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Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 7:32 pm
by Johnny
I can find three to five actual vintage shirts per Goodwill trip, but it seems like they are a hard sell on E Bay unless they are of bands/sports/pop culture icons, etc. Would these sell better as a lot? I can find a lot of random, localized stuff. Is it even worth picking these up? I mean they are only about 99 cents each.

Also, coming in September, E Bay is going to allow 25 more characters in your listing title.

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 5:38 pm
by wax&thread
Depends on how much you feel your time is worth. Lots of random shirts will sell in the $10-$15 range. If buying them to sell, you will probably need to let them sit for a while and sell to the right buyer. Localized shirts will often sell to people in that area. Hometown appeal. Lots of buyers like shirts with the year on them (bigger the better). So, if you find a "Bob's Fish Fry and Used Car Sales Lot - 1982 - Bucksnort Tennessee" shirt.... get it. You just might be sitting on a $17 bill.

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:13 am
by oscar
Etsy, man. That's all I'm going to say.

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:35 pm
by Johnny
Hmmm... I will have to look into Etsy. Might not be a bad idea.

However, a friend of mine in town owns a boutique and gave me a rack for vintage shirts. Downside is that it takes longer to sell them and I might be able to make more money on E Bay if two people are particularity attracted to a seemingly random shirt. Upside is that it saves me storage space and it's probably better for people to see/touch the shirts in person, especially if they are just, as I said, random shirts from old businesses or vacation shirts (I seem to find a TON of the 1980s Hanes vacation destination shirts). I've sold a couple that way. It just seems hard to believe that someone would pay $10.00 on E Bay for a shirt that says Bloomington, Minnesota, but they did in the shop.

Of course, I keep all of the band/sports/pop culture shirts for E Bay.

Honestly, I love picking shirts, so if I can make $20-$30 that's great, but also great if i only make $5.00 or $6.00.

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:23 am
by CRAZYBUBBA
Sometimes with vintage tees it's moreso the material of the tee and attractiveness of the print than the pop-culture significance. For example, I personally love gym shirts. Even better if it has a large school print, mascot or something similar

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 7:34 am
by oscar
Bloomington, MN! I have a MN section in my etsy shop! You know who buys MN shirts the most? Australians. And I just sold an Edina, MN shirt for 50 buck to someone in Thailand. Just don't list anything less than 20 years old. Etsy is on my ass for listing shirts 15-19 years old. (Meanwhile the known bootleggers are still on there.)

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:04 pm
by jimmyj
One of our members got in trouble for warning other Etsy sellers about rainbowgasoline's fakes in his listings. He went on to officially report him and they did nothing about it. Etsy is just a refuge for bootleggers that have been banned by eBay.

Etsy is a "handmade marketplace" why is vintage even allowed on the system? it's ridiculous that they stipulate 20 years when the whole category doesn't even make sense.

It's almost like we need a marketplace that knows what it's doing with regards to vintage t-shirts?

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:36 pm
by Johnny
Well, that kinda sucks that Etsy doesn't seem to take seriously bootleggers. However, at least they have a definition of what vintage is on their site. E Bay is a mess with everyone typing vintage for almost every shirt.

Also, how would Etsy even be able to be on anyone's ass for a 19 year old shirt when exact dating of a shirt is nearly impossible in many cases.

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 5:08 pm
by oscar
Copyright dates on band shirts, like 1993 tour (mine was a Spin Doctors one that they caught). Or the random shirts with dates on them, like one of mine was a high school band trip with 1995 printed on it. You can also sometimes tell when a shirt is not made by the tag, like I've never seen a "fruit of the loom BEST" tag before '95. And being an honest seller, I'm going to put that in the description.

Re: Is there a market for non-pop culture-related vintage tees?

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:15 pm
by CRAZYBUBBA
jimmyj wrote:It's almost like we need a marketplace that knows what it's doing with regards to vintage t-shirts?
Introducing the new and improved Defunkd marketplace?