Bartering with other locals is, I guess, a form of gray-marketing that even now many of us participate. Or a tile guy might do his neighbor's bathroom floor and/or shower if his electrician neighbor re-wires the tile guy's main panel etc.
Another gray market I have discovered (actually my wife did) is Estate sales! "They" say that
the next few years will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind as baby boomers pass their belongings to their offspring and their kids just want fast cash, so
they pay estate sellers pennies on the dollar to get rid of their parents' stuff. Some of it is crazy valuable and can be sold on Ebay by whoever finds and snags it first.
My wife
Google-lensed (just in her phone's Chrome browser) a Chinese plate and saw it was worth a lot. She
bought it for $3 and sold it for over $500! Crazy!
That's
her thing...for me, it's anything I'm looking for from candles, matches, flares, rope, chains, boxes of 12-2 copper wire, non-perishable foods, radios of all kinds, guns galore, ammo and ammo boxes, propane heaters/stoves, military jackets, pants, gloves, gas masks etc. sleeping bags, tents, compasses, GPS', hatchets, saws, bows, arrows, spears! tarps, shovels, pickaxes, solar panels, generators, rain barrels, medical supplies, medical books, books on survival, books on edible plants, battery banks, tools, tools, tools, and silver coins, sometimes at face value!
These are all things I've gotten (and tons more!) over the last several years. We even caught Covid at one sale...and it wasn't even that great of a sale!
We tend to drive to the Orlando area, just because of the concentration of wealth. But every community will have some treasures!
https://www.estatesales.net/FL/Orlando?force-reload=true
Just type in your zip code and take a look at what's available.
Always look at the on-line pictures so you don't waste your time.
As the date gets closer, more pictures get posted and the actual address as well. If you're not early, you'll almost never get the good stuff. Of course, if you wait to the end of the day, they'll practically GIVE you anything you want, but by then, there's rarely anything worth taking, even for free. That illuminates something we often ask ourselves...are we leaving a mess for our kids to deal with like so many of these other boomers have? I hope not.
