Cool thread, guys
Love hearing about successes at car boots. I love the damned things but I'm pretty much sticking to Ford this year. The good days are the more dealer-heavy flea markets on Thursday and Saturday (0730 start) which have about a dozen car booters and Sunday is the main car boot but is (invariably) filled with the same old **** they couldn't flog the 51 previous weeks of the year. I don't know why they bother.
As for turning up early, up until about 4 weeks ago I spent the last 25 years believing it. I've actually found it pays off to turn up about 20 mins
after Ford starts. In fact, my decent finds have trebled as a result.
I go to carboots to find treasure! Stuff that I want for myself but mainly for stuff to clean. repair/restore, play with then sell on. At the moment it's a hobby which helps pay for SW but it's soon going to be my job as I'm thinking about giving up work to do it on a part time basis. I love it and do pretty well out of it.
Not much toy stuff from me and this wasn't all last weekend (although msst of it was) and all within the last 10 days. Ford is a goldmine particularly the dealers and house clearance guys. They like to
think they know the value of things but usually don't have a scoobie :lol: Unfortunately it means that things that you'd be happy to pay the going rate for go unbought. A nice scarred COO Snowtrooper that was filthy but in good condition had to be left because the **** wanted £10. It was his only SW item so he didn't have a ****** clue what he was on about.
Anyway, here's a few of the more interesting bits from the last 10 days. Description of each item is above the photo as it can get confusing!
1) Digby Dragon - £6. Tough one to research. From what I can find it was actually an American toy produced in 1979 under licence in the UK by Burbank Toys. One of a series of three woolen hand puppets that came in the plastic cages with plastic "meat" they could eat. I've found a photo of a catalogue from the time that shows these things had an RRP of £5.59! This or 5 Palitoy 12 backs? If only I could find the latter instead of this! When I bought it the box was split at every corner and it had years of loft filth. Now the unused toy (still had the carboard insert to give the puppet shape when on the shop shelf) is looking great.
2) Sony TC-366 Reel-to-Reel tape machine. This and the TC-161 (photo 3) came from the same guy. Both are mint. I don't mean really nice or good for their age of barely used. I mean mint. The R2R doesn't play and autostops immediately but I'm quite confident it's the old grease that's dried up and is causing the jam. I'll strip it, degrease then regrease it and all being well it'll be a fully functional work of art again. Not pictured is the smoked acrylic cover that came with it.
3) Sony TC-161. Came with the above reel-to-reel. When I used the AUX out to plug into an old radio to use as a speaker I couldn't believe it. The sound quality is stunning. Who knew cassettes could sound so good? Well impressed with this and if I didn't have a good tape player on my Panasonic GS-4000 turntable I'd keep it. I paid £40 the pair. This is worth around £60-£70. The TC-366 , on the other hand, when working should be around £400!
4) Cheated a bit here. Think I bought this about 2 weeks ago. It's a Roberts R707. This was the quad-band so is actually useful as the VHF is FM. It was filthy when I got it with stickers over the display at the top and much on the grill. An hour cleaning it and it's come up as almost new. It works very nicely. Not bad for a fiver. In this condition it should go for about £80.
Lots more bits and pieces to put up but have to go and tend my dear wife who broke her foot gardening today :?
