Real Talk: "Designer" Vintage (Comparison Vintage Shopping)

Good morning!

Question: where do you get your vintage clothes and knickknacks, for the most part? I get asked all the time where I got xyz I'm wearing to the library, and I answer, infallibly, again and again, "Pretty much Goodwill?"  "Oh, you don't go to [insert vintage/antique store in town]? They've got some cute stuff there. Don't you ever go there?" And the answer is no! I do Goodwill, I do the flea market, and I do estate sales, and that's it. Hardly ever buy anything online. Never, I mean once in 10 years maybe, at a "vintage store". Rarely at antique stores (sometimes, when I'm desperate and there are no sales, but rarely). With a collector's habit like mine, it's impossible to buy things retail in a curated, reseller's market...I'd be in over my ears in debt before I'd even know what hit me. That's not a boast or a brag...growing up with very little pocket money (heck, living my adult life with very little pocket money), I have never understood just walking in a store and buying something that cost more than $20. Estate sales have spoiled me too-- suddently, for $8, I should be getting Murano glass! Fifites' formals! My spending dollar commands a lot more power in these mutable settings than in a store with price tags that are firm.

How I feel about this turtle shell.

This attitude came to the forefront the other day when I was looking for large turtle shells online...I know I can't afford the real deal, on a pedestal, two foot high types I saw in a Hollywood producer's house in one of those seventies' AD's I was telling you about, but I just wanted to know how much one costs period, having never seen one for sale in real life. I came across a great example on One King's Lane, but had to join the designer deals site to gain full access to seeing it. Le sigh. It's to be expected in this modern age.

What shocked me on getting to the main page marked "VINTAGE"? While the items were all very cool, very interesting, very cleverly selected items (heck, I wanted a lot of them!)....the "slashed designer prices" you see were still about a 50% markup from a REGULAR retail setting. Let me show you some of the things I'm talking about.

1) Culver Pitcher and Glasses Set (1960's)

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These are an identical pair of bar sets, both made by Culver in the sixties', both extremely attractive towards my intended purpose of drinking gin rickeys out of them and making small talk about how everything's been downhill since Eisenhower (it's alll part....of my Mad Men...fantasy....to this tune). The only discernible differences I could find between the two? The one on left has a matching caddy thrown in (swank!)....and is  almost TWO. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. LESS. THAN THE ONE ON THE RIGHT. I am not kidding! Click on the sources in the captions to see the original listings for either one of these items, and again, you're going to have the sticker shock of your life. Me, I would personally not pay more than about $25 dollars for these in an estate sale setting, but I'm a confirmed cheapenstein. Two hundred dollar difference!

2) Brass cricket box

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Now, these, maybe there's some difference my uneducated eyes are unable to detect. Was this cricket box blessed by a Hindu holyman? Does it belong to the Ottoman Empire and thus have some special historic value? The one on the left has a slightly hexagonal shape as opposed to the oval of the one on the right, and the handle seems to be splayed a little wider across the top. However-- the triangle shape openings, and the flower pattern seem to be the same. One King's Lane price, on the left, is $99. Box on the right, ebay listing, is $28 (with free shipping!). Also, did you know these things were for crickets? I've seen people talk about incense being burned inside one and the fragrant aroma of frangipani wafting out of the little cutouts, but I could be wrong.

Are we sensing a pattern in prices though?

3) David Hockney by David Hockney book

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Now who would NOT want a copy of a memoir-ish retrospective of too-cool-for-school painter David Hockney with reproductions of pretty much his entire catalog to date? The cover of this book, published in 1977, looks as current as next month's Vogue. The Hockney book from King's Lane is $85...Amazon has the same book, same edition, same printing, starting at $6.90. Is the book signed by Hockney on 1KL? No. Is it mint condition, so fresh I could smell that new-book-pages smell as I opened the box from the antique dealer? No. Books may be the most perplexing thing on this site because besides condition, there's nothing to tell one apart from another in the same printing!

