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51st Annual LBMTC
Vintage & Classic Parts Exchange
July 29th &
30th,
2005
On the
29th and 30th of July we held our 51st Annual Vintage & Classic Parts
Exchange (better known as the swap meet) at Cerritos College. This is
the time of year that I personally look forward to every year. This
event gives us a chance to find that part or car we’ve been looking
for, but most of all it allows us for 2 days to spend time with fellow
club members new and old. This year was no exception.
This year we had an amazing turn out of members volunteering their
time to help work the meet. It all began on Thursday morning prior to
the event. Swap Meet Chairman Tom Leroux had the crew prepped and
ready to go. The spaces were chalked out, the equipment retrieved
from George Gunther’s yard, the toilets strategically placed through
out the swap area, and the tents set up and ready to go for Friday
morning.
Early Friday morning the vendors and buyers started to roll into
the meet and begin wheelin’ and dealin’. The registration booth was
anchored down by Tom Leroux, making sure that all of the vendors needs
were taken care of. While a variety of members worked the main
entrance and the outer perimeter of the swap meet. Once again Pete
Cosner and Duane Studer did a great job supervising the Membership
booth and Club Store. Pete was able to recruit 10 new members, and
Duane sold numerous club items. Of course they had a lot of help from
their better halves Rose Cosner and Jean Studer, along with many other
members. A job well done!
There were a lot of
Good
Model T parts in circulation this year. I saw quite a few buyers
making trips to their cars with armfuls of goodies. I know several
complete Model T engines found new owners. I also saw a couple of
vehicle exchange hands as well. It was definitely a buyers market.
All in all though, most found what they were looking for. But the
sale of the weekend had to go to Mark Hanna. Mark had 4 Ford banks
for sale at $35 a piece. A gentleman walks up and says,
“Will you take
$100 for all 4 banks?”. Mark
sarcastically says,
“Yes if you pay in
$2 bills”. The gentleman
thinks for a second and says,
“Ok”
and proceeds to count out 50 $2 bills
that had serial numbers in sequential order. Mark being the good
sport that he is says,
“Sold”.
Talking about calling a bluff. Believe it or not the story does not
end there. Shortly after “The Sale”, Duane Studer walks up, and Mark
with a big smile, begins to tell him about what had just transpired.
When Mark finished the story, Duane looks at him and says,
“How much do you
want for those $2 bills?”.
Mark replies,
“I don’t know”.
Duane says,
“I’ll give $110
for them.” Mark without
wasting a breathe says,
“SOLD!”.
Duane then explains to Mark that he has been collecting all type of
American currency for years. Mark asked,
“Why would you
collect money”. And Duane
replies,
“Hell I don’t know. Why would I buy $2 bills from you”.
It was definitely funny to watch the whole scenario play out.
As always this years event brought out a lot of old faces. A
couple of old members in particular that I hadn’t seen in a while was
John Hale and a past club president Ron Daleo. Both were doing well
and were glad to see the club still going strong. Joe Mac had a space
selling his wears. Past President Randy Witz and his son were also
out about, buying and selling.
On Friday night our friends from the Cortez Club hosted a “Hot Dog
Feed and Potluck” at their spaces. This turned out to be quite an
event. There were over 60 people that participated in what has become
an annual event. Pete Cosner, John Hinton, & Phil Pecora entertained
the group by playing various tunes on their string instruments. It
was a great way to end a good day.
This year we also had a good turn out of Club Members Model T’s for
the cars show. This event always provides an opportunity for the
general public to view a large variety of Model T’s up close.
Once again a big THANK YOU goes out to Tom Leroux and the
membership for volunteering all of their time and effort to make this
years swap meet a success. It is definitely the biggest event of the
year for our club, and to make it all happen takes an enormous amount
of work. Tom thanks again, and see you all at next months tour.
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