In France we have 'vide greniers' - literally, 'attic emptying', a sort of annual village-wide yard sale, one per village - and that's where I got my graduates last Sunday, at St. Chartres, about 5-6 km away. In Germay the same thing is called a Flohmarkt or fleamarket. In the UK, a car boot sale is normally a weekly or monthly event, usually in a field or very large car park, patronized by people from miles around. In all of them, the ratio of junk to useful stuff is immense but every now than then you get lucky. On Sunday, as well as the graduates I bought a book, and Frances got a lot of sewing stuff.
Cheers,
R.