Jacky - what do you do after you have worn your clothes two or three times and all your "friends" have seen you in them ??

That's the point I was trying to make when I made my post about the Rastro. It was meant to be helpful to the OP. All it seems to have done is start yet another series of bickering posts.

Just in passing, was looking in the Euro weekly News which you can find online there is a vacancy looking for bar staff for a new bar opening up on the cds. Might be worth a look at.

Cheeeeeeky, late 40`s and 50`s, coupons needed for stuff like egg powder and 1 square of chocolate each.

a couple of months ago many of us tried to dissuade a poster from moving to Spain as their only income would be from English books sold at car boot sales.

Why do so many people think that the UK holds the patent\copyright or whatever on these things? Surely for centuries someone with excess baggage, or plain down on luck, has put a blanket down by the side of the road and tried to sell it all - including the blanket! That isnt a Brit thing!

I have to confess I've never heard anyone make any such a claim, much less "many people". I'm sure I'm not alone in never having been to a car boot sale, so perhaps I'm out of touch, but I always thought the whole idea of car boot sales originally came from the other side of the pond.

I dont know if it is a Brit thing, I think it might have originated from the USA in the form of a "garage" sale, where people stick a table up outside their house.

But it iscertainly not a Spanish thing, I have never heard of a car booty in others parts of Spain where there is not a large British population.

Spanish dont go big on second hand stuff.

Combined with another income, it might have worked to provide a few extras, but as a stand alone income it would be very touch and go.

very touch and go indeed

Whenever I've looked in an antiques shop in Spain (whether they are "proper" ones in the major cities, or what should actually be called junk shops) I've been horrified at the prices. They ask a fortune for stuff that could be bought very cheaply in the UK, especially now that "brown furniture" is out of fashion.

Likewise second hand shops for modern furniture and white goods - there is one at the edge of our town and I swear you can buy brand new cookers, fridges, etc. cheaper than what they have them marked up at.

Who are they expecting to buy the stuff?

The first car boot I went to was in Floriday in 1983 and it was literally that. Loads of cars in a field all goods being sold from the boot, not a table in sight or anything on the ground.

There was an example shown in the Route 66 programme presented by Billy Connolly on ITV this week - it was somewhere in Kansas and the things people were selling looked pretty dismal.

I've never been to a car boot sale as a customer, but when we were clearing our house prior to moving to Spain we decided to do one to get rid of some stuff. It was quite surprising, the things we thought were rubbish got snapped up, but not so the better stuff. We donated what was left to the neighbouring stall holders when we packed up and left as we couldn't be bothered taking it home again. It certainly wasn't worth getting up at 5.00 am on a Sunday for!

That's why we gave all the stuff we were not bringing with us to charities, including all of our furnisher.

I remember Australia in the early 70's, exactly the same, shops stuffed full of old "tat" with ridiculous prices on them. But then, in those days they had a different economic model, didnt like buying from the countries local to them or closer in the Pacific rim, prefering to buy from the UK and Europe, with the resultant shipping costs thrown in.
however, nothing at that time appeared to be wasted, although when someone wanted more for a rather worn second or third hand car radio than it cost new in the UK it had me thinking.

presumably people are buying this expensive second hand stuff.

That's what I think when you know that some of the Brits in the UK and Spain are doing it day in day out. A lot of them aren't really selling second hand stuff, just lots of cheap tat seen in any market. They have all this stuff at 50 cents or a euro and I think how much can they be earning as hardly anyone seems to be buying. Never understood the British obsession with markets.

When out friends were living in Lille, France they had a large shopping fair every Sept. We used to go a lot, great fun. Lots of antiques and ordinary houses would put their stuff outside the garden gate, lot of good stuff, I got Daughter ome super skis for next to nothing. Afterwards everyone would tradionally eat mussels and I remember the empty shells piled metros high in the streets.