First and foremost, we love vintage. We would love vintage even if we weren’t vintage sellers. But when you’re a seller, you want to source cool products in awesome condition. Things that are so cool people want to buy them and show them off to their friends. We’re looking for things at good prices that might need research, cleaning or mending, or, when the universe is favoring us, have a label and are ready to list. But life being what it is, not every sourcing mission goes well. Our vintage identification knowledge might not be as complete as we like to think it is, we didn’t look things over as well as we thought we did…and so on.
We’ve put our brains together to compile a list of random thoughts, the things about sourcing and selling vintage that are conundrums, but also truths. If you are a vintage seller or collector, you may find some of these resonate with you.
Random Thoughts of Vintage Sellers
1 Why is it that things we expect to sell in a snap, never do, but when something sells in a hot minute, we are absolutely sure we underpriced it?
2 Why do you get smitten by something that you’ve never seen before, pick it up and then find out they are as common as hen’s teeth and most of them are in better condition than yours?
3 Why is it that sometimes you purchase something and you can’t track down any info about it like it never existed?
4 Why do you never see the hole in the sweater until you fold it after you’ve finished washing it, steaming it, writing the listing, and taking the photos?
5 Why are reproduction garment fabrics from stores like Walmart and Old Navy so eye-catchingly vintage looking?
6 Why are reproductions sometimes better than the originals? (We can’t believe we said that!)
7 Why is it that when you decide against something at a flea or thrift and then see it in someone else’s cart, you want it more than life itself and consider stealing it out of their cart?
8 When you decide to keep something for whatever reason, why does become the start of a new collection?
9 Why is scrounging and sourcing much more fun than listing and organizing?
10 And, why doesn’t the sport of scrounging and sourcing burn as many calories as other sports?
Those are our questions.
What are your vintage seller (and collector) random thoughts?
If you can relate to our random thoughts, you might also relate to our post on cleaning vintage goods: mistakes not to make.
