Used to dig through every bin at the flea market, now I walk past most of them
There's a flea market off Highway 9 in Lambertville I've been hitting since my oldest was a baby, so about 12 years now. Back then I'd get there at 6am with a coffee and literally dumpster-dive every single bin, boxes of junk spoons, chipped plates, mystery cords, all of it, because you never knew what was hiding at the bottom. I once pulled a 1940s Pyrex mixing bowl out of a $2 box of Tupperware lids and that kind of hit kept me digging for ages. Now I walk through in maybe 20 minutes, hit maybe four tables, and I'm out of there. The reason is simple, most sellers caught on and either know what they've got or price everything off eBay on their phone right at the table, so the odds of a steal dropped hard. I also got tired of hauling home stuff I didn't actually want just because it was cheap. My rule now is I only stop for glass, old kitchen tools, or anything with a hand-written label still on it. Curious if other people have changed how they hunt too, do you still dig through the dollar boxes or just scan and move on?