Springtime in Texas.The bluebonnets blanket the Hill Country, the Panhandle starts its active growing season, and the sun-baked Valley hunkers down for a long, hot summer. It's a perfect time for rebirth, renewal, and maybe, just maybe, cleaning out that damn garage once and for all.

The annual house cleaning impulse generally hits right about now, which in turn triggers another important rite of spring: the yard sale.

College students, bleary-eyed and recovering from finals, pull party-stained couches onto the lawn in hopes of netting enough money for one last case of beer. Neighbors band together to purge their closets of outdated clothing and old records. On a larger scale, post-winter flea markets swing into full gear, usually providing entire weekends of opportunity for shoppers in search of new stuff from old places.

Flea markets are the perfect place to partake in the nearly lost art of haggling. The simple haggle can change the way a shopper approaches the spellbinding world of secondhand purchases, where simple transactions become contests of quick wit and persistence.

To get you a head start on the swap meet season, we visited the state's largest flea market, held monthly in the East Texas town of Canton. The purpose: to learn the art of haggling from a grand master of secondhand shoppers. So come along and learn how to drive your own hard bargain.

Onwards to Canton >