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I grew up in LA and started going to the Big Three when I was a kid. The first meet I attended was at a Sears or some type of shopping mall parking lot in El Cajon. Then it moved to a dirt field which I think may have been part of an airport in El Cajon or somewhere around there. It was there for a couple of years before moving to the stadium.

Yes, this was a wonderful swap meet. In the early days it was nothing but prewar parts as far as the eye could see. Great brass parts, rare classic car parts, rare project cars and chassis. And tons of Model T, A and V8 parts-lots of it being rare stuff and/or NOS.

Oh, and the big, rare cars that were for sale at some of those early meets.

People used to travel to this meet from all over the country. Lots of people traveled from the midwest and east coast because it was a great excuse to escape their winters.

In the early days, the swap meet would start at about 4 or 5 am on Saturday with buyers and sellers using flashlights. It was always a competitive feeding frenzy. Swapping would go late into Saturday night and start again early Sunday AM. By Sunday morning, sellers-especially those with heavy iron parts-were seriously discounting what they had not sold. I remember lots of stuff being left in the trash cans as sellers began to depart Sunday midday.

I remember some of the early Ford parts vendors such as Carl Burnett's Antique Automotive always having a big display (his store was in San Diego), Sally and "Rags" Lindman, Bill Rader, Sheldon Greenland (later Vintique), San Jose Vintage Ford Parts, Rudy Perez, Bob Drake, etc etc etc.

The Big Three in San Diego and the Long Beach Model T Club swap meet were the two absolute, must attend swap meets in SoCal. Never missed either for many, many years. Bought and sold lots of great items at these events.

Great memories. My only regret was that we didn't have digital cameras to capture these memories.