They have the pens as cheap as $3.49 each!  Well worth the investment.  They even have a UV light set up that you slide the bill under to check it, $31.49.

There is nothing worse than thinking you made a great sell, and next thing you knew you lost money.  It is even a good idea for people selling for cash on Craigslist.  If someone feels threatened by it, just tell them you had been taken on a previous sale, and have to protect yourself.

I have found sometimes they offer the larger bills on small ticket items hoping you will say just take it.I watched this family do it and ended up with bags full of stuff.

It also drives me nuts when people pile up 50 or 60 dollars worth of stuff and pull the I only have 10 dollars in my wallet. Oh.Well put the stuff back.

That happened to us last sunday. Pissed me off.

Well this weekend was my first try at the flea market.  Had planned on just Saturday but dad had paid for both days so went back today.  Most people didn't bother to negotiate or anything.  A few of the mexicans did but I'm cool with that.  I for sure try to get a lower price when I buy.  Today someone was passing fake $20s.  The flea kept telling vendors over the loud speaker to check their $20s.  I purchased a pen/light just to do that just in case.

Only 1 story from this weekend.  It involves an asian (think chinese) lady.  Yesterday she liked a red (lodon fog) mid length jacket that I had for $10.  She offered me $1.  I was like no thanks.  She came back a few mins later and offered $2.  I was still like no thanks.  So today she comes back to my table.  I suck with names but am pretty good with faces so I recognized her.  I figured she would go for the coat again.  Instead she starts looking at this size 9 gold ring (still has original tag that says US Gold, Size 9, $79.95 on it).  She tried it on, turned it over and over, played with it for a good 5 mins and wanted me to sell it for a $1.  She then picks up a $1 clutch, and 3 items from my quarter bin and wants it all for $1.  I counter with a $1.50 and she can get another quarter item.  She hems and haws, paws through everything in the bin, tries to say a tape measure is broken, etc.  She finally pays up and scooper her pile into a bag.  I notice that in the process she also helps herself to another quarter item.  One of those horoscope keychains.  I just shook my head at her and explained everything to my daughter who was watching her also.  Not 5 mins later she comes back.  I quickly come around the table to hover over her.  She picks up the tape measure and another item which I sold to her for a quarter.  Should of ran her off but the quarter items I put up there just to attract interest and wasn't too worried about getting stolen.

I sold a quarter item, the lady produces a quarter and walked off.  I am a huge silver bug, I check all coins to see if they are silver.  Yep!  1959 quarter!  Thanks for the 9 dollar quarter lady!

I hope they pay with quarters and dimes, it increases my chance of finding another silver one.  Im one of those that absolutely without a doubt will check every single coin that falls into my hand.   When I go to the grocery store, I always check the coin return on the coinstar machine.  They reject silver dimes.

I've got a nice big bag full of silver quarters and dimes.  I won't sell em though, they go into my "hedging against the dollar" fund.