Big Score! Books at the Flea Market

7 years ago

We attended the annual Chelsea Market last weekend. This one day event takes place in a quaint village and is well attended by people all over the state and beyond. Two village

Greens are filled with vendors selling antiques, high-end hand made items like blown glass, home spun wool and wool items, wood crafts such as burl bowls, farm made cheeses and the like.

By far my favorite though is the Library book sale just adjacent to the Green. I got there about midpoint of the sale so still plenty of time. Great prices for books - .50 cents for paperback and

$1 for hardcovers. As I was just starting to make my selections for purchase an announcement came telling us that from then until the end of the sale all books are $1.00 per box or bag.

Most of you here likely have read and/or own most of these books but for me they are all new reads. Here’s what I got for my dollar:

The Hotel New Hampshire – John Irving

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A Treasury of Bird Lore – Kutch & Eriksson (editors)

Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner

Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard

Flipped – Wendelin Van Draanen

The Quilters Apprentice and The Master Quilter – Jennifer Chiaverini

Running With Scissors – Augusten Burroughs

The Odds – Stewart O’Nan

Quite a year for Plums – Bailey White

The Second Confession (Nero Wolfe) – Rex Stout

How DH ever fit all those in a single tote – including 19 DVDs – is beyond me. Just so you know, I did give them $2.00 because it really should have been two bags. But technically I only spent $1.00.

Not bad, I say. The only one unfamiliar to me is Quite a Year for Plums. Anyone know this one?

So how about you – any scores for you lately?

Featured Answer

carolyn_ky

7 years ago

I have several quilts hand made by my mother. One is a queen size that I asked her to make after we switched to a queen-size bed. She and I went to a great fabric store and chose the pieces, and she made a Log Cabin pattern quilt. I sleep under it every night in the summers. (In winter, I prefer an electric blanket.) The others I have are a Dutch Doll, a Lone Star, a Flower Garden, and one I don't know the name of. It is a pattern of four triangles stitched together and set on blocks of white, and the pieces are from scraps of dresses and sunsuits she made for me when I was small. They are all very dear to me.

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Comments (12)

annpanagain
7 years ago
Yes! Two HUGE Bryce Courtnay books for $1 each from the library discards rack for my D.

I could have bought a bag for $5 but couldn't see anything else I wanted.

Your score was magnificent, did you take off your sweater and wave it around? :-)
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked annpanagain
kathy_t
7 years ago
That was a good day's work, Skibby!
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked kathy_t
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Every market is different and some of them (mine) do not attract high end clients. I sell at a HUGE flea market where most of the customers don't speak English. They come every weekend. They come with money in their pockets. They come to socialize and shop. I love building a relationship with these people and I have to keep in mind the limits of their resources. I try to tailor my product size to the price they will pay rather than force larger, fancier product on them. It seems to work. Every weekend I see new vendors trying to sell some homemade product and getting frustrated with the lack of sales. I try to explain that open-air vending is different, a certain type of person will be coming to this site. They shop for different reasons, they value things differently than most people. What you think will sell may not move at all. If something gathers lots of interest but few sales then it is time to re-evaluate the price but rather than slash the price or raise it drastically, pull the item from the shelves and bring it back next weekend repackaged a different way so that you make money and the customer sees it as a better value. What works for one vendor at one market may not work for another somewhere else.
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Thanks to all. Greenthumbfish, I saw that stencil at Hobby Lobby. I ended up passing on it because the repeat on the pattern was so small. I was afraid it might end up too busy. I wish they would have made a bigger stencil! Parma, I agree with you 100%. I think that day, my stiff upper lip was already starting to quiver b/c of the rest of the chaos I was having to be so strong about. Handling critique and suggestions (albeit harmless and trying to be helpful) that I had not solicited was just more than I could stand, especially when I thought I was pretty clear on the nature of the post. Again, it had nothing to do with the comments, and everything to do with the timing. Sometimes you just can't hear how you can be "better", especially when as you explained, "better" is so subjective to personal style. I will remember your words, though, and will make sure to laugh at myself as I count my accessories! Puna, I have to say I'm pretty dismayed as well. For the life of me, I can't figure out how removing those comments was necessary or helpful. (Yours and several others, including some of mine!) Ugh. LaFonda, yes, my stomach went into knots when the property manager called and said I needed to get over there immediately because water was "everywhere". I thought he was exaggerating. He wasn't. Ugh again. Joanie, I don't think I'll stop, but I think I may definitely change how I post photos. This post has served as very clear reminder of how some people think, and knowing I can't change that, all I can do is change how much of it I set myself up for. Patty, you got the whole point of the post; I was delighted to find something so pretty when I was going through something so horrid. Thanks for "getting it."
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carolyn_ky
7 years ago
Quite a haul!
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked carolyn_ky
sheri_z6
7 years ago
Fantastic haul! Our local library stopped doing book sales a couple of years ago and I miss them so much!
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked sheri_z6
woodnymph2_gw
7 years ago
What a great selection! Stegner's "Angle of Repose" is a true classic and one of my favorites.
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked woodnymph2_gw
netla
7 years ago
I love finding book bargains. Unfortunately, the pickings around here have been slim lately. The charity shop where I get many of my books has stopped accepting mass market paperbacks older than about 5 years, and has drastically cut down on accepting all older paperbacks. No more finding old pulp paperbacks with deliciously lurid covers (I collect those) or picking up a whole series of detective novels from the "for free" bin (like I did with Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn series). I do still occasionally find books I want, generally hard-cover editions and coffee-table books on various subjects, but they raised the prices on those. I do, however, usually come out of there with 2-3 books when they have a sale.
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked netla
Rosefolly z5
7 years ago
I love Angle of Repose. I think you will like it.

Many years ago I back in the pre-WWW internet days, I was on an all-text internet group called Quiltnet. A young woman named Jennifer Chiaverini started posting. Her husband was a graduate student at my old college (Penn State), and to fill her time she decided to write a novel based on quilt making. She consulted the Quiltnet group for quite some time as part of her research, the group members happily coaching her. In fact I remember answering some of her questions myself. She went on to publish an entire series, and moved on from there to writing biographical historic fiction. I've always felt rather proud of her success, almost as if I had been her mentor (which of course I was not!)
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked Rosefolly z5
skibby (zone 4 Vermont)
Original Author
7 years ago
Rosefolly - that is so cool!
annpanagain
7 years ago
The Seniorcentre in the city which has all kinds of services (I mostly use the hairdresser, podiatrist and cafe) sells donated books. Sometimes they get a complete library but that isn't always a blessing! We have had old philosophy and YA books dumped. They rarely get sold and take up space. The bookcases have to be double banked and it is hard to see what is behind the first row, let alone on the lowest shelf!

I know that the donors mean well but the library worker in me itches to cull them!
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked annpanagain
bigdogstwo
7 years ago
Hi Skibby,

I have plans to get to a book sale this weekend, so I will be back to let you know how I make out! After reading your impressive list, I am even more excited to see what treasures I find!

And if I cannot fill my bag with stuff I want to read, I still grab a few of the popular titles and then drop them off at my hospital's cancer center for patients and their family members who are sitting in the waiting room for them.

PAM
skibby (zone 4 Vermont) thanked bigdogstwo
skibby (zone 4 Vermont)
Original Author
7 years ago
PAM - what a nice idea. I'll adopt it.

Big Score! Books at the Flea Market

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