Flea market finds

 

Many different people come to places like these: scavengers, rummagers, bargainers. Likely everyone has stepped inside one at one point or another. Where is this place every person knows? The flea market.

Flea markets are essentially a collection of people with an entrepreneurial mindset gathered together to deliver goods to a community. When the customer steps inside, the flea market vendors do not expect every person’s interest to be piqued by their wares, but in the business world it is not those who walk by who matter, it is the faces you see coming in and out with hands full regularly. With an ever growing online market, one might think these flea markets would close down, but actually it is the opposite.

According to Pew Research Center, 79 per cent of Americans now shop online. It is hard to imagine anyone who has not shopped online, but what is harder to imagine is someone who has never set foot in a flea market, a thrift store, or even a Value Village.  So what is it that brings people to these markets? According to coolfundraisingideas.net, it is the variety of goods available and the ever so exciting bargains. In a variety of good bargains you are bound to find something unique.

Harry Bergman, an organizer of a regularly held auto parts flea market in Kingsville, says uniqueness is key.

“The auto parts are from the early 1900s to 1990, they’re vintage car parts, a lot of all originals,” said Bergman. “We got stuff from 1910, the 30s the 40s, they’re hard to get pieces, that’s why there are so many people here.”

There are flea markets in every corner of the world, different flea markets bring different things. According to TokyoCheapo.com, you can find things like kimonos or antique ancient tea ceremony sets. In Florida at the Red Barn flea market you can take in a show and indulge in some of the local cuisine. Naturally, it only makes sense for Windsor-Essex County to have an auto parts flea market.

“We become hoarders if you want to call us that, we’ll get a car, and then we’re looking for parts in case we need it, all of a sudden, we got a ton of extra parts and we sell the car and we don’t need the parts,” said Bergman. “So we’re here trying to sell them, and guys are coming and finding what they need, it’s a good deal.”

Some car parts are rare. Bergman himself owns three Durants. William Durant, the co-founder of General Motors, had his own car production line of his own model that ceased production in 1931. Bergman says parts for those vehicles are hard to find.

“I’ve made a few people happy today, there was a guy looking for a Model A fender and I happen to have an original, all perfect, all steel, he was the happiest man going when he found that. That’s what he needed,” said Bergman. “It’s one of those things. They reproduce them but they aren’t produced anywhere as good as the original. That’s a find.”

Flea markets possess a unique ability to showcase what is rare and interesting in the world, which is why flea markets are universal.