Flea Market Pick Ups: Part 2

     Oh, Fleamasters Flea Market. The repository of most failed businesses in Fort Myers and liquidation center for all junk no one wants. I call this home. See Flea Masters Pick Ups Part 1 here.

  
  I really did not plan to end up at the flea market, it was more of a super-fail garage sale adventure. I tried to follow some leads on Craigslist but everything had packed up for the day.
     The weather was awesome as you can see from the picture of Mcgregor Blvd above, so I'm not so sure why the garage sales were not out in abundance. I just kept driving until I was downtown, and before you knew it, I was at the front door to the flea market.

     Fenced in to keep out the looters on weekdays, you get assaulted by fruit sales people from every entrance to the inner sanctum.

     I took this picture literally five feet after walking past the fence and in to the strange building. I live in a super high tourist area, so a huge amount of stall/shops in here are "Florida" shit sellers. Look honey, a real Florida turd! I love it.

 

     I made my way around to a second larger building that has less of the touristy stuff and more of the garage sale like stalls. As in my last post about this flea market, one of my acquaintances has a large area in here where he sells books. Above is the books i found in front of a romance book store. I really don't like bagged books. Anything with a bag on it people are going to pick up and pay too much for. The prices listed are almost always mid-high eBay prices. (which is what I go buy when i find something and log it)

 



     I rounded the corner behind where they sell the beer, yes i stopped there first, and made my way to the Hall of Books. I had heard this was where all the old books from the Silver Platter record store made there way to, so i had to check it out.

     The fantasy and sci-fi book shelves seemed a little picked over, and most of what I saw, I had or did not want. Another fail! First no garage sales.. then this?

    I promised myself i would take home something, so I talked to the guy taking the money about the possibility of there being some books from the Silver Platter's inventory laying around. He confirmed it, and pulled some bins from under the table. I wont ruin the rest of the post, but lets just say I did find some just great books here, and the only thing that put me over my budget was a 20oz beer. Beer is always on a separate budget from here on out.

 

     He had all the other strange shit from the Platter, like old vinyl and tons of anime VHS tapes. I stuck with what i know but the Weird Al in 3D almost had me.

 



     I'm sorry for the blurriness of this picture, I was told by an old man not to take it so I moved and it went to shit. Quickly, I was taking a short cut through where the vendors park and unload their trailers and vans and what-not, and I saw someone selling books out of fruit boxes for real cheap. No order at all. I stopped and bought a few books for literally pennies and made my way back to the car, stopping at the table that i stopped at in the first flea market post to finish my beer.

 

    Mission accomplished. Now to see todays take...

 Click to zoom

 

     Bagged books! Prices as marked when I use to buy them from the Platter back in the day. Prices vary between $8.00 and $15.00 a book, but he gave them to me for the six-for-five price listed on the home made sign above his shop. Some really cool old books and two not so old books I needed to complete a set; Lucky Starr and the newer C.S. Lewis book in the top left corner. Quick eBay searches on the couch with a cold one were in order after some picture taking sessions. Apparently the prices on the books are pretty accurate to low-eBay pricing which is great. One was way over, The Return to Jongor, because of it's famous Conan cover art. All in all I made out with about $200 over the money spent in book value. Seems as if my dry spell is over for the moment!