Word: marketed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...praising the enterprise that she and her husband run in Houston: a flea market, that most elementary form of commerce. All across the U.S., inflation-weary Americans searching for lower-priced goods are making flea markets a jumping business. Thousands are operating in non-luxe hotels and discount stores, at race tracks and drive-in theaters. Some are in cities, patterned after the grandfather of flea markets, the Marché aux Puces in Paris, and the ancient bazaars of Cairo, Baghdad and Tehran. Many, many more are sprouting on what were once dusty, barren plots along highways a few miles...
Sometimes the idea is just to salvage a going concern. Notes Bill Buchholz, who runs flea markets billed as "swap meets" at his Miami drive-in theater: "The quality of the movies is so poor and the cost of getting them so high, I'd go right out of business without the swap meets." Quite a few flea markets are still fleabags, but the institution has taken on enough respectability that the U.S. Economic Development Administration has funded Washington, D.C.'s first permanent flea market...
...sample of the prices and pitches at New Jersey's Englishtown Auction Sales, the largest flea market in the mid-Atlantic region: $3.75 for a solid leather belt ("Why pay a buck for a bonded belt that will become brittle and broken?"); a still-to-be-dickered price for a potbellied-stove door ("When you need it, you need it"); $1.75 for a goldfish ("You get the bowl, you get the sand, you get the fish, you get two weeks' supply of fish food"). Says Steve Sobechko, who owns the Englishtown market: "It's a great recycling...
...Flea markets thrive on nostalgia. Explains Susan Pressly, a New York City nurse and a frequent visitor to New Jersey's Lambertville Antique Flea Market: "You can go there and touch something from your childhood." When Shirley Temple ruled moviedom in the '30s, small blue drinking glasses bearing her pixie face were packed in countless Wheaties boxes. The glasses now fetch $9 each at MacSonny's flea market in North Reading, Mass. Anything old sells: wedding dresses, shoes, and, for collectors, Coca-Cola signs, beer cans and comic books. Says Bill McCrenice, an antique-store owner...
...flea market's weekend often starts just after midnight-at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. Saturday, when sellers begin to set out their wares. As early as 4 a.m., professional buyers start to appear. Many are dealers looking for bargains that they will resell at sharply marked-up prices. By early morning the casual crowds start swarming in, and then the haggling begins...