new consumer habits.

[LizzieMaine]

What I really want to see come back are the traditional "Junk Shops," those dark little hole-in-the-wall storefronts in the rough part of town where there were tunnels cut thru the piles of stuff, and you could find just about anything you want for practically nothing. Way back we had one here called "Milt's", where Milt would sell you anything from a box of assorted left shoes to a tangled mess of rusty muskrat traps to a pile of abandoned school books to a slightly used forklift for pennies on the dollar.

But Milt died, the better-our-city crowd breathed a sigh of relief, and in the twenty years since then his storefront has been occupied by one twee little shoppe after another, none of which have lasted for more than a couple of years. Perhaps the time is right for a New Milt to come on the scene and show folks how it's really done.

PSG -- Do you know that place in Brunswick, just after you turn onto Route 1 toward Bath? "Ed's Place" or some such -- it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I went in there last summer and came out an hour later with four old magazines, a soup ladle, and a bag of British sixpences. And I never even got as far as the back of the shop.

 

[Paisley]

What I'd really like to see, though, is a real demand from the public for goods that *are* repairable. The idea that anyone would spend hundreds of dollars on something -- an appliance, a TV set, whatever -- that's only intended to last five years before you have to throw it away and replace it with a new one, strikes me as just, well, bone dumb stupid.

I bought an MP3 player last month and right out of the box, it didn't work. The replacement didn't work either. Then I thought, 15 years ago a Walkman was about $20. I decided I didn't need a $100 MP3 player--I plug in an old pair of headphones into my computer at work and bring CDs to listen to. And moving one earpad aside to talk to a coworker is more graceful than yanking out an earpod and letting it dangle.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

What I really want to see come back are the traditional "Junk Shops," those dark little hole-in-the-wall storefronts in the rough part of town where there were tunnels cut thru the piles of stuff, and you could find just about anything you want for practically nothing. Way back we had one here called "Milt's", where Milt would sell you anything from a box of assorted left shoes to a tangled mess of rusty muskrat traps to a pile of abandoned school books to a slightly used forklift for pennies on the dollar.

But Milt died, the better-our-city crowd breathed a sigh of relief, and in the twenty years since then his storefront has been occupied by one twee little shoppe after another, none of which have lasted for more than a couple of years. Perhaps the time is right for a New Milt to come on the scene and show folks how it's really done.

PSG -- Do you know that place in Brunswick, just after you turn onto Route 1 toward Bath? "Ed's Place" or some such -- it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I went in there last summer and came out an hour later with four old magazines, a soup ladle, and a bag of British sixpences. And I never even got as far as the back of the shop.

No, I haven't been there! I don't go out that way much but when I do I go to the indoor flea market next to Cabot Mills Antiques. I'll seek out Ed next time!

 

[Foofoogal]

http://www.vanburen.org/

right across the street from the old train station in Van Buren Arkansas is a shop like that. Antique/Vintage/Junk shop. You have to be careful walking thru it and sort of sideways. I don't know the name off hand but I love places like that.
In Willis Texas downtown area there is a hardware/meat market shop called Wise Grocery. You can find alot of stuff there including deadstock stuff variety from awhile back things.

 

[Warbaby]

What I really want to see come back are the traditional "Junk Shops," those dark little hole-in-the-wall storefronts in the rough part of town where there were tunnels cut thru the piles of stuff, and you could find just about anything you want for practically nothing.

Is this what you had in mind...?

 

[Flivver]

When I was a teenager in the late 1960s, there was a street on the other side of town that had several great junk shops like this. I was just getting started collecting old radios and living on a $2/week allowance plus whatever I could earn mowing lawns or shoveling snow.

A weekly visit to these junk shops always netted me a radio from the 1920s or 1930s and the price was seldom more than $3.

But, in the early 1970s, "urban renewal" came through and levelled the buildings these shops were in. So my "junk picking" moved to flea markets, which were just getting going at that time.

If the crowd of dealers last Sunday at my regular flea market is any indicator, this should be a good year for picking up neat stuff cheap.