During the first weeks of the New Year people tend to clean
their homes, thus the first months of the year is a one of the best times to
Thrift Shop. I have turned my hobby into
a side business. After finding lots of
things while shopping that weren’t my style, but were too good to leave behind-
I started selling items on eBay. Mostly
vintage bags that I restore. While I
enjoy the scavenging I equally enjoy finding my treasures forever homes; thus,
to me the buying and reselling (while it has become a good side business) is
more of my hobby. Bipolar people tend to
have a difficult relationship with shopping so I have turned this weakness into
a profitable business. A business that I
truly enjoy. As a grown-up I have dreamed of
owning my own vintage store and selling pieces of history to people who are nostalgic
for days gone by. Through eBay, I have accomplished
that goal and I enjoy not having to deal with customer service since everything
is done electronically. I just list my
items with solid descriptions and for the most part ninety-nine percent of my
customers rarely have issues with the items I sell.
I have gone through an enjoyable education on vintage
designers and their histories. In
addition to, learning to recognize great manufacturing, authenticating items
and learning the year they were produced.
To me all this is quite enjoyable- this Christmas I got a stack of books
on the histories of some of my favorite designers, so my education into the
past will continue. My nerdiness has
made my business flourish since it has given me familiarity with the things
that I sell and customers enjoy learning more history concerning objects in addition to giving me a good eye to spot treasures in messy secondhand stores. It’s also given me the ability to recognize
fakes and only buy authentic goods. I
plan on writing more posts on all this because I find all this quite
interesting and am sure others out there will learn as I am learning about the
beauty of vintage.
Today, I want to share the treasure I recently found, between
mostly worthless bags, I came across this Bally crossbody bag that was priced
at $8.99. Bally is a Swiss luxury brand
company that was founded in 1851, since it has enjoyed a life of privilege adorning
the arms of celebrities and nobility. After
some research I learned that this bag (that I bought simply on the basis of
recognizing the designer) is non-other than the style that Julia Roberts wore
in the film “Pretty Woman” during the polo scene! This little detail will shoot the price of
this 90's piece (if I decide to sell it) to the roof because there’s a cult
following of this classic film. I bought the bag for nine dollars and I can
flip it for over one-hundred, easy-peasy.
In fact, I do that all the time with other treasures that I find and
donate some of my profit to organizations that I support.
I find the whole process quite enjoyable: the hunting for
treasure, learning about the past and finding new homes for items that can end
at the dump… It’s my leading hobby one
that I enjoy and I get a good profit in the trifecta: monetarily, adding items to my collection and in
knowledge of the past (smile).
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