Uncle John’s Flea Market

Definatly a fleas,
. rows of stuff I have at home to get rid of. The buildings were musty as others have mentioned. Don’t plan to eat while your there.

I am not a hoarder. I have a hobby with one type of item. I thought I would give this a try. I know it was still cold out today. I arrived at the crack of dawn no employee to tell you what to do or go. They catch up with you later. I was in outside spot cost $ 15. I was hit by regular sellers right off the get go one smelled like he was still drunk from last night and offered me $ 300 everything I said worth more turns out he wanted my brand new trailer all my stuff $ 300 I said no he harrased me all morning. Other regulars also came wanted my stuff said I was to hight. I have been doing what I do for years and sell same item same price. I understand it is a fle market haggling part of it they not even wanting give me my cost and the first guy came back with few to harass me again. I sold some by noon it was dead I packed up went home had few calls ad I placed made what I wanted did not have pay to sell it. I did walk around some and as other revies state the barns stik. There where few bargans outside. I will never go there again to sell be harassed there was nobody keeping them in check. I wander how many others they run out how much they cost the flea market in sellers fees. What ticked me off most these guys had crap they most likely took from my trash but said my stuff crap cheap expensive. They either do not know what they are doing or afraid somebody has a good thing going. I would barganed with them if asked. There you have it if you go be careful and get your shots. One guy said he get used barrels Greek marked $ 15 I said then go Grece leave me be.

It’s a flea market, there’s everything you can think of. Some near finds some total junk. I go during the nice weather and only stay outside, I do not go inside the buildings. They are gross. I feel like i shouldn’t breathe in them without a military issued gas mask. However, there are more than enough outdoor vendors to make it worth driving out to to waste a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. We have also rented outside spaces a few times to sell our leftover garage sale stuff and made out like bandits, so that’s awesome :)

Me and my father take a trip out to this flea market every sunday from April to sometimes early november if its not terribly cold (or dead in terms of how many sellers are left)
Little bit more backstory before i get started with the review. I am a huge collector of video games, animé, and occasionally i’ll buy some things that catch my eye like Diecast ww2 planes. Now my father collects alot of beer related stuff like tappers, signs and just alot of random stuff that also like me catches his eye (old cameras from before the 50s as well.)
There are 3 parts to the Uncle Johns Flea market.
1. Outside sellers.
2. Barn sellers.
3. People selling from little shops.
So lets start from the beginning.
1. Outside sellers.
This is typically where the most interesting stuff is sold. I say that because all of the people in the barns and shops dont ever really change so if you’ve been in the barns before there’s a good chance if you come back a month later nothings really changed…
Outside is ALWAYS packed with people up your ass and getting in your way. Seriously you can be walking in the middle of the pathways and there will be a family of jackasses speaking a foreign language and just standing where people are trying to walk by. Then when you walk by to get past them instead of you know doing what polite people do and getting out of the damn way. They either dont move at all or worse decide its cool to walk directly in front of your way forcing you to move instead of them.
The sellers on the outside i’d say 70% of them you’ll see every time you come here. The other 30% are just average people using the flea markets as a yard/​garage sale.
We come for that 30% because they tend to have more interesting stuff for sale and typically they arent overpriced either. They’re also usually really friendly.
Majority of the 70% of the typical seller you see every week have expensive stuff which you can easily get much cheaper online (amazon or ebay)
For instance… There is a Dealer there who for the most part sells video games (actually there is 3 of them who do this here and 1 that does this at the I80 flea market). What these people do is have their wife, husband, child whoever run the shop while they go around and pick up games from other sellers for dirt cheap and jack up the price to either retail or what they feel the game is worth (tend to be even more than retail).
Some of the things i saw this particular person selling at one point was
$ 35 Goldeneye 007 n64
$ 20 sonic 2 sega genesis
$ 70 original xbox with 3 sports games.
None of are even close to what they cost retail and even if they were spot on with the retail price, you dont go to flea markets to spend retail…
Now let me just say this isnt exclusive to games or anything. Tons of people do this with stuff like DVDs, beer collectibles, or anything they feel they can make money off of by throwing it on there table with a much higher price.
We tend to avoid these people not only because their prices are outrageous but for whatever reason they are very arrogant.
The rest of the sellers are pretty nice for the most part, they are more willing to deal and bundle than the people inside.
2. Barn sellers.
There are about 4 or 5 barns at this flea market that are fairly big on the inside but 2 of these barns either never have anyone inside selling or its just impossible to walk in due to the amount of crap laying around… basically one of the barns is a hoarders paradise. Oh and I’ll add these places smell like wet rotting paper… not terrible but its not a nice smell.
The stuff they sell on the inside is for whatever reason always more pricey than the outside sellers. Even if its the same exact item they’re selling like a beer glass or collectible Disney figurines. Not only that but anytime we’ve tried to buy something for even a tiny bit less than their asking price we’re always replied with a no.
There really wasn’t much interesting things in the barns outside of numerous people selling pirated DVDs… which I cant believe the owners are ok with since you know its illegal and all.
Outside of that their isnt much else to say about the barns.
3. People selling from shops.
The little shops are I wouldn’t even say 500 square feet places where one person sells their stuff from. The stuff sold you’ll most likely see again from either the outside or barn sellers so nothing these guys are selling you cant find elsewhere in the same market. We don’t really go to these places often because much like the barns nothing really changes on the inside. So if you been there once you wont have any reason to go back there again unless you saw something you wanted but didn’t have enough money.
I’m giving this place a 2 out of 5.
Its not a terrible flea market. There’s loads of stuff to look at but we’ve been to other flea markets that gave us a much more enjoyable experience both with the sellers and the stuff they were selling.

