The Record and Music Market
I have a book library in
the hallway. A CD library in one of the spare rooms, and in my study my
collection of dead rock star figures, musical instruments and more books and
paintings and posters and not a lot of wall or floor space.
So when I saw an
advertisement for a record and music memorabilia fair at the local antique
market I thought to myself: “That seems like a great way to get rid of some of
my accumulated collective material.” In
that, what I really meant was all the stuff that was cluttering up my living
space and making it hard to sit down, let alone walking in a straight line.
So, convincing myself
that if I hadn’t looked at a book or listened to certain music for a given
amount of time, or even had two of any particular thing it would go onto a pile
to sell. Now, I don’t actually have a
lot of records, I replaced most of them years ago with CD’s so my main area of
music-related sale items would be books, figures and ephemera, things like old
magazines, patches posters and tickets.
As I gathered these
things into a pile in my study, my son came into the room and looked at the
stack about two-foot square and about the same in height he asked if I had gone
out and have a big buy up and did I really need more stuff?
I proceeded to tell him
of the market idea and that this was the stuff I was going to sell. He looked
around and wanted to know where did it come from?
Seriously, looking around
it was almost as if the cabinets and shelves had let out a big sigh of relief
and stretched out now they had more room. Apart from the pile in the middle of
the room, it looked like nothing had changed.
 |
| The start of the pile of things to sell |
I was confident now that
I had more than enough to sell and went off and paid my fee at the market. The
man there showed me the table I would be using and was glad to see it was
exactly the same kind of portable table I had in the garage at home.
So, when I returned home I took all my stash into
the garage and set about organizing my stall. I placed and stacked and
rearranged trying to get the right look, or appealing showcase of my wares. I
was quite enjoying this when the wife
popped in to see why I was taking so long, when she asked if she could play shop too, she was banned. It’s my shed
after all.
I was getting excited as
the date arrived and everyone had a piece of advice. Make sure you bring change, everyone will have fifty dollar bills.
People will knick anything, not in your eye line. You’ll get so bored, take a
book. No one could dampen my enthusiasm.
I was good to go.
 |
| Some of the stall Mine is middle top |
The market was being held
on the Sunday of the Queen’s Birthday weekend at a large antique and
collectables warehouse in Kilsyth and I had to be there at 9.30 AM to set up
for a 10.00 AM opening.
The night before I had
packed my car up to the roof with my wares, being the long weekend I could only
use my Ford Focus, I couldn’t borrow any of the kids larger cars because they
had all gone away for the holiday. I got a great park right out the front at
9.30, walked in and got a front row table and started to set up.
Started but never really
got a chance to finish.
People started coming in
early- as everyone knows the early bird gets the bargain- I looked up from
arranging my books and figures and there was a group of people waiting to go
through my meagre record stock (all up I think I only had about 25) I didn’t
expect anyone to be interested in these as I put more faith in my music
biographies and reference books being more desirable.
Nope,
I had people ripping out
records and waving money in my face while I was still trying to unfold my camp
chair. Things settled down after a while but much to my surprise my vinyl
records didn’t last long and the rest of the day was a steady stream of a sale
here a sale there just enough not to be able to nick off for a coffee break, so
luckily I bought my own thermos of hot sugary milk ( I forgot the Tea bags)
All up I had a good day
and made a healthy return on my goods. None of the things that people of great insight said came true
and the car was a lot easy to pack up that it was that morning. The guy who had
the table next to me, a retired gentleman who did this for pocket money (he
also sells a lot online with eBay) said he did well and I suggested he pick a
book he’d like and I picked out a CD I didn’t have and we were both pretty
happy with the trade.
Apparently, there’s going
to be another one in a few months, I’m thinking rather than try and find a spot
for the stuff I bought home, I just might give it another go.
originally published in the BBCN Issue 279 July 2019
