Been a while since my last post. Divorce is jogging along, having been slowed down by my wife changing her mind on financial agreements. I'm going to have to get rid of most of my material goods as for a while I won't have a permanent home. The idea of getting rid of most of my 'stuff' is actually quite liberating. Just one car bootful of clothing and necessities will be all I'll have.
To this end I took a carload of goods down to the local 'lazybones' bootfair. Arrived shortly before it was due to start to find it actually in full swing and thronging with a variety of folk. Even before I'd unloaded the traders were peering into my car and asking what I had. Bumped my prices up a bit - of they really wanted the stuff they could pay a decent price for it. They were quite friendly and chatty, actually decent people rather than the the vultures I'd half expected. Sold a few bits to them. The process of setting out my goods was rather delayed by constant enquiries from the passing punters, ended up as a series of alternating negotiations and arranging more chattels for sale.
After the initial rush, it settled down to fairly regular enquiries for various bits. Once everything was out I could relax more and take in the scene. Most of the customers were ordinary people more interested in just nosing round than buying. If anything took their eye they'd enquire the price and either buy at that price or leave it. There were the 'trader' type people who would happily haggle and were quite content if you stuck to your price. There was also a tiny minority of quite aggressive buyers who seemed to think you HAD to sell to them at whatever price they offered. Luckily they were easy to spot and didn't seem too bright. they invariably offered about half the asking price, so it was simple to double the price wanted to allow the knockdown. Not possible with everything, but the 'junk' items I didn't want much for could be dealt with in that way. It also surprised me how many foreign languages were being spoken. In ordinary life I meet hardly any non-native people, I'd assumed there weren't many in our local area. Just shows how wrong your preconceptions and prejudices can be.
Quite a successful morning all in. Took about £150 after expenses. I just need to stop thinking how much I'd actually paid for all the stuff I sold. It had all been sitting doing nothing for years, and I'd had good usage out of much of it, but the 'as new' value still compares badly with the boot sale prices!
Previous boot fairs I've done had been pretty unsuccesful, this one worked well because I had a lot of decent stuff to get rid of. There were surprises - books, cups and glasses were a complete waste of time. Tools were good sellers at decent prices, but the biggest surprise was a box of junk 78rpm records which had regular visits by a variety of people (all men!) and quite a few sales. I'll try my more modern vinyl if I do another fair.
