What's your DUMBEST buy at a swap?
 

I bought a set of blue Rally IIs for $15 apiece. Turned out to be 5" spacing.

I bought a mint '65 GTO trunk lid a couple years ago for $25. They don't rust out - can't give it away.

The guy said the rearend was a posi out of a '69 Firebird for $75. Turns out it was for an S-10.

Bought seat covers for my pickup. Don't fit.

The lessons don't stop there... Wait 'til April and do 'em again. You'ld think I would be genius by now.

"I bought a set of blue Rally IIs for $15 apiece. Turned out to be 5" spacing." I did the same,sold them for what i paid thankfully lol

A 20.00 sawzall. I figured what's 20 bucks, I'll take a chance. He figured, priced at 20 someone will take a chance on this JUNK sawzall.

Bought some Weld Prostars for my 64, I knew they were 5.5 backspacing, but wanted some burner wheels and thought they would be ok. Once I got home I found they were not Welds, but a knock off, they only had a weld center cap. Felt like a total idiot, but they still work for some burner tires. Good thing I did not pay too much for them.

Ugh... Footlong Spicey Italian Sausage

SawzAlls are pretty easy to rebuild and parts are widely available. Problem is that at best you'll break even selling it if it is an older model.

bought several Thermo-clutch fans thinking they were the " hot thing "

Burnt through clutch hubs, then chunked my water pump with the 3rd clutch hub.

I've not run any belt-driven fan since 2003

Did you sell them to 67 black goat?

4 15X7 Chevy rally wheels for my 75 Monte Carlo. Paid decent money for them.

Took 'em to get tires mounted and balanced, guy said, "did you know 2 of these wheels are bent"?

Not my dumbest buy but not writing down a swap location after a buy is pretty dumb when you say you'll be back to pick it up.

Couple years ago I bought 4 Rally IIs with rubber on FRIDAY for $40. Swap was big and I was pretty sure where it was. Forgot about them until Saturday afternoon. Looked and looked and looked. Nothing. On SUNDAY morning I kept walking and looking. I had given up and figured a $40 loss. Around noon the swap was clearing out and across the field - probably a 7 iron away was a stack of 4 rims/tires that suddenly appeared before my eyes. I walked over and there they were. The guy left them for me to find.

The swap taketh and the swap giveth.

Cool of the dude to leave them.

Those may not fit a F or A body but they are valuable to the big car guys. Those were a DEAL. Know your market.

Lucky no one else picked them up.

Mine must have been left over from the previous swap meet!

In the mid 80's, bought an aluminum intake at a swap meet thinking it was for a 396-427. Nope. 348-409? Nope. Turned out to be a for a 63 Chevy Mystery Motor.

Another swap meet, bought a 5 dollar circular saw. Brought it home, plugged it in, JUNK! Some guy screwed me for 5 bucks on a saw...

A package of Chinese made bungies taking they would hold my tarps down inside a building.

Mid 1980’s Englishtown swap we bought a very heavy 1940 something fire hydrant. Buddy of mine had totaled his ’67 Firebird on a hydrant so we thought it would be funny to plant in the front yard of his folk’s house one late night. Well that didn't go over too well and we had to remove it and fix the grass.
Between carting it, hiding it, planting it and the continued lugging of that SOB back and forth for years I think in the end the laugh was on us. I had that damn thing up till last year.
Oh to be young and dumb ;)

A few years ago, my youngest son bought what he thought was a confederate sword for $100. It turned out to be one of the cheap replica swords you buy for about $50. I tried to get his money back, but to no avail.

Charlotte Autofair is a huge swap meet. A number of years ago I sold a 12-bolt posi rear out of a 67 Camaro to a guy on a Friday. He was supposed to come back Saturday and pick it up. Saturday came and went, but the guy didn't show. We camp on the spot, so we decided to wait until Sunday. He finally showed up, almost in a panic, to pick up his rear end. He had lost the card with my space number, and couldn't remember where I was. I would have never left a 12-bolt posi lying there. I would have carried it back the next year and hoped the guy found me.

Mike

Sounds familiar...

$50 for a HD steel wagon to haul my newly bought heads around. It was worth it.