3) Celluloid Dresser Box Set:

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Now, I will admit that the boxes on 1KL in this case were a little cuter than what I could find, but I think the ebay listing at top just suffers from poor lighting ("I know, let's photograph this on an overcast day on my deck, where the faded red paint looks vaguely like a bloodstain..." maybe they were pressed for time?). However, value wise, you're getting two dresser boxes, a mirror, a hairbrush, a file, and a button hook for $30.00. Two pink vanity boxes on the other site are $85. It bugs me that the second of the boxes is labelled only as "one with opening for cotton balls." That may be true, but this could also be described as a "hair receiver", a vanity box to keep loose strands of hair from your hairbrush to make rats for your 1910's/1920's Lady Mary hair style (see a fabulous video on both rats and said hair style here). You are getting twice as much stuff for half the price on the ebay auction!!

4)Native American-Motif Charm Bracelet

source, source

Now, in this case, this is the EXACT. SAME. PIECE. in each listing. The one on the top ships from Canada, has all six charms intact, and has an opening bid of $22.99. The one that sold on One King's Lane? Listed at $99! AND SOLD FOR $99. While you're going, but wait, who's to say the price won't go up higher by the end of the auction? Well, you can also Buy It Now another extremely similar bracelet for $25. Robbery! Highway robbery!

What do you think? Is it right to have a 1000% markup on items like this? The ebay sellers aren't selling those items out of the goodness of their hearts at these WAAAY lower prices....they're also making a profit, just not a million times more than what they paid for it. Do you sometimes pay what you know is an inflated price just in order to secure something you know you've wanted for a long time? I have a weird, almost  physical reaction to spending too much money on something, no joke-- I won't enjoy a set of dishes I would ostensibly buy for $500 because I'd worry, constantly, that I'd been "took" for more than it was worth, or that I would break a plate and not be able to replace it, etc, etc. A $700 credenza wouldn't bring me near as much joy as telling and retelling the story of "Remember when we talked that guy down to a hundred dollars for that thing, and his son helped us get it back to the house in one piece? I didn't think we could get it in the car, but we did!". The joy is in the bargain and the adventure of buying as much as it is in the buying itself, sometimes, and that's what I think you miss out on when you just get whatever the vintage dealers are selling. You've cheated yourself out of 90% of the fun! 

Second thought...sometimes, when I see something I want for a million dollars, I don't feel that bad because I know, as you can see from the other listings, that all these items were mass produced in their day. A Renoir might be unique unto itself, but that Bakelite radio you're lusting after or the perfect midcentury dining room suite at a space-program like astronomical price...kid, they made literally millions of them back in the day. Now, if you find one for the right price and it's singing a siren song to your heart, by all means, POUNCE! But sometimes when I find myself going through the seven stages of grief over a dress that someone snatched up a sale before I could grab it, or a flea market trophy that the guy quoted a pie-in-the-sky price to me about... I'll just catch the next train, whenever it comes. And hopefully at a reduced fare.

Well, I've babbled on enough for today, gotta go grab myself some lunch and think about all the great stuff I'm going to see and buy or not buy at the flea market this weekend! Do chime in if you have a thought about any of this or if you've recently had any "oh my GOD HOW CAN THEY LIVE WITH THEMSELVES charging that much?" moments. Let's talk!

That's all for today, I'll see you tomorrow for Photo Friday! Til then.

POSTSCRIPT: You will NOT believe this, but here's a photo I took in my cubicle like an hour after I posted this rant:

There's the handpainted vintage lamp I almost took to Goodwill (it came from Southern Thrift to begin with, for $4.99) and instead reprieved as cubicle decor. I put the little glass shade on it as it was missing the harp when I bought it, but it does work! I've scooted the lamp in question up next to the monitor where you can see two IDENTICAL LAMPS on the 1KL site.

Screenshot?

NO WAY! How crazy!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it?