It has been sometime since I made the trip down to the First Monday Trades Day held in Canton, Texas since 1850. I can honestly say over the past 40 years of taking an annual pilgrimage to this monthly event most of my visits have not been too pleasant. However, this time FMTD was rather pleasant. Why the change in thought? Well here is why..
Generally, whenever you get a few thousand..or tens of thousands people as is normally the case.. all together on Saturday or Sunday of the five day sales event, who are out to find a sale bargain or two, you are going to get the bump and grind of shoppers rubbing together like a mass of cattle. Even when it is spread out over 100 acres things get a little unruly, especially when you add in the multitudes of electric scooters they rent to EVERYONE!. You add all this up along with the average age of the shoppers being in their mid 60’s and we are talking a demolition derby the size of which would rival the IKEA herd of four foot shoppers on Saturday afternoon.
This mass movement of people shopping the 10 ft by 12ft booths of over 6000 vendors who are peddling everything from used ShamWows to stuffed Buffalo Heads can naturally be overwhelming to the Out-Of-Towner’s who spend their first two hours standing in one place in one of the seven 5oo foot long covered pavilions trying to put their arms around how they are going to see all of the deals in one day. Then add to it that most of the vendors come from around the world to sell their stuff we are talking a true world bazaar on steroids.
Overprice City
Over my past few dozen visits I have reported on the numerous items that are just off the chart over priced. That still is going on and probably why I never hear from more of my native Texas friends on them going to the Trade Show anymore. It use to be I would run into neighbors and relatives there. Now when I run into them in other places I ask if they are going to Canton for the sale? The first thing out of their mouth is…
“you are going to get me to go down there to fight that rude crowd just to see stuff I can by at Walmart cheaper.”
The photo to the right is a mannequin wearing Camo PJ’s..my wife wouldn’t let post the Camo Bikini!
Questions Asked
The over pricing or price gouging of many of the things being sold at First Monday has been growing over the past ten years. The bad thing is, there is no ‘haggling’ on the prices these vendors are asking which getting a good deal after haggling the price was what the First Monday Trades Day was built on. The questions most native Texans are asking are..
- Has the FMTD people costs of operations forced them to charge higher rents on the booths forcing the vendors to raise their prices to cover it?
- Are the vendors marking up to cover for the too high wholesale prices they have to pay for their items?
- Or, is the travel expenses of the high volume of out of state vendors resulting in a price war in reverse?
These were the questions people were asking me when I asked them why they thought the prices at FMTD were over the top too high? The question I have is..will First Monday survive if they let the pricing of items get higher than the items sold at the convenient store on the Interstate?
The Deals Are on the Ground
But enough of how previous visits were, let’s take a look at how this trip went.
A note should be made that this visit was done on a Friday instead of the weekend. This played a huge difference in the basis of this review of this trip to First Monday Trades Day. As we made the hour an half drive from Dallas through Rockwall to avoid the massive construction project on Intrastate 635 (LBJ) that is stretched across 20 miles of North Dallas, we soon started noticing the difference from our last visit which was on a Saturday over a year ago.
First of all, there was not the two mile line up on Interstate 20 to take the four exits designated to get to the Tradeshow. We cruised right off I20 at the Hwy 19 Exit, straight to the Red light and hung a Right south to the Tradeshow. Naturally we picked up Ma and Paw Kettle driving 20 mph in a 50 mph stretch of state hwy..but it was just a mile before we noticed the second strange abnormal occurrence..no line to get into the 50 acre parking lot at the North Gate of the Trade Day.
So. we were pleasantly surprised to how easy it was to get situation on a clouding muggy Friday morning in a dry creek bed in East Texas.
We immediately started our adventure by hitting the first covered pavilion of vendors. There we were greeting with an array of different products offered by the hundred or so small business people set up for the sale. What also caught our attention was at 10AM there was hardly anyone in the aisle. OH, there was the few people whizzing by in the latest model of four wheel scooters they rent for people to get around the fair grounds, but not nearly as previously visits.
After about an hour of looking at the fourteen different booths selling Hot Sauce so hot they could not put the samples in plastic bowls to the tons of booths filled with arts and crafts, we decided to head outside to see what the people who could not get a booth inside were selling. Out there the smell of hickory smoke for the dozens of BBQ trailers and the smell of Funnel Cakes frying was just overwhelming ..but good.
Native Food Rules
Naturally, my interest every time I visit is to find the original landmarks and vendors who have been coming to the Trades Days since I was a kid. As seen in the photo to the left, one of the vendors that has been coming to Trades Day Monday for more years than I have been alive is the 1915 Sears and Roebuck Corn Mill on a trailer. The corn that is ground is home grown in East Texas and is naturally organic and FRESH. The old timer one cylinder engine periodic let’s off a pop to drive the piston that spins the magneto balance wheels to drive the belts connected to the even older grinder can be heard across the fairground. It is just a site to stand there and watch. I get ten pounds of course ground corn meal each year to keep me in the outstanding Cornbread that will make you want to slap your grocer for not stocking this stuff.
Here is where the ‘Q’ is Put IN BBQ
Then there is the BBQ..there are more BBQ grills per acre on the fairground at Monday Trades Day than any other place in Texas. There is always some kinda meat being cooked in grills and pits of all kinda of shapes and sizes. The smoke off their pits is so thick it just turns the entire river bottom into one big BBQ buffet.
This trip I tried some brisket from an Oklahoma Vendor…yes I take risks sometime. Unfortunately the way they cook their BBQ in Oklahoma is pretty near how the entire state is..Dry!.. OH well, I had to try it. Now as far as the OKC Baby Back 
Ribs..we have another story to tell on that one. Very good tasting and juicy…the hogs up in OKC must drink more water than the beef..or something.
Wholesaler’s Heaven
Now you have to understand that on Thursday of the week before the official Trades Monday the Wholesales are in the fairgrounds selling truck loads of stuff to the vendors to sell in their booths. This year it was Tin Work items from Mexico. One of the larger items I found of interest that was obviously one of the popular wholesale items was BBQ Grills made in the shape of longhorn 
steers. Now you will have to ask Grill Master Chris Kulturides on how well one of these will grill cook, but I could imagine they are about 90% for entertainment since when you fire one of them up the hickory smoke comes out it butt and horns. Yes..another site to behold.
No Photos, Please!
One of the new phenomena’s of this trip had to do with the large number of signs placed around in different booths warning people that No Photos were allowed. I am sure this was their attempt to stop people from copying their idea, but ‘come on’..like I am going to need to take a picture of a Jack Daniels Barrel with a sink built in the top to not remember what I saw to make one of my own?? Really..seemed like a stupid attempt of securing something they can’t. But, since I couldn’t take a photo of the sign telling me I couldn’t take a photo you’ll just have to take my word on they were there..or go now there and see for yourself.
Sold by the Pound
Now one of the more innovative ways of selling some of the wares many of the more garage sale type vendors where employing was to sell their stuff by the 
pound. I found this rather refreshing and in one case amusing since in the photo to the left and right is a 12ft long trailer with 4 foot side boards full of mechanic wrenches of all sizes and shapes. The report was there were over 7000 lbs of wrenches in this trailer and this was just one trailer this vendor had. The others were full of sockets and one with aging power tools. Not sure where this vendor was from but he did have a unique way of selling those tools. Each were sold by the pound. Not sure how much a pound of wrenches was but I still think someone could get a pretty good deal if you could only find the tool you were needing.
As we wrapped up our trip to FMTD we took a long walk through what looked like a never ending roads of vendor after vendor showing their wares from the backend of their pick-ups to the very expensive looking tents and rolling shops. Even as the sunset on the 75 degree day of strolling through Garage Sale Heaven there was way more to see than one..and may even two..days would allow. We did enjoy the fact that there were no Huge Crowds of people to get in the way of the pace of our shopping.
As we headed to the parking lot we picked up two pounds of roasted peanuts and 2 lbs of kettle corn for the road home. We can safely say Friday is the best day to go take a walk through Canton’s First Monday Trade Day. Maybe the next time I go I will take a trip across the street to the Canton First Monday Dog Alley and check out the livestock they have in that area. Needless to say,, there is a lot to see at the Worlds Largest Garage Sale..so check it out on a Friday and save your toes from being stepped on.
