Flea market
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A flea market, also known as a swap meet, is a place where vendors come to sell or trade their goods. The goods are usually inexpensive and range in quality depending on several factors which might include; urban or rural location of the flea market, part of the country that you are in, or popularity/size of the flea market. Flea market shopping is a popular pastime for many people in the Western world. The car boot sale is similar to a flea market, but is more popular in the United Kingdom.
The vast majority of flea markets in rural areas sell goods that are second-hand. Larger selections of newer but usually inexpensive items can be found at some of the larger or more urban flea markets. They have also sometimes been used as an outlet for bootleg movies or music, or counterfeit goods. The semi-spontaneous nature and vendor-oriented open-market layouts of flea markets usually differentiate them from thrift stores. Some flea markets will offer concerts and carnival-type events in order to attract shoppers.
Flea markets have analogous specialty counterparts in gun shows and hamfests, both of which offer both plenty of new merchandise as well as used goods for those into guns or ham radio. Like the general flea markets, both gun shows and hamfests do offer plenty of surplus goods.
Many television shows (starting in the late 1990s) focus on the appraisal of second-hand goods, often found at flea markets, that turn out to be worth far more than the buyer paid for them. In the United States, the most popular of these television shows is Antiques Roadshow.
The original flea market is likely to be the Marché aux puces of Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis, in the northern suburbs of Paris, a large, long-established outdoor bazaar, one of four in Paris, that earned their name from the flea-infested clothing and rags sold there. From the late 17th century, the makeshift open-air market in the town of Saint-Ouen began as temporary stalls and benches among the fields and market gardens where ragpickers exchanged their findings for a small sum.
The "other Paris Flea market is"Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves it keeps its original charm and originality. A veritable Ali-Baba cave, a large selection of goods awaits on the sidewalks of the avenues of Marc Sangnier and Georges Lafenestre in the fourteenth arrondissement.
There are four hundred merchants most of whom are « afficionados » of their merchandise and some are strongly individualistic personalities, being o mixture of specialists and some with a wide range of knowledge, all of whom offer you interesting merchandise gathered during the week from all over France. www.pucesdevanves.typepad.com
In modern days, the largest "flea market" for antiques is still that at Saint-Ouen. In the United States, a popular monthly flea market is First Monday Trade Days held in Canton, Texas, east of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
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