Using the gray market in old-time Phoenix


If you're not familiar with the term "gray market", it could be that you've never been involved with it. Or it could be that you're so involved with it that you don't even realize that it exists. And it's always been around, and always will be. Let's go back to Phoenix in 1989, when I was happy to be able to use the gray market!

OK, calm down here if you think that the "gray market" has anything to do with retirees in Sun City, that's not what it means. It's a comparison to the black market, which is the buying and selling of illegal stuff. The "gray" means that it's not really that horrible, it's just not quite as squeaky-clean as, say, buying something for full price at a store with a return policy.

Speaking for myself, I was happy to be involved in the gray market up through my late twenties. Times were tough for me, and if you buy things from, for example, the back of a van, with no guarantees, you can get a very good price. You can also get completely ripped off, so you gotta know what you're doing. And to be fair, the gray market can be fun, especially if you like bargains. After I turned thirty, and got a good-paying job, I stopped using the gray market, but some people go on using it no matter how rich they get.

My favorite example of something in the gray market is going to a mechanic who fixes your car at his house. When I moved from California to Phoenix in 1989, I happily went to a mechanic who had been recommended to me. I have no idea if he still fixes cars nowadays, or is still there, but I won't tell you where he was, because, really, fixing cars out of a neighborhood is a pretty sketchy thing to do. It was a, uh, "less than fashionable" neighborhood, so no one around there would complain about the sound of engines being revved up, or the occasional oil spill. Of course, this mechanic had no insurance, no workman's comp, nothing. He accepted only cash.

In my thirties, I put all of this behind me when I bought my first new car. It came with a warranty, and if anything broke it was fixed. I got into the habit of going to the dealership for everything, including oil changes. It cost a lot more money than the gray market, but I felt that I could afford it. I've never really been all that comfortable with people who need to look over their shoulder before they talk, that sort of thing. But of course there are people who just love this kind of stuff, and are willing to take big risks for the satisfaction they get out of it. I've always been to lazy to do that - I worked for a company that gave me a paycheck, and I gave part of that paycheck to companies that supplied me with goods and services.

But don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the gray market, but just on a much smaller scale. I go to garage sales, and I don't ask for a receipt, or wonder if they're going to pay taxes on their profits. A little bit of grey market stuff happens all of the time, even when you buy a lemonade from some kids on the corner. Do kids still do that?

Image at the top of this post: With my Mustang in 1989, Phoenix, Arizona. I was looking for a job, and was happy to get gray market service on my car!
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please consider subscribing to History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more