SWAP MEET HIGH ROLLERS
By noderel:
Back a number of years, I worked in Wisconsin as publisher of Old Cars Weekly, a tabloid type paper that was beamed particularly to the restoration crowd. It was a buy/sell weekly where the emphasis was on, what else, money. And while reports of auctions were important, and the classifieds were foundation, we really did focus on swap meets. Big ones and small ones. We were present with subscription tables at most of the important ones, and we paid particular attention to how successful vendors of all category were, as that was a fine gauge of regional and national economic trends. We were in direct competition with Hemmings Motor News, although they were a monthly to our more timely every week.
It was in this context that I got to know some of the really high rollers of the old car hobby, certainly the suede shoe auction crowd. Used car salesmen with roll-up tents! They were people I knew about. But I was given an eye opener to the more basic swap meet professionals. Naïve I was about swappers, not so much the average guy hawking some rusty old parts, but the other end of the spectrum. And there is definitely an other end.
To my chagrin, I discovered there are professional swappers, and then there are Professionals. People who have approached the swap meet as what it is, a kind of roving honky tonk show playing to the local yocals.