Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Tool Deals). This thread is read-only.
Its worth a look round car boot sales folks I just picked up a duraspin DS22 AC collated screwdriver and 4 boxes of collated screws for £30.Now that’s a bargain 🙂
Forgive me Wayne, but what exactly is a “car boot sale” ?
Hi Tool Boy,
Over here If you have things you no longer want or need, you can go to one of these car boot sales with your vehicle, set up a table at the back of your car,truck or van, and sell them off.
An example someone hires for the day a car park ( these tend to have a roof and in England that’s real handy with our weather LOL) they then charge say £15 per vehicle for people to come on there to sell things out of they’re car, and £2 to walk on there to buy things.
You can imagine the people who run these soon make a lot of money.
But they are very popular and you can pick up some bargains.People sell all sorts of crap too lol if you can put it in a box, and it ain’t got a heartbeat you will find it at a boot sale hahahahaha. 🙂
We call those type of sales flea markets here in the states. Most do not charge entry for the customers only for the vendors. Your lucky Wayne most of the stuff sold here in our flea markets is junk. In more affluent areas sometimes the pickings are a little better, but just as often they have only newer junk.
I find my best bargains in pawn shops. Most often for uncommon tools that the pawn shops proprietor is not knowledgeable about, 50/50 chance of it being overpriced or under priced. Older tools are often what I do best on.
Don’t get me wrong there’s a whole pile of junk on car boot sales as well LOL.
Over here a flea market is often held on a town market where there are covered stalls like a table with a big roof so customer and stall holder stand out of the worst of the weather and the public can also rent a stall here too.These do not charge entry to the market either.
Reminds me of a room mate I used to have, he sold these incredibly cheap and horrible quality Chinese ratchet sets and wrenches from the back of his car. He used to go out on the road to sell them though, anyplace he saw people congregating was fair game for him. He made surprisingly good money doing it too.
I remember feeling like Superman using those tools, whenever you worked them, something always either bent or broke. We went through an absolutely hilarious amount of sockets and ratchet handles swapping out a starter from his car.
Quality finds at flea markets are pretty rare anymore. If you do find quality stuff it’s usually from a dedicated tool seller who knows what he has. I’m like you, I’ve been hit or miss with pawn shops. I bought the Makita LS1225 miter saw I have at a pawn shop for $125 and it was barely used. Same guy wanted $100 for an 18V Dewalt drill with 1 battery that look like it had been ran over by a truck several times.