Saturday, December 9, 2006

A Day at the Swapmeet

A Day at the Swapmeet
By Stefan Ponek

If you're confused by the new breed of collector-dealer-speculator that's started showing up at radio meets, you're not alone. Heck, just going to get rid of a few items you purchased while under an attack of Saturday Morning Fever can throw you into a quandary of ethics, etiquette and outright fear.

As you unlock the trunk of your Honda, you're trying to remember how much you paid for that damn pink clock radio last fall. Then you notice out of the corner of your eye that forty-seven lurching, drooling guys with weird eyes are running toward you, holding out dollar bills at you and tripping each other, deliberately it seems. They're all pointing at different things, and none of it is unloaded yet. A woolly hand reaches over your shoulder and yanks the Detrola cathedral into mid-air.

"How much for this busted up cathedral..." (as the box of unwrapped open-pin tubes falls into the abyss created by the cathedral's removal).
"Oh, gee, I guess I'd like 50 for that, but it's not busted up..." (at least it wasn't).
"Huh! too much!" (as the ancient wooden cabinet thunks on the pavement and a knob falls off).

Later on, this guy is back whining because you sold it to somebody else and he really wanted it. "You dealers get really high prices," he says. Telling him you're not a dealer wouldn't make much difference because he now believes you probably strangle kittens for fun during the week, anyway. As he walks away, two old, old, old-timers, both of whom knew Marconi personally, come by and ask how much you want for the pink clock radio. When you tell them 10 bucks, they smile at each other and walk away, secure in the knowledge that you're the person responsible for over commercializing the hobby (and also making their IP-500s equal in value to a college education).

After realizing you let the box of tubes go for way too little at 50 cents each, that by selling at this meet instead of buying you missed out on a Charlie McCarthy that your buddy is gloating over getting for 125 dollars, you decide to pack up and donate the pink clock radio to the auction. You wonder why guys who deal in this stuff for profit do it. And how they do it. Then you see the tubes on another guy's table for 5 bucks each.

As you start to drive off, somebody is yelling at you. Now what. The club president says your pink clock radio didn't sell and you better go pick it up because you can't leave it. You quietly vow to stay away from garage sales forever, but deep in your heart, you know you'll repeat this scene over and over. You're a radio collector...


Copyright 1994 California Historical Radio Society, all rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior written permission from CHRS, except that you may make "fair use" of quotations of text fully attributed by you to the source (CHRS Journal) and author.

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PO Box 31659
San Francisco, CA 94131

http://antiqueradios.com/chrs/journal/swapmeet.html

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