Head of Estate

Eight tips for scoring vintage clothes and furniture, on the cheap

By Jessica Wakeman
Published: Mar 27, 2008

It’s hard to find good vintage. If you head to your local hip second-hand store, you’ll be frustrated by how they mark up "special" items to Banana Republic prices. If you troll eBay, you’ll probably keep getting outbid by VintageGrrl84. Or maybe you're lucky enough to have a mom or grandma who used to be just your size—too bad all the pieces she saved from the ‘60s are a far cry from Oleg Cassini.

Guess what? You can find better vintage for cheaper, all while enjoying the thrill of the hunt. Here's my secret: estate sales, which you can find listed in the classifieds of your local newspaper. Most ads will even tell you if they're selling clothes, shoes and bags.

At a yard sale, a family will clean out their attic and sell a chipped teapot and old books for $1 each. But an estate sale contains the entire contents of the house because the owner has passed away. Everything is on sale, from silverware to handbags, winter coats to jewelry. At an estate sale, either the family members or a company hired by them mans the cash register as shoppers browse room to room.

Let's clarify what I mean by vintage: at estate sales, you're going to find clothing from over the course of a deceased person's lifetime—some of it may date back to the ‘40s and some of it may be what the elderly person wore to the senior center last month. What you want are the clothes they wore as a young adult. Like in dating, you have to kiss a lot of frogs. Or rifle through a lot of muu muus.

Here’s some more wisdom I can impart:

1. Estate sales in rich towns have the best loot. My parents live in Connecticut, so when I've got an itch to go estate scouring, I ask my mother to look at the classified ads and see if any sales are coming up in the wealthier towns. My most precious vintage find is a white minidress from the '60s that I bought after an actor passed away. It must have belonged to his daughter or wife.

2. Arrive before the sale starts. This is crucial. Like a sample sale in the city, all the good stuff will be picked over if you arrive late. Get your butt in the driveway ten or fifteen minutes before the sale starts, because you want to have first dibs.

3. Have sharp elbows. I was shocked to see a woman at one estate sale last summer picking up every single vintage dress she could find. I asked if she was buying all that stuff for herself and she said, no, she was going to sell it on eBay. That made me angry— really angry—because she didn't have any regard for the rest of us who were shopping for fun. Unfortunately, eBay sellers make their way to almost every estate sale. You’ve been warned.

4. Remember, you are buying someone else's clothing and it is not always going to be clean. Dress appropriately if you plan to try on clothes and shoes. I usually wear a body suit and socks, so I can pull a dress or a shirt on over it. Bring along antibacterial hand wipes, too, if you’re a germaphobe.

5. Bring cash—lots of it. Estate sales don't usually have machines for credit cards and they can be wary about checks.

6. In my experience, estate sales run by family members are better than ones overseen by professionals. Professionals are taking a cut of the proceeds, so they're likely to price items with a markup. More importantly, they have an idea about how much great items can go for. A family member might see grandma's ratty old fur coat; a pro sees a find that could fetch hundreds. For example, I bought a Victorian-style couch—the kind that would cost thousands new at Anthropologie and hundreds on eBay—for just $60. Yes, you read that right. Sixty dollars. I almost felt like I was stealing.

7. It's okay to haggle, but unlike in tourist towns in tropical locales, don't overdo it. If you really think a price is unreasonable, offer a little less. If the seller won't budge, you can assume that another customer expressed interest in the same item earlier and may be coming back for it.

8. Don't buy anything that's stained or the wrong size and convince yourself you'll fix it later. After 30 years, that stain ain't coming out. Two summers ago, I bought the most darling pair of white kitten heels—but they're a size eight and a half. I'm still a size nine and a half. I do enjoy looking at them, though.

See you at the sales.

Jessica Wakeman is a journalist specializing in women's political, societal and cultural issues. She has been published in Bitch Magazine, Radar Magazine, The New York Daily News and she is the associate blog editor of The Huffington Post. Jessica attended NYU and lives in New York City.

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