I was thinking today when exactly car boot sales began? I imagine that like Drive-ins it must be an American invention and started in the 50's but I'm guessing.
Of course car boot sales are just one of countless types of sales: table top sales, flea markets, yard sales and jumble sales.
Fleamarkets must be ancient things going back centuries.
I wonder when the first toys were resold at any of these sales? What where they?
Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, so it would probably have been a few days later (first weekend, at a guess).
ReplyDeleteha ha, like it Kev. Yep. those early collectors of flint kicked it all off!
DeleteCar Boot sales can't have begun in America, since American cars don't have 'bonnets' and 'boots', they have 'hoods' and 'trunks'.
ReplyDeleteMish.
That pesky Hood, he's always up to no good!
DeleteBritain seems to have a lot of different terms for what are all generally just called flea markets in NZ. Indoor or outdoor events, at which items are sold from tables or a blanket on the ground. The more up scale affairs are called collectables fairs or markets. A garage sale is people selling off household items from their driveway, in front of the garage, usually spread out over the ground. The British car boot sale is often just called a boot sale, and I recall thinking this was a really weird term when I first encountered it, probably in the 1990s.
ReplyDeleteTerms will differ worldwide I imagine Paul. In Germany where I used to live for a few years car boots are called Flohmarkte aka fleamarkets. There is no difference as far as I could see. They do have a wonderful tradition of leaving unwanted household items outside houses for a while before the Council comes to take it away. This is called Spaermuhl [pronounced spare mool] and in the 80's I found a treasire trove of tin toys in one pile! James Bond and more. All Japanese. Wish we had spare mool here! Have you?
DeleteSeems to have taken-off while I was in the army . . . mid 1980's, but by 1991 it was well organised with weekly mags and all sorts, I'd say if anything it's tailed off a bit now?
ReplyDeleteH
Not sure Hugh. I go to one regularly on a Wednesday and on Sundays so it seems pretty lively still to me, especially after lockdown in Spring, when there weren't any. I used to buy collecting magazines like Collect It and they did cover car boots a bit. Were there dedicated car boot mags?
DeleteThere used to be an annual inorganic rubbish collection in Auckland, but the council scrapped that a few years ago. People put out everything on the grass verge or footpath, and you could scavenge, even if that was frowned upon. Again rare to find any good toys or die-casts. Good for books though. I even got a very nice office swivel chair at one of the last collections, very comfy. What are called boot or car boot sales in Britain would be called flea markets in NZ, just as in Germany. Some are held outside, others inside, in a parking building. I too read Collect It, which I enjoyed. At one point they had a column devoted to McDonalds Happy Meal toys and the like. There was also another magazine, which I am trying to remember the name of, Collectables perhaps ?
ReplyDeleteYep, Collectables. I've sold a bundle of these collecting mags on Ebay recently. Oddly enough a copy of Die-Cast magazine from the 1990's I listed didn't sell.
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