VintageGriffin.com

It's easy to make money selling vintage clothing.

The following real-life examples prove it.




It's easy to make money selling vintage clothing.

The following real-life examples prove it.

(Missed Part 1? You can find it at

SERIES: How Much Is It Worth? (Part 1) The BioBuyography of a Vintage Dress)

A woman kept reading things in the paper and online about how easy it was to make money off of old clothes. "Vintage," as it was called. Just buy old clothes cheap and put them on Ebay. She bought a vintage clothing price guide and the dollar signs rang up in her eyes like a cash register. She kept her eyes open and bought a bunch of old dresses. She didn't know how old they were, but they looked old. She'd never seen so many old dresses up close, in person. What a score!

She picked a fun Ebay seller name for herself and took pictures of the dresses, hanging from hangers on the back of a closet door. The auctions started, and she eagerly awaited the final bids in seven days.

During the week-long auctions, questions came in from potential buyers. What were the measurements? (She didn't know, she had to go measure. A lot of the dresses have 24"- and 26" inch waists, she found out. But that didn't matter, right?) Were there any stains? (Well, yes, but only under the arms, a little. But they were silk, and silk coud go to the dry cleaners, right?) Were there any holes or tears? (Well, sort of...there were these slight, ripple-y shreds under the arms and on the skirt. But those could be mended, right?)

The auctions ended and the dresses she bought for $100 each closed at $35 each. Why?

This person made a common and tragic mistake. Assuming that the only thing you need to know about vintage is how much to mark it up.

• 24"- and 26"-inch waists are rather small. If someone's buying vintage to wear, this decreases the buying pool dramatically. (But don't a lot of young girls have waists that size?) Yes, but how many of them have that much money to spend on a vintage dress?
  
  
• Drycleaning. Vintage and antique (especially antique) silk can be fragile. Even if it's strong to the touch, that doesn't mean it can withstand a lot of modern chemicals. Plus, how easy is it to get out stains that are 60 to 160 years old? Answer: you're probably stuck with them.
  
  
• Repairing holes and tears. Holes in silk may be shattering, or rotting. The textile itself is disintegrating, and often this just the beginning of the end. Even if you patch that shattered spot, the shattering could expand, just like a sinkhole in Florida. Which would be an apt metaphor, if you put a lot of money into the purchase of the dress originally.
  
  
• Oh, and two other points...the vintage clothing price guide? How knowledgeable was the author? How old was the book? Were the prices based on a few, extremely high-end vintage stores or high-end auctions? Also, just because it's old doesn't mean it's rare. There are still a lot of Edwardian whites (meaning lawn dresses and the like) floating around (relatively). Most of them have really small waists. Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's rare.
  

Here's another true story. And it's a bit sadder.

I knew a woman who had a brick-and-mortar vintage clothing store. She was selling vintage and antique clothing long before Ebay. I used to go there a lot to see her wonderful parasols, Victorian and Edwardian gowns, '20s beaded dresses, gloves, fans -- it was a wonderous little store.

Just before the end, she bought a wonderful lot of Victorian and Edwardian clothes from an estate contact she had. The gowns were superb. In mint condition, superior style, immaculate workmanship. She priced the gowns at around $1400 - $1800 a piece.

Then, for whatever reason, people weren't buying as much. Sure, customers for $1400 dresses are hard to come by, but none of her much lower-priced things were selling either. And then her store rent went up. She stuck it out for many months, as her store had been there for years and years and years. But in the end she had to close up shop. She sent the clothes to auction.

I was at that auction, and so was she. She watched as her beautiful, beautiful things went for a pittance of what she herself paid. Gowns she had priced in her store for $800 or $1000 were going for a couple of hundred, far, far below what we both thought they were worth. She not only did not realize any profit, but she didn't even recoup the costs of her initial outlay. She probably got back only 30-40% of her money.

How much were all these dresses really worth? Were the immaculate, superior dresses from the out-of-business dealer now really worth only a couple of hundred dollars a piece, because that's what they brought in at auction? Were the "old dresses" that the novice seller bought for $100 a piece worth $100 because that's what she paid?

Prices have elasticity, it's true. Value and worth have a bit of elasticity as well, that's, true. But the second is a far more complex issue, and really understanding these issues will make you a better vintage patron and/or better vintage seller.

We'll explore these issues in the next installment of this series. Missed Part 1? You can find it at

SERIES: How Much Is It Worth? (Part 1) The BioBuyography of a Vintage Dress