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July 6, 2006
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Field guide to the flea The biggest flea market I’ve ever been to is in southern Ohio, just off Interstate 75 between Dayton and Cincinnati. Acres and acres of parking lot were covered with used trinkets, bootlegged movies and homemade clothing. A building housed a few dozen more vendors, selling everything from guitars to goldfish. Hollis Flea Market This border town gem is actually a conglomeration of three outdoor flea markets right next to each other. They coordinate on when to open and close and share expenses for the police that direct traffic, but operate mostly independently. Just south of Route 101A and just north of Silver Lake State Park, the location is convenient and the vendors are plenty. Parking is $2, and don’t even think about parking on the side of the road. Signs line the shoulders for a mile in either direction, and police do patrol the area. The flea markets stretch across Route 122, and police help shoppers cross the sometimes busy road. On the west side are two separate markets, one anchored by a small antique shop at the south, the other by the owner’s house at the north, with groceries and toiletries for sale in the garage. You’ll find all manner of sellers at both markets, as well as carnival-type food vendors. On the east side of the road is the largest single market, 13 acres of mostly outdoor dealers. A long, narrow building splits the market in two, and you can walk through small rooms housing semi-permanent shops. At one end sits a snack bar, where hot dogs, fried dough and soft drinks are readily available. Hot dogs and soda in the morning? Sure. Keep in mind, many vendors are up at 4 a.m. setting up their booths. If you sleep in, you lose out on the best deals anyway. Hang around later in the day, though, and you might catch some killer deals. With that in mind, vendors frequently pack up long before 3 p.m., depending on the weather. A cloudy day can threaten rain at any time; sunny weather, on the other hand, is not to be wasted on base commerce. One dealer likes to rid himself of his entire stash each weekend, so a cry of “Everything is free!” can be heard from the back of his truck sometime in the early afternoon. If you want to sell your own stuff, it’ll cost you $20 to $22 for a 15- by 20-foot space. Londonderry Gardens Flea Market In sheer volume and density of dealers, this market may be the area’s best bet. Rows and rows (and rows) of tables offer everything you can get at any other local flea market — plus the fabled “and more.” Most unique here might be Joy and Richie Natarelli’s produce stand. They get their strawberries, cucumbers, potatoes and other fruits and veggies from the New England Produce Center in Chelsea, Mass., the same place most supermarkets in the region stock up, but sell at flea market prices. That means cheap. Other regular dealers include a few uber-patriotic button and bumper sticker shops, the Personal Computer Repair Wizard formerly located in a downtown Nashua store and several low-cost clothing booths featuring jeans and tube socks galore. You’ll also never want for refurbished VCRs, antique (or, at the very least, old) furniture or compact fluorescent light bulbs. The market’s main food stand sells hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages with a heaping portion of peppers and onions. You can get fried dough at the southwestern corner. If you want to get rid of your own stuff, the owner has a deal for you: nada. You get one table for one weekend for free if you’re a first-time seller. Junk in your attic? Clear it out. Roommates skip town? Sell their leave-behinds for rent money. Failed singing career? Unload the thousand CDs you pressed. The only catch is that you pay a deposit in the morning when you set up and if you leave before the market closes, you forfeit the deposit. That’s part of the secret of this venue, though — dealers have an incentive to stick around and not just pack up after lunch. For that reason, shopping is good right through the middle of the afternoon. Grandview Flea Market If you’re having trouble finding this place, keep an eye out for a clam & ice cream restaurant and an eight-foot pink elephant; the first is across the street and the second is on the same corner. No, really. Unlike the other flea markets mentioned here, Grandview operates the whole year ’round. At least, the indoor portion does, which has allowed a more consistent and permanent dealer base to develop. There are shops with actual walls rather than a simple table-and-tarp setup, including two music stores — one for instruments, one for vinyl — and a computer supply place. One note: there is a candle and incense dealer located inside, just around the corner from the food counter. This can lead to a rich cacophony of aromas massaging your nasal passages. If you find it pleasant, more power to you. In the summer, outdoor tables open up as well. The layout is a bit more improvised than Hollis and Londonderry, with tables lining makeshift roads along the hilly topography of the property. The parking lot is small and quite susceptible to weather. Think mud ruts. Parking is free, though, and a couple duck and goose families cheerfully greet you. Sale space is $10 for Saturday, $20 for Sunday. Comments? Thoughts? Discuss this article and more at hippoflea.com |
Who Sells • Yard saler — amateur: Ah, the poor, innocent yard saler. Naively hoping that someone will happen by and want, nay, need his set of three bowls with honeybee patterns on them for 75 cents. Chances are, though, someone will indeed buy it, if not this weekend, then the next. • Yard saler — professional: Unlike the amateur yard saler, the professional is in it for the long haul. Returning week after week, he never really decreases his stock of items; rather, the flea market is a chance to both make money on his current goods and troll around for new inventory. You’ll almost never see a price sticker here — you have to ask how much something is, and you’ll immediately get two answers. The first will seem a little high and the second, sometimes framed with “for you” or “but today,” will be more reasonable. Almost never will he say the word “dollars,” as that reminds you that you’re paying actual money for a wooden lamp carved in the shape of a dolphin. • Specialty seller: Maybe you like books. Or maybe you like DVDs, or Beanie Babies, or slightly irregular sports franchise clothing. Whatever your passion, there’s probably a flea market dealer who specializes in just that type of item. He may even buy excesses of such item from you. Most often, the items are either slightly used or factory seconds of some kind. It’s like a small section of Building 19, but outside. • Importer: The importer has a steady, consistent supply of goods, most likely from a foreign wholesaler. He would perhaps like to own a retail store, but the overhead of the flea market is much lower. He might also be a weekend warrior, with a regular job during the week but an irresistible urge to engage in commerce two days out of seven. The low-cost wholesaler offers him precisely that chance. He buys boxes and boxes of merchandise for a fraction of the cost per unit one of us would pay for a similar item in a store. • Knife dealer: Common enough to warrant his own category, the knife dealer has products ranging from sharp things that look pretty on your wall to sharp things that could quite easily kill you. Pocket knives make up most of his sales, but passers-by are drawn to the elegantly sculpted, semi-precious gem-hilted decorative knives, exquisitely crafted swords, medieval fantasy replica weapons, pewter figurines, novelty cigarette lighters and, er, “glass pipes.”
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