It’s obvious from the other two reviews that Andy and Carolynne or not from the Cedar Lake area. If I had my guess they are a couple of arrogant, pretentious Illinois/​Chicago individuals who look down upon the humble Cedartukians. Yes, I affectionately referred to Cedar Lake as Cedartucky! You see I can do that, I grew up there!
We are also negatively referred to as Lake Rats do to the rather «dirty» lake water. Which I take GREAT pride in being a Lake Rat. Ironically they bitch about the lowly Cedar Lake but have no problem arriving every Friday evening to use OUR lake, getting drunk, starting fights and destroying MY lake with they’re garbage dumping and general rudeness, before trying to trailer they’re boats drink out of they’re minds on Sunday evening.
Uncle Johns may not be the newest most beautiful flea market, but it’s a flea market for christ’s sake. At least the vendors are real people who majority are from Illinois that know the value of hometown America!

basically a gathering of hoarders selling their hoards. (yes everything smells like cat pee).

I knew I should have turned the car around. As we entered, I saw a strange looking kid sitting on a rock playing the Banjo. Secondly, I swear I saw Ned Beatty running round in his underwear. Talk about a Deliverance flashback. Uncle John’s Flea Market is about as Rural as you can get.
The Flea Market is a series of poorly laid out barns that smell like they haven’t been cleaned since Kennedy was President. They have that musty basement smell that my Aunt Ethel had in her basement. For those who aren’t familiar with the story, my Aunt Ethel was a hoarder who’s house was condemned back in the 70’s.
Everything was being Peddled but the Kitchen sink. There was a guy selling old jars, some of the most hideous art you have ever seen, ugly rugs and overpriced furniture.
I actually did end up finding a bargain. I purchased an old Mickey Mantle Heartland statue for $ 7.00. Not only did the lady who ran the shop not know that Heartland statues from the 60’s are valuable, she didn’t know who Mickey Mantle was. She made a comment about how happy she was that someone finally bought the Baseball guy statue. I wanted to tell her that there were Housewife’s in the Ukraine who knew that Mantle wore #7 for the Yankees. But I didn’t have the heart to do it. After two hours of breathing toxic mold, I wanted nothing more than to get out of Cedar Lake as fast as I could.
The bottom line on Uncle John’s Flea Market is short and sweet. The whole thing is a mess. The best way to see this Bargain basement extravaganza is through your rear view mirror.

Well, first off I am pretty sure I contracted asthma, tuberculosis, mesothelioma, asbestosis, and COPD simply after being here for an hour. This place is a horror show of the highest order and sadly as you walk around it just kept getting worse, not better.
There are a smattering of barns on this property and apparently the deal is you can either rent out a space inside or just throw your shit on the ground outside to sell. This is definitely the preferred option as the barns are so bad they need to be condemned and torn down. There is little ventilation, are filthy inside and out and the interiors are a mycologist’s dream. In one barn the smell of decay and rot was so bad I barely made it through to the other side. In another, someone had decided to put carpeting down on the concrete floor at one point. Except that side either had a leak or had flooded, because I stepped into a hideous soup of what-​once-​was-​carpet/​mud/​water/​mold/​etc/​etc/​etc in FLIP FLOPS that was so disturbing I am still having violent flashbacks about it. The dust is so thick you can taste it, and god knows what is living in some of the far corners.
The wares ranged from glassware, to mouldy books, mouldy records, pictures (with mold on them), sports memorabilia, some furniture, items in their original packaging sold as «new» (except the packaging on some things was so old the plastic was disintegrating in my hand)…and yep! FOOD. (*gags*)
Pricing is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, a leather and chrome chair from the 1970’s is normally a great steal at $ 20, but not when the leather is speckled with grey fungus and the possibility of the smell of dry rot NEVER coming out is at about 99%. I wouldnt even TAKE half the stuff if they were offering it to me for free.
Normally, with places like this I say to people come and see it simply for entertainment value. Except with this place I say stay away unless you have one of those haz-​mat suits or wish to contract some kind of incurable disease. Seriously.