MIT's flea market specializes in rare, obscure electronics

New England hosts other flea markets with a high-tech spin, but this one has a reputation for drawing the rare and obscure.

Some credit it to the market's location, surrounded by MIT and technology companies around Boston, whose retired equipment sometimes filters down to the sale tables.

People will bring surplus runs from production at some facility which dumped a project, and you'll find resistors that cost big bucks being sold for a dime apiece.

The Swapfest has a charter explicitly barring it from becoming a general flea market.

Since the beginning, the event been held the third Sunday of the month, from April through October.

Among the items for sale at the latest gathering: an ultrasound machine, like those used to capture images of unborn infants, and a dish antenna, said to be plucked from a 1960s fighter jet.