Wednesday, April 3, 1996
My husband and I have been Flea Market fans for about six years now (there's a great one held on the first weekend of every month in Kane County, Illinois). Most avid Flea Market aficionados have a favorite story about The One That Got Away. Here's mine.
We had recently moved into an old Cape Code style house, and were looking for some clever antique-y, knick-knack-y type things for our new place. I remembered seeing a guy---we called him The Bearded One, for obvious reasons---at Kane Co. a couple of months earlier who had a nice supply of old-fashioned snowshoes. I thought that they'd look great hanging on the wall in the basement rec room.
Of course, The Bearded One was not there the day we went knick-knack hunting, but as luck would have it another vendor had a couple pair of the desired item. I checked them out very carefully---they were in fine condition: good wood, no nicks, all the 'strings' were there, and the leather straps were quite nicely preserved.
I haggled a bit, but couldn't get the seller down to *my* fair price, which just happened to be the same as The Bearded One had been asking a few months earlier. It was really irrelevant, of course, because The Bearded One and his snowshoes were not there.
What to do? WHAT to do? Surely there was some other vendor I could find with a better deal. After scouring the entire grounds, I did manage to find one. He had several pairs of snowshoes, closer to my price, but of rather poor quality. The wood was splitting in several places, and some of the bootstraps were torn or missing altogether. I would have to return to "Too High" and meet his price.
You guessed it---Too High had sold out. Apparently he wasn't too high after all, but had asked a price that the market would bear.
The moral to the story? There are several. Don't peg your fair price for a stock at what it sold for last month. If you've done your homework, like the company and the fundamentals, BUY IT. Look ahead, not behind. But don't kick yourself (too hard) over the one that got away because there are many more bargains in that great Flea Market on Wall Street.
Oh yes---I finally did find my snowshoes, but for me the Stock That Got Away was Cisco Systems, last spring at about 40 (pre-split). Anyone who has been following CSCO for more than a year or so will understand why it's a great pair of snowshoes.
Joanne Barsanti
A Foolish Flea Marketer