The GreenFlea Market opened in 1982 as a yard sale for parents to raise money for their kids’ schools. Nearly 40 years later, it’s still there, every Sunday, rain or shine, on the corner of West 76th Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In 2016, its name changed to Grand Bazaar NYC, and today, with more than 200 venders, it’s the largest weekly curated market in New York City.

It’s got everything. Vintage books and blues records, fur coats and jean jackets, paintings and posters, wood chairs and varnished tables, even wild-boar tusks dangling from shimmering necklaces. There’s junk, too — of course, junk is in the eye of the beholder.

Browsing the bazaar has been a Sunday ritual for me since I moved into the neighborhood, although I rarely buy anything more than a gyro. On a recent morning, I weaved in and out of the aisles until I came upon one of the final pop-up tents. The man behind the table was named Larry. He had a mustache, and he wore a black cowboy hat and had an untucked striped shirt hanging past his blue jeans. Larry always has the best spread because he never sells just one thing — he has lots of everything, piled high and laughably organized. If you’re brave, you’ll dig. On this occasion, leaning against one of the tables and wrapped in a bungee cord, were nine golf clubs — eight rusty putters and a Callaway eight-iron. Larry was talking to someone when he saw me pick up the clubs and examine them. “Ten bucks for all of ’em,” he said, adding that he’d procured them somewhere in Connecticut. “They ain’t stolen or nothing.”

I had no plans for the clubs, but it was a deal too good to resist. I figured I’d end up bringing them into the office, where clubs new and old are scattered about like toys in a playroom.

When I arrived home, I laid the putters across the floor and began inspecting them. Two immediately became my favorites: a vintage Robot (the same model President John F. Kennedy had used) and an Acushnet Bulls Eye. The latter had a faded piece of tape wrapped around the shaft. The text on the top of the tape read “SHAKER HEIGHTS C.C.” And below that: “SHAKER HEIGHTS, OHIO.” Sandwiched between, written in ink in all caps, it said: “M.J. BERNET.”

My search for the putter’s owner had begun.