Ayo It's Me, Back from The Dead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to Reveal Me Deepest Vintage Secrets
From finding Estate Sales, Auctions and how I bought my diamond Rolex Datejust at 70% off.
I took a brief hiatus. My sincere apologies. I crumbed you guys!!!!!! Maybe it’s my karma from having had this done to me, my entire dating life —
“How to find Vintage” is my most requested ask, along with “How did you meet your husband?” and “What is your skin care routine - *sorry to be that girlie but it really is” So here it is, a Part 1 to all my deepest darkest vintage secrets revealed. With the exception of my bed and sometimes couch, I exclusively buy vintage for all furniture and home decor. My wardrobe is also 90% vintage. My love for vintage started in my teen years. 16 year old Amrit (just got her license, after failing the first 2 times.. 3rd times the charm!) would wake up at 4am every Saturday morning and take her beloved 1991 Toyota Corolla down to the local swap meet with her flashlight before the sun came up, in the hopes of finding something worth her while. I have gone to some pretty extreme lengths to get the perfect buy. I once convinced the sandwich artist at my local cafe to sell me the shirt off his back (the most perfectly distressed 80s Thunderbirds tee) — 326381 eggplant paninis later, and I still have it!
My last LA home went viral (thank you to the Tiktokers who came to my moving sale and are still posting content.. seriously people still send me videos from my kitchen that have 22M+ views) was exclusively vintage with the exception of my couch. Most of my pieces in LA were sourced from Estate Sales and flea markets.
Estate Sales and Auctions
Estate sales are my favorite weekend activity. I find them less appealing here in New York, as they’re mostly overcrowded and overpriced — but much better on the West Coast and in the Hudson/ Connecticut area. There is something so intimate about going into a person’s home and getting the privilege to look at all their personal belongings. I love learning about someone’s life story through their surroundings, from the books they read to their specially dry cleaned pieces that were reserved for special occasions. I go through the liners of their books for personal inscriptions from past lovers, their record collections to hear the sounds that once played through the hallways, their travel souvenirs to trace their journeys around the world to their childhood photos and yearbooks. The best way to find an estate sale is by using one of these search engines.
This is the most commonly used search engine. I highly recommend downloading the app, especially if you’re doing a road trip or taking a specific route because you can search through your zip code but also the surrounding areas on your journey.
Other worthy searches — I recommend using all of them and checking midweek as that’s usually when the weekend sales get listed and typically people will advertise on one website or the other, and not as frequently on all of them.
Another in person estate sale tip. Read the terms & conditions, especially if you’re driving out remote and the sale is cash only. Cash is King. It helps with negotiating — more on that later.
EBTH — Everything But The House (online sale)
Most of the bigger items are pickup only so if you aren’t trying to spend your nest egg on shipping, I recommend narrowing the categories down to Fashion, Accessories, Jewelry and Art. EBTH is where I snagged my first watch! A 1980s diamond bezel Rolex Datejust. Now these usually start at 6-7K on the resale apps, but I got this for 3K, in pristine condition with certification. I am confident that this is where many of the watch concierges are finding their vintage pieces.
Tip: Follow houses that you like, as most sales will require you to register to bid. If you bid outside the auction, you’ll pay an extra premium — so it’s always best to enter the auctions live and read the fine print!!!!!!! Most of these sales have conditions, like a buyers tax (usually 18%) or local pickup so make sure you know what agreement you’re entering into. I like LiveAuctioneer when searching for specific designers or eras.
This is one of my secret spots that I send to friends when they beg me to share “where I got that” and I tell them I would have to kill them if they broke the code of honor… but I’m feeling generous today! If you’re patient you can get extremely lucky on here.
And on that note, I am running late for my day of meetings so I bid you adieu. On Part 2 — I will share with you my review on the best flea markets (mostly West Coast, they just do it better there! But some on the East side too), some other tidbits on how to negotiate and how to hack the Facebook Marketplace search engine.
Thanks for stepping outside with me and until next time, ciao for now!
If you enjoyed this newsletter, feel free to share it with a friend or leave me a loving comment (Words of Affirmation is in my top love languages) x
I love this advice although my boyf will hate it! There should probably be a “partners of thrift store gremlins” support group…. Also, I feel so vindicated that AuctionNinja is on there. There is some crazy stuff on there, like an brutalist Tabago armoire for $700 (right now on 1st Dibs for $3,600).
Oh my god thank you!! Life changing advice