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Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2022 2:32 pm
by ScottVanderpool
Thanks in advance for Advice on How to Price...here's the story:

Back in the day people often learned about music they liked by listening to the "radio". It's that thing in some older cars that only plays commercials, and if you're a rock and roll fan, sometimes as many as 5 different songs between the 15 minute sets of commercials. People used to hold down middle class jobs at radio stations, some of them were stupid enough to stick with it to the bitter end when the 5 or so companies that own every radio station in America used a global pandemic as an excuse to automate the last of 'em out the door. But enough of me bellyaching.

I have some shirts I've collected over the years I suspect might be worth $$$. I could sure use it right now.

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This, for example, is Sub Pop "Loser" shirt #3. How do I know it's #3? Because I was covering Dan House's direct to record store sales job at Sub Pop while he was on tour with Skin Yard, when the late Jay Bob Horstein walked in with his test silkscreening and threw one to Jon Poneman, one to Bruce Pavitt, and the next one to me. As you can hopefully see, it was well worn, surviving the 1988 Chemistry Set/Pure Joy van tour.

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This is the shirt Pearl Jam distributed as they changed their name from that of bass player Jeff Ament's fave NBA player "Mookie Blaylock" to "Pearl Jam", which is of course a nickname for jism. This shirt's in pretty good shape.

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This one came to KXRX in advance of MTV's "Live and Loud" event December 13th 1993, staged in an empty pier on the Seattle Waterfront with The Breeders and Cyprus Hill. Pearl Jam were supposed to be on the bill, but backed out last minute...I think Ed got sick. Heavily worn longsleeve.

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Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2022 8:31 am
by jimmyj
Wow, awesome little stash! The Pearl Jam one is easiest, probably looking in the $600-750 range. I didn't realize there were so many different color schemes on these but I found one like yours that sold in 2020 for nearly $700.

Anyone else feel free to jump in on the other ones!

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2022 11:07 am
by zargosh
nice bunch of shirts! There's a listing for the MTV live shirt on Worthpoint. I don't have a subscription to that, so I can't see what it went for, but maybe someone else on the board does. The loser shirt looks like it generally goes in the 200 - 500 range, but there was one that sold earlier this year for 600.

You've got great provenance on this stuff since you were in bands on the scene, so if you're listing them on eBay I would would detail all that, price them high, and take offers. The only downside with that scenario is if you need the cash right away. Sometimes you have to wait awhile for the right buyer to come along.

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:17 pm
by ScottVanderpool
Thanks for the response!

Question about Ebay, I've put a few shirts up already:

TAD heavily worn original sub pop t listed at listed at $195...high bid is now $202.50 with 7 days left

Other shirts listed: Sub Pop's Best Kissers In The World and a DGC promo shirt from The Posies major label debut, listed at $100 each from 1989 or so

and a 2000 MGM Home Entertainment Spinal Tap shirt...have all received "offers", usually slightly less than the list price, but in the case of the TAD shirt for $250...none of these people have placed bids.

What to make of these? My inclination would be to let the auction play out. Should I consider "offers"?

I'm pretty new to selling stuff like this, I appreciate the help!

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2022 4:22 pm
by zargosh
eBay has a couple of different options for selling. When you're starting out, pretty much everybody thinks of eBay as an auction site. You can do straight auctions, but you can also do auctions and set a Buy It Now price, kind of like an auction with an option to buy at a set price. You can also set reserves. If you do an auction with BIN, once somebody places a bid, the BIN option disappears. The only time this doesn't happen, I think, is if you set a reserve, so the BIN option would stay until the reserve is hit. So you could start an auction at $1, but set a reserve at $100 and if the bidding went to $99, it wouldn't sell (and the BIN option would still be there throughout).

I think most people on the board would agree (jump in and tell me if I'm wrong!) that we all have some horror stories selling by auction. For example, you list something worth a couple of hundred bucks at a modest starting price, say $50, thinking that's a low enough price to generate interest, and you don't set a reserve. Sometimes, it might just sell for that $50. If the right buyer doesn't happen to be logging on in those 7 or 10 days, you might totally lose out on the shirt.

That's why a lot of us tend to use Fixed Price instead. You set a price and then you can designate in the listing process whether you want to field offers or not. I think most people accept offers, but it would be interesting to hear if people on the board don't and why.

That's what I was suggesting earlier is to set a relatively high Fixed Price price and accept offers. The problem with the Fixed Price setup is that you sometimes need to wait a long time for the right buyer to come along. Also, if you set the price way too high, it might scare off some people from sending you decent offers.

So, just as an example, I had a radiohead shirt from the mid 90s and I had seen one go for as high as $600, but I'd seen a bunch sell in the $400 to $500 range. I set my price at $500 and accepted offers. I got a lot of offers in the $200 - $300 range, which I didn't accept. After about six months, a buyer in Japan bought it at the listed price.

Anyway, hope some of this helps. I hope you'll post more pics of your shirts, they're great!

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:17 am
by jimmyj
What Z said, but I suspect these shirts will all do decently at auction too. Those offers are probably dealers looking to get a deal and convince you to end it early.

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2022 6:22 pm
by ScottVanderpool
Thanks for the tips! Here are a couple more going up soon:

I've got two of these OG Soundgarden Badmotorfinger shirts:
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A Nirvana In Utero tour shirt

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An original DGC promo of that shirt that I see copied constantly

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Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:39 am
by jimmyj
Relics! What's the link to the auctions?

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 2:38 pm
by ScottVanderpool

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 2:41 pm
by ScottVanderpool

Re: Seattle Grungewear

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:17 pm
by jimmyj
Sweet line up - see you have lots of sneaky watchers.

Have my eye on the Spinal one!