The nature of flea markets?

[RobertInOntario]

Of course the down side is that if you want a specific item that the dealer has, it may be gone if you wait.

This is my weakness. I've been conditioned to just buy when i see things, and lately its been biting me because i've been picking up things that aren't as good in quality as i would like. For example, at a commuter modeling show, I saw SEPTA commuter cars.
These cars were produced by walthers in the 90s without SEPTA license. SEPTA cracked down on Walthers, and so SEPTA cars are not available (this is why Atlas has a SEPTA AEM7 model like that in my profile picture). I already had a 6 car set, but i saw a bunch of 4 for cheap. I did make an offer that was cheaper than the worth of the cars (if they were in good shape), but i somehow missed many flaws and issues that i would have preferred to pay much less for. They were missing wheel-sets, and the paint was scuffed on some. I could go and repaint or rework these cars, but that would be a pain.
I've also failed to grab things and have had people literally yank things away as soon as i put them down.
I'm thinking that I'm going to have to discriminate more in the future.

It's tricky because you have to make a quick judgement call and either decide to buy it (or not buy it) very fast. At these shows, you could easily end up with 2-3 items of fair quality or totally miss out. I'm planning to attend the Great British Train Show near Toronto tomorrow. There should be lots of good deals there but I don't want to buy the first things I see but I also don't want to miss all the deals!

Rob