Flea market

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A flea market (or swap meet) is a type of bazaar that rents space to people who want to sell or barter merchandise. Used goods, low quality items, and high quality items at low price are commonplace.

Many markets offer fresh produce and plants from local farms. Renters of the flea market are vendors. It may be indoors, as in a warehouse or school gymnasium; or outdoors, as in a field or parking lot or under a tent. Flea markets can be held annually or semiannually, others may be conducted monthly, on weekends, or daily. Flea-market vendors may range from a family that is renting a table for the first time to sell a few unwanted household items, to scouts who rove the region buying items for sale from garage sales and other flea markets, and several staff watching the stalls.^[1][2][3]

Flea market vending is distinguished from street vending in that the market itself, and not any other public attraction, brings in buyers. Many flea markets have food vendors who sell snacks and drinks to the patrons,^[4] Some flea market vendors have been targeted by law enforcement efforts to halt the sale of bootleg movies and music^[5][6] or knockoff brand clothing, accessories, or fragrances.

Regional names

Different English-speaking countries use various names for flea markets. In Australian English, they are also called 'trash and treasure markets'. In the Philippine English, the word is tiangge, believed to be a loanword from the Hokkien spoken by Chinese Filipino migrants,^[7] or possibly from Nahuatl tianguis via Mexican Spanish. Although it is locally called talipapa.^[8] In India it is known as gurjari or shrukawadi bazzar or even as juna bazzar.^[where?]. In England they are known as "car boot sales" if the event takes place in a field or car park, as the vendors will sell goods from the 'boot' (called "trunk" in American English) of their car. If the event is held indoors, such as a school or church hall, then it is usually known as either a "jumble sale", or a "bring and buy sale". In Quebec and France, they are often called "Marché aux puces", while in French-speaking areas of Belgium, the name Brocante is normally used.

Origin

Albert Lafarge writes that one of the first American flea markets was the Monday Trade Days in Canton, Texas, which began in 1873 as a place where people would go to buy horses; later, they brought their own goods to sell or trade. Other towns quickly adopted this pattern of trade, but the modern flea market was supposedly the brainchild of Russell Carrell, an east-coast antique show organizer. Working as an auctioneer in Connecticut, Carrell thought to run an antique show like an outdoor auction, only forgoing the tent, because fire hazards were too expensive to insure. Carrell's 1956 Hartford open-air antiques market was claimed to be the first modern incarnation of the flea market, although the true flea market does not consist of professional antique dealers, but rather of people looking to make some extra money on the side. ^[9]

Origin of term

The origins of the term "flea market" are disputed. According to one theory, the Fly Market in 18th century New York City began the association. The Dutch word Vlaie, or vlie, meaning a swamp or valley, was located at Maiden Lane near the East River in Manhattan.^[10][11] The land on which the market stood was originally a salt marsh with a brook. By the early 1800s the "Fly Market" was the principal market in New York City.^[12]

Another theory maintains that "flea market" is a common English phrase calque from the French "marché aux puces", literally translating to ("market where one acquires fleas").^[13] The first reference to this term appeared in two conflicting stories about a location in Paris, France in the 1860s which was known as the marché aux puces (flea market).

The traditional and most publicized story is in the article "What Is A Flea Market?" by Albert LaFarge in the 1998 winter edition of Today's Flea Market magazine. In his article LaFarge says, "There is a general agreement that the term "Flea Market" is a literal translation of the French marché aux puces, an outdoor bazaar in Paris, France, named after those pesky little parasites of the order Siphonaptera (or "wingless bloodsucker") that infested the upholstery of old furniture brought out for sale."

The second story appeared in the book Flea Markets, published in Europe by Chartwell Books. The introduction states:

In the time of the Emperor Napoleon III, the imperial architect Haussmann made plans for the broad, straight boulevards with rows of square houses in the center of Paris, along which army divisions could march with much pompous noise. The plans forced many dealers in second-hand goods to flee their old dwellings; the alleys and slums were demolished. These dislodged merchants were, however, allowed to continue selling their wares undisturbed right in the north of Paris, just outside of the former fort, in front of the gate Porte de Clignancourt. The first stalls were erected in about 1860. The gathering together of all these exiles from the slums of Paris was soon given the name "marché aux puces", meaning "flea market", later translation.^[14]

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