The 1% Rule of eBay Use

Snake America is an e-mail newsletter that covers vintage clothing and sometimes furniture, usually for sale on eBay, sometimes on other digital auction platforms. There are over 100 issues, the majority of which devolve into topics not entirely germane to the auctions at hand. Some past columns are on GQ.com.

Chase Authentics Interstate Battery hat

I am not sure how to map the tides in the ebb and flow of baseball hat shapes, but this $13 cap is too close to the designer flex-fit baseball hats Balenciaga now makes to measure. Both are so far from a regular baseball cap. Regular baseball caps, they’re just done, huh? How did that happen? Patrik Ervell dropped a collection a decade or so ago that included a black leather baseball hat. This was when people wore actual New Era hats in public, the kind players wear. The low-profile, flex shape ones like in the auction here were worn in spring training, at races (open-wheel and closed), and were given away. Knockoffs. Ervell’s hat looked close to ones sold in market stalls on Canal Street, a few blocks away from his atelier/office, which was on Walker Street, if I remember right. At the time I thought he was making a mistake. Who could wear these? Why would someone want to look bootleg? Why buy these? I didn't imagine them being pulled off, and I didn’t see them around either. Was anyone making it work?

When I started this newsletter I didn't want to give away secrets. Like secondary brand names, search queries, how to date labels. Or what the best set-it-and-forget it pieces of vintage clothing were, like orange-tab 1980s Levi’s 505s, any-era Kara Koram jackets, Sierra Designs shorts. I eventually did, all of which were barely secrets to begin with. One good “secret” is that eBay motors has good clothing. Like this hat. I wonder what the inciting incident was that made these hats work for the first time, in 2012, or maybe ‘15. I'm not sure what it was. One day we woke up and no one had on an MLB/New Era hat anymore unless they were being paid to do so. I bet you could put Bob Woodward on this story for a year and he wouldn't come up with anything. Cool shirts and hats are on eBay Motors at a higher rate of incidence than regular eBay or most flea markets. If you type vintage in the search box, it helps. It gets you 10,000 items and looking through them all yields 10 good ones. That is the only foolproof way to consistently find good vintage clothing online. Searching “shirt” in eBay Motors brings up 188,267 items. Six are fine. Six great shirts. When is the last time six showstopping shirts were in a store somewhere? Knowing success happens less than 1% of the time is a helpful way to approach life. Things worth trying begin with failure or nothing. Sometimes there is success. Those occasional benefits outweigh time and defeat. It sucks to skim through 188,261 awful shirts to find six. It is no fun. But a mis-listed mesh Honda longsleeve with three numbers on the back is nice. In a search you sometimes won't find anything at all. But that’s the price of admission.

Patagonia Fly Fishing wader

Patagonia is two things: a clothier that makes outdoor layers for people who live in cities but think they don’t, and a very in-depth and utilitarian outdoors outfitter that produces insane technical clothing for fishermen who don't own cell phones and whose politics are better left unaddressed. These purposes exist together. The classic outdoor Patagonia pieces—Synchilla fleeces, 90s Baggies shorts, 80s stand-up shorts—are so well-considered that they are staples across more than one subculture, and also the banking community. Those pieces were technical, of course, but not obviously so: zippers hidden, pockets internal. The severely functional outdoor clothing, like this raincoat, is as classic. All the fly-fishing gear is really good but much louder than the staples. This one is cut very short, for wading. It goes up to the wearer's sternum. I guess so it doesn’t get wet. Patagonia has other fly fishing jackets with more pockets, that are longer. Engineered Garments makes half-length vests like this too, and Nepenthes on 38th carries a jacket by South2West8 with a similar length. I’m not short, and when I wear any jacket cut to sit at the waist I feel like I am wearing a wader. I think this is called jacket dysmorphia. None of those jackets look bad at all but to me they feel more wrong than wearing church pants to the gym. I bet no one wore this wading jacket with nothing else under it before. Real anglers take their craft too seriously to abide any chicanery like that. If you only wear a jacket and no other clothes, you’re too perverted to be the president, and every fisherman secretly wants to be president, and thinks they can do the job. The best place to fish in Brooklyn is off the Belt Parkway. If you ride to the airport early in the morning in the summer the road is lousy with anglers. It’s hard to tell from the car if anyone’s wearing Patagonia, old or new. Sitting in the back of a car they look to be having a better time fishing than I would wherever I am going. There’s nothing better than fishing. One of my summer resolutions is to fish more. If any readers want to go, we can meet in front of the GQ offices at 4:30 AM the Saturday after this piece runs. Rods and permits aren’t provided, but snacks are. It’s catch and release, no matter who wears what.